A Vacation Vacation

On our last full day in Botswana, we booked onto a sunset boat ride on the Chobe river, in Chobe National Park, just west of Kasane. The region is particularly known for its large elephant population, as well as other river dwelling animals and birds. We've seen plenty of elephants, so that wasn't the biggest attraction for us, but we were looking forward to seeing more hippos and our first crocodiles and buffalo. The boat trip didn't disappoint - there were crocodiles

and buffalo

everywhere, we saw a few groups of hippos (including the until now elusive wide open mouth),

as well as many groups of elephants, and river/wetlands birds everywhere.

On Wednesday (8/4) morning, we were up early to pack up and pick up groceries for our days at Jungle Junction. Once that was completed, we got in a cab to the Zambia border at a small neighboring town called Kazungula. This is actually a 4-way border between Botswana, Zambia, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, although only Zambia is accessible. Getting stamped out of Botswana was straightforward, and we proceeded to the banks of the Zambezi to catch a ferry across. The ferry is only big enough for one truck and a couple cars at a time, as well as pedestrians. It's a huge bottleneck for truck transport and they're lined up for several km into Botswana waiting to cross. A bridge is planned to be built starting next April though. Rather than the truck ferry, we opted for a motorboat to speed us across.

The Zambia side was a total change from the Botswana side. As soon as we were off the boat, we were surrounded by people trying to sell us carvings, high denomination Zimbabwean money, change money, offer us a taxi. The trucks on this side were just parked everywhere, creating a maze which we might not have successfully navigated if the driver of the boat we were on hadn't led us through it to immigration. Immigration was pretty smooth, and we changed money and got a cab into Livingstone where we would meet the driver to take us to Jungle Junction.
In Livingstone, we found the driver, Flex, standing next to his pickup with the front jacked up and pieces of car lying around. So, we waited inside the lodge he was parked in front of until he had fixed the car, gotten groceries, and picked up one other client. This all took almost 3 hours, but we were on our way. We picked up 5 more people, crowding the pickup, and an hour later were once again at the bank of the Zambezi for a mokoro ride to Bovu Island, home of Jungle Junction.

Finally, we arrived at Jungle Junction, which was a little like arriving at camp, except there is a bar (and the first beer is on the house!). The rules (not many of them) of the lodge were explained, the activities planned for us described, and we were given a tour of the facilities. Our lodging for the next 4 nights (the longest we've been in one place since Norway) was in a fisherman's hut, a simple reed walled shelter with a bed in it.

We were tucked into the riverside jungle
with a view out to the river and across to Zimbabwe.


Our plan for the days here was to relax. Although we have seen so much on our trip, it becomes tiring to have to pack up every day or two and always have an agenda. So the relaxing, comfortable atmosphere was just perfect. We had a leisurely time, with a sunset mokoro ride, walking on the island, and Tom got to try out paddling a mokoro (they do use paddles instead of poles here, with the deeper and faster moving water in the river compared to the Okavango Delta), and we read a lot.
Bovu Island is just next to a small village, where many of the paddlers and people that work at Jungle Junction live. Our first full day at Jungle Junction we went into the village to walk around and have a traditional lunch, which we helped prepare.

We stopped at the church, which during the week now functions as a school for 3-7 year-olds (+/- a few years depending on who comes in that day).

The school is a community school, which means that everyone that works there is volunteering their time and it is the responsibility of the community to maintain the school and help out. Having 75 kids in a one room church is less than ideal, and a proper school is in the process of being built.
This is huge for the village and it was evident in the locals how proud they were of this. The roof of the school was recently completed, and we were lucky enough to be invited to go to a village party to celebrate this,

and to celebrate the conclusion of a volunteer trip of a mother and daughter from the UK who have been teaching the kids for the last three weeks. Next week the plastering starts, and they're hoping to complete the building and furniture by January, when the next school year starts, if funding is available. Construction at the school began in 2008, and is a slow process because the money for each step needs to be raised before the step can begin. There is a whole list of criteria that must be met in order for the government to accredit the school, and thereby provide some funding in the future and promote the teachers from volunteers to paid teachers. Knowing a little about construction management from my job, it was interesting hearing about the construction process here, and how in comparison so little is needed, but it is a gigantic sum here. Between our afternoon in the village, the party to celebrate the roof on the school, and attending a service at the local church on Sunday, we really got to connect with the people and kids of the village, which was really cool. When we return, we plan to donate some money to help with the school. Someday, we'd love to come back and volunteer at the school. If anyone else reading this has any extra dollars burning holes in their pockets, we'd be happy to add it to our donation, or you can do it on your own. We know Evelyn at Jungle Junction who has been helping with the oversight of the project would be excited, in addition obviously to the kids:)

After our super relaxing few days at Jungle Junction, we were met by the frustrations of the city again when none of the ATMs would take our debit cards and the only open bank didn't cash travelers checks. So instead of crossing the border into Vic Falls today in Zimbabwe, we opted to stay in the Zambia side in Livingstone until we can replenish our US dollars (the only accepted currency in Zimbabwe right now).