28 December

28 December

Livingston, Zambia

Erik:

    Steph is sick, so again, lounge day. Went on the internet for a bit. Looked up our visa requirements again just to make sure nothing has changed.

Leah and Will went to the Zambezi to white water raft. Super jealouse. They hit several class 5 rapids and had a blast.

     When they got back, they introduced us to Nick, who they had rafted with. He has been going for about 8 months and is from San Fransisco. The interesting thing is that he ran into Jochan, our German tour cyclist we met in Namibia, in Uganda and had dinner with him. Small world.

We have also met a group of Swedes that are interns with the YMCA and working in RSA and Lusaka Zambia. So they offered to take us around to some outreach programs in Lusaka and in Nairobi. Breaking into another network! Woohoo!

     Our plan has evolved a bit. We need to extend our visas here if we want to have time to cycle to the border with Malawi. So we went to the immigration office and tried to do so. We were told we could only extend it if there was one day left or if the time expired. Sounds like a good way to get into some unneccissary trouble here, so we are going to try to take the bus for a ways down the line. That's ok, we are super excited about Malawi. Nothing but great things have been said about that country. We met a Malawian (patrick) who is going to ride with us to the tallest mountain in Malawi while we're there. So that is awesome.

     We finished off our night with some wine and conversation. Very pleasent place here.

Steph:

I don't know if we ever really specified who these lovely people are. Leah and Will.

We met Leah at the Peace Corps Thanksgiving shindig. She will be in Botswana, in her village, until the spring of 2014. She's lived in Brussels and Paris and has travelled all over Europe. I feel like we hit it off right away in Maun and talked about hopefully meeting up in Livingstone around New Years. She, unfortunately, was not able to go to the Island party in Sepopa so we were super excited to randomly run into her in Kasane. Complete coincidence. In Kasane, we met her boyfriend, Will, who is visiting. Both of them are sensational people. Very well travelled, exciting, sweet, caring and generous. Will is a former Peace Corps Volunteer. He did two years on the island of Dominica in the carribean. Now he works in international development in Washington DC. They met while getting their masters in Brussels. How cool is that? So cool.

After Kasane, they met up with us here in Fawlty Towers and we've been able to chill here together since Christmas. It's been really awesome having them around.