Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique.....and South Africa (again)

Where do I start? To say the least we have had one heck of a week - each of our last four nights was spent in a different country and since we last wrote we have visited Vic Falls, did a 2 day safari, traveled all through Botswana, checked out Jo-burg, driven through Swaziland, had a nice seafood dinner in Maputo, Mozambique and are now relaxing in St. Lucia, South Africa......phewwww.

Here goes a try.....Vic Falls in Zambia were obsolutely amazing and we got completely soaked within, hmmmm, 2 seconds!!!

We stayed the night at Jolly Boys Backpackers which was amazing but with time in Africa running short we got moving the next morning to Botswana for a 2 day safari in Chobe Park. We got to see crocs, monkeys, buffalo, warthogs, elephants, hippos, giraffes, and everything we wanted except for some big cats....;(

After the safari we somehow found our way to the other side of Botswana and ended up staying in Maun near the Okavango Delta. While we decided last minute not to go to Nambia (which we heard was amazing) it was well worth the 7 hours spent to get there. The small part of the delta that we saw was beautiful and deserves a lot more time than we could possibly commit on this trip. It was here that we completely changed our plans around for the remaining 3 weeks and got moving down south to Gaborone and then to Johannesburg.

To say that South Africa is Africa for begginers is probably an understatement. South Africa and Malawi are worlds away. The most important difference (at least for me) is that hotels here have showers with both hot and cold handles (and you don't even have to ask the staff to light a wood or coal fire under the water tank..). The stores here are full of all the western foods and brands, people don't look twice at you and there are no kids running after us screaming "Mzungu" every 2 minutes (what they call us whities in Malawi). While we absolutely loved Malawi, South Africa is a nice breath of fresh air - no kiddin', it really is - we have actually started to shower every day again!!!

Jo-burg wasn't as bad as we have heard and while the center reminded me of New York's Canal street on crack we survived and Todd even managed to drive through it on the left side of the street! After bussing it from the north border of Tanzania down to Jo-burg we have finally decided to make our lives easiers and rent a car. Todd has adapted to driving a righty on the left side pretty quickly but it has been hysterical to see him turn on the windshield wipers every time he tries to switch lanes - they even moved the turn signal to the right.

Ahhhhh, Swaziland (2 hr drive from Jo-burg). This is a small kingdom between South Africa and Mozambique and was my favorite country in Africa so far (Todd: What, not Malawi???). The people there are very kind (but not in an overwelming kind of way) and seem very happy, the country is also well developed and very scenic. Here we went out for our first NICE dinner of the trip - this cost us a whopping $30! The traditional food we had was absolutely amazing and we finally had our first goat meal of the trip - it was actually very tasty and remininded me a lot of lamb. We also tried Emasi which is sour milk mixed in with maze and eaten cold at dinner time with honey - Todd didn't fancy (we have been spending a lot of time w Brits) it but I actually enjoyed it (similar to a Russian dish called Tvorag).

We drove through the rest of Swaziland into Mozambique the next day and spent the night in Maputo (the capital). While we expected to stay longer we ended up leaving the next morning to get back to South Africa. Why? Mozambique is a huge animal all by itselft and after a nice seafood meal and less than two weeks to explore South Africa we decided to leave it for another trip.

Phewww. Is anyone still reading this??? Anyway....we are doing fantastic and really appreciate all the TRUE friends who have written us to keep us updated about engagements (its about time), new babies, break ups, new jobs and first steps.

Todd: Wow, that was a lot. Tatyana has taken a break to grab a shower (a HOT shower) and I just completely ruinned a perfectly good razor trying to remove ten days' worth of very itchy growth. We are currently in St. Lucia. We had an ice-cold beer from a real pub (one that doesn't deal in used car parts or questionably-fresh carcass by day), actually saw some white people without back packs, and at this very moment an actual MACHINE is washing our clothes... I might add the first time a machine has handled our kit since the second of March in SF.... More later....