Livingstone, Zambia

Livingstone is like Disneyland for adrenalin junkies, and we tried to pack in as many activities as possible within our four day visit. We had such a packed schedule it was hard to remember that it was Christmas, however a kind visit to our hostel from a kid’s choir and a lunch feast at a nearby orphanage reminded us to be thankful for what we have.

On our full day of class five rafting, the fun started straight away in the first rapid when ‘someone’ forgot the ‘hold on’ part of the guide’s command and a huge wave sent him like a linebacker straight into Kevin.

Who knew that you could grab a lion’s tail while he was walking without him even noticing! We spent a morning with Simba (white lion) and Nala (brown lioness) and our favorite cheetah in the whole world, Pablo. Although the lion is one of the most feared predators of the Africa, it turns out that they are quite lazy creatures. In fact, getting them to walk at all was quite a feat!


Pedro was like an over-sized house cat with an extremely loud purr and a tongue that couldn’t get enough of licking our arms.

We celebrated Christmas Eve with a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River upstream of the falls with some great views of hippos, crocs and the sunset. Then we went to Victoria Falls with some of our new friends. We signed up for the walking trip to Devil’s Pool where we were told we could swim in a pool right on the edge of the falls. What we weren’t told was that we would wade through a knee deep rushing river for 1 ½ hours to get there. The journey was long and strenuous but well worth it!