The Amazing Safari!

Words will not be adequate to describe the amazing creatures we saw on Tuesday! The 8 of us drove to Maramba Lodge, located in southern Zambia, just an hour away from the border of Botswana. Mother, Dad, Matt and I stayed in a Chalet, with our own bathroom. Now before you start thinking of an American Chalet, I will describe it for you ... It was a nice cabin in the woods. :) We didn't have any hot water (we stayed there 2 nights) and it had 2 single beds and a set of bunks. The mornings were quite cold, but fortunately the beds had wonderfully thick, warm blankets, so we were fine until it was time to crawl out the beds. Doug & Dar and Brent & Mindy each had their own tent, so they were a little braver than us. I was glad that Mother needs the bathroom in the middle of the night; that saved me from the tent, which meant a walk to the bathroom somewhere! Anyway, we left at 7:00 am Tuesday morning for the safari and within 5 minutes, (remember this is an hour away from the Game Park!) our driver says, "There is an elephant!" You would have thought we were a bunch of elementary children! We were so excited and so surprised to see an elephant in the brush along the road just a few minutes from where we were staying. Then a minute or so later, I called out, "There's a giraffe!!" It was a very TALL giraffe, too! I think it was God's way of whetting our appetite for what was yet to come. We didn't see any other amimals till we arrived at the Game Park, but boy, were we excited for our day to get on its way!

Check back real soon for the River Cruise Report, the first part of our Safari.