Disney didn't do its research...

The next morning I was up at 5am to get ready for my walking safari. A truck picked me up at the front gate, and I chatted with the other guests and the guide on the way out to the national park. The roads were terrible, and we saw another huge truck stuck in the mud. We had a couple of close calls, but we made it to the starting point without much trouble. It was a beautiful morning, with blue sky, sunshine, and pleasant temperature. We hiked around for about 3 hours, stopping once for cookies and lemonade. Along the way we saw impala, warthogs, wildebeest, giraffe, zebra, baboons, bushbuck, a hippo, and lots of birdlife. It just isnt the same as zoos, knowing that there are no fences separating you from the animals in their natural habitat. Once we returned to Fawlty Towers, I quickly grabbed my raincoat and headed for lunch in town before going to the falls. It was a 10 minute taxi ride out to the park where the falls are, but then the number of people grew exponentially. My guide led me along the paths through the rainforest and across the bridge that is directly across from the falls. Even though it was sunny, it was raining cats and dogs from the spray. You could tell it was always like that because of how lush the landscape was. We also went on a hike down the gorge where the white water rafting trips begin. It was a good trail for the first half, but then it disappeared under a stream and a patch of boulders. It was fun scrambling across the obstacles in order to get to the river. Back up at the top, we hopped back into a taxi and went to one of the local villages. My guide David introduced me to more of his friends and we walked around the village for the rest of the afternoon. My favorite stop was at the local school. I met the headmaster and some of the students, plus got to see what projects Rotary had been helping the school with. Back in town I got some dinner before going back to the hostel and packing for the trip back to Lusaka. I left early in the morning on the bus, along with a busload of locals. The road was ok, except for the 40 minute stretch along a dirt road. There are some places that buses are not meant to go. 7 hours later, Fiona met me in the downtown Lusaka bus station and we went back to the Trewby house for freshening up and tea. The next day was her birthday, so we all went out for a steak dinner at the local sports club. The food was wonderful, and it was really good to be back with close family friends. On the Friday, I went with Fiona to the driving school to do her driving test again. It was much more in depth than the American one, even though it was on a track instead of actual roads. But she passed (of course), and we were on our way to the airport. I had plenty of time before my flight, so we had a coffee and chatted more for our short catch-up time. The flight to Addis Ababa was fine, then I had a ton of time to kill in the airport there. Finally we were on our way to Bangkok. I tried to sleep, but my normal insomnia on planes returned. There was also a long time between my flights in Bangkok, plus the plane was delayed longer, so I just wandered around and did word searches for hours. Not the most productive, but it passed the time. I was on Emirates on the way to Sydney, which is one of the nicest airlines around at the moment. Not bad for student airfares. So I watched movies and listened to music from the huge selection on the private TVs for the whole flight. Colin met me at the airport, and we went back to Allan's to drop my stuff and find something for lunch. There's nothing like a family reunion on the opposite side of the world. :)