Malawi 2013: Safari: Friday

Today, we left to go on Safari in Zambia. The drive was pretty fun, however, it was crazy to see how poor the infrastructure of this part of Africa is. We were on a paved road for about half of the time that we were traveling, but once we got to the unpaved portion, it was kind of rough. There were so many bumps and it was amazing they put the bus through all of that. We knew that it couldn’t be good for the bus and it definitely was not the most fun part of the trip for us as well.

Photo by Marie Freeman

The highway on the way to Zambia.
Photo by Marie Freeman

Once we got there, Zion and I were roomed together. We checked out our accommodations and we thought that someone had made some sort of mistake. The place that we are staying at is called Croc Valley Camp. Zion and I are bunked up in something that looks like a honeymoon suit. It is a little cabin that includes three beds, a kitchen and bar, shower and bathroom. It is really nice. After seeing where we were going to be spending the weekend, we decided to go around check out where everyone else was staying. By far, we had the nicest accommodations, but everyone was still well taken care of.

The bathroom on safari.
Photo by Marie Freeman

The main thing that stood out to me from the day is the difference between Malawi and Zambia. When we crossed the border, we were immediately greeted by a more mountainous and wooded terrain. It has been explained to us that Malawi has over forested their landscape and therefore do not have many forests left. I also noticed that the city that we passed through at the border, Chipika, had a much denser population than any place that I had seen in Malawi.

This picture was taken in Chipata, a city that is about 20 miles away from the Malawi border.

It is very interesting to see the difference in beauty from Malawi to Zambia as well. I feel like it was more lush and green than Malawi and when coupled with the mountains that made it very pretty to look at. From all that I could gather from the quick trip from Malawi to Zambia, Zambia has more opportunity and is more likely to have a better economy in the long run.

Before the night was over, we also went on our first safari. After being in a bus for about 6 hours we then got to spend 4 more hours in the back of a safari bus, which was very bumpy as well. Honestly though, that was really a good adventure and the bumps weren’t too bad. We got to see everything from some impalas all the way to lions.