End of Vacation Blues

This morning we left at our usual time for our final game drive. Last game drives are always sad because you know it’s the last time you’re going to be able to see these animals for a long time. Right off the bat Billy discovered fresh lion prints in the sand. We followed them to around the same area that we discovered the leopard with the impala in the tree. Billy said there were signs of lion everywhere: they were seen in this area last night, the footprints showed they were there, and there were lots of hooded vultures in the trees nearby. Billy said that hooded vultures indicate that there are most likely lions nearby because the vultures like to eat the lion dung. Sadly, we did not see the lion anywhere. They were probably in the taller grass and we just couldn’t see them unless they got up and walked around.

The rest of the drive was extremely quiet today. We didn’t see a whole lot. We saw some elephants, zebra, giraffe, all the same antelope, a few eagles and hippo. Billy suspected all the animals were at church and that was why it was so quiet. J No cats this morning. And we left the park a little earlier so we could get to the airport by 10:30am.

It’s such a sad feeling when you’re driving away from the park. I remember having that feeling as a kid too. When you’re in Luangua you lose sense of what day it is or what time it is. Everything is so relaxed—the only thing you have to worry about is getting ready for the game drives and deciding what drink you want for your sundowner. It is such a wonderful place to be; I love it so much. I think what makes it so sad to leave again is that I have no idea if or when I’ll ever be able to get back there. I am so thankful for the wonderful days we had at the Wildlife Camp though; the people we met and the animals we saw were such a blessing, and our whole trip went so smoothly.

When we got to the airport, the man said there was only 1 person booked on the flight so we’d get on standby no problem. How wonderful! We can’t imagine what a headache it would have been to wait for several more hours to get on the later flight, or even trying to catch a minibus to Chipata. We were so thankful to get on with no problems. Since we got our tickets right away, we had about 2 hours to wait. That wasn’t so fun. The airport was completely deserted; we were the only two customers there. Thankfully we could go on the internet on Erika’s computer and she even brought some discs of Friends so we watched quite a few of those. It was a nice way to pass the time. The incoming flight from Lusaka was slightly delayed so we didn’t leave exactly on time, but when it did arrive we had about 5 minutes in between to get our bags on and then we could board. It was funny because before we boarded they had this “official announcement” come over the speaker system in the airport telling us we could proceed to the check-in area and there was also the announcement not to leave your baggage unattended; if you see any unattended baggage please report it to the airport security immediately. We laughed. We were very obviously the only 2 people in the airport at the time and you’d think they could have just come up and told us these things themselves. The airport is literally 3 hallways big, so we could even see the guy making the announcement. J

The airplane today was even smaller than last time. It was a twelve passenger airplane and you had to crouch over the whole time while getting to your seat. It was so tiny! But since there were only 3 of us, we each got our own seat by a window. The other guy with us had an interesting life story. He is a British/America or something; he was raised in West Africa, has lived in the States and Africa and currently alternates living in Mfuwe and Chipata. In Mfuwe he does some kind of research and teaches children in schools about nature and animals etc. I probably completely butchered what it is he actually does, but it sounded so interesting.

I really enjoyed watching the pilots fly the plane, since I only sat a few rows behind them and there was nothing separating us from them. The scenery was also gorgeous. You could see the Luangwa River snaking along, and there were some mountains. I thought it would be so cool to see some elephants or something from the plane, but no such luck.

I ended up taking a nap for most of the way home, so the flight seemed super short.

When we arrived shortly after 3pm, Dave and Dee were there waiting to pick us up.

At home, I moved out of my temporary room back to my regular room since the Hartmann’s left yesterday, unpacked, threw in a load of laundry, and copied all of Erika’s Luangwa pictures onto my computer.

It’s crazy to think that a few hours ago I was at South Luangwa watching elephants and giraffes and now I’m in the capital city back to the routine. Ending vacations are so sad…I’m experiencing a bit of the “end of vacation blues”. I’m sure once I get back into the teaching routine and get to hug my little munchkins I’ll be happy to be back.

Tomorrow we decided to give off English again since we didn’t actually tell the ladies when we’d be back. Because of the standby issue we told them we could be back on Monday or Tuesday. We don’t tutor tomorrow either and I haven’t planned anything for English anyway, so I think it’ll be best to give them a day off so we can plan and prepare. We are also pretty tired, so having a day to regroup and take care of some errands in town will be nice.