Greetings from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania! I hope you all are doing well. Since my last posting, a lot has happened. In fact, I do not even know where to begin. Let me try:
October began with 4 days in St. Lucia, South Africa seeing lots of animals (hippos, crocs, wildebeest, zebras, and warthogs). Also did some traditional Zulu dancing (pictures can be found at www.kossenjfk.smugmug).
After a brief pitstop in Swaziland, we headed to Mozambique. Spent a few days in Maputo and then on to the pristine Indian Ocean beaches of Tofo and Vilanculos. Absolutely stunning scenery and the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. Spent a day snorkeling off the Bazaruto Archipelago where I saw a few octupi, thousands of colorful fish, and developed an enormous rash after I suspect I was bitten by some sort of tropical animal I must have upset.
From there, we braved the horrendous "roads" of Northern Mozambique and headed into Malawi. Although beautiful, Malawi left a rather negative impression on us so I will just move on to the next destination: Zambia.
Zambia is an amazing country! In fact, it is my favorite so far. We spent one night in the mountains of Chipata with a local family who treated us to traditional Zambian food (bland, but not too bad). Then we hitched a ride to Lusaka for a few days where we stayed with some more locals and ate some more Zambian food. Wonderful and funny people who made our time in Zambia one I will never forget. Then it was off to Livingstone for 4 days. White water rafting on the Zambezi River was terrifying and caused me to be bruised and sore for a week. Apparently this is the roughest and most exciting rapids in the world so why I decided to raft for the first time here, I do not know. I did survive, although will probably never go again. Have some great pictures to show for it, especially when we flipped twice! While in Livingstone we also saw Victoria Falls which is one of the seven wonders of the world. Imagine Niagara Falls, but 1000 times bigger. Unfortunately, this is the dry season so there wasn't too much water. But, we were able to swim up on top of the Falls and take great pictures as we leaned over the rushing Falls! Definitely a highlight!
After Zambia, we hopped on the overnight train and ended up in Tanzania. Spending countless hours on a train can get boring, but I enjoyed it immensely. After spending 3 nights in the small southern town of Irigna with a local family, we are now in the capital where we will stay for a few days. Then it's off to Zanzibar and to Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Janine
