Zambia - The mighty Zambezi and hungry hippos

We crossed into Zambia almost a week ago, and spent a few days in the South Luangwa National Park, where we camped right along the Luangwa River and fell asleep listening to hippos. One night we awoke to a munching sound to see a HUGE hippo grazing one meter in front of our tent! We listened and watched him for over 30 minutes (it was about 3:00 a.m.)- it was just a crazy experience! We did a daytime game walk and night game drive while we were there and were lucky to see 2 leopards, 2 honey badgers, a few hyenas, and a whole group of elephants walk in front of our land rover just around sunset (along with lots of antelope and giraffe during the day). I had a better time on safari here than in the Serengeti, actually! It just felt more adventurous, low-key, and less touristy. After leaving the national park, we visited a local school where we taught the children games and songs and donated schoolbooks and pens to the students.

After driving through Zambia for another couple days, we're now in Livingstone/Victoria Falls - what a place! Yesterday we spent the day in Victoria Falls National Park, admiring one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The volume of water and magnitude of these cascades is just amazing.It's extreme sport central here! Actually, in a few minutes I'm leaving to go bungee jumping and gorge swinging at a bridge overlooking Victoria Falls! In the afternoon Bryan and I are going to fly over the falls in microlites, which are motorized hang gliders and should give us a killer view of the Zambezi River and falls. I'll try and write again before we get to South Africa (after Botswana and Namibia).