Today we leave Livingstone and Zambia, heading over the border to Namibia. It's been a great few weeks here and we are rather sad to leave. Our time with the book bus continued to be a great experience and whilst I don't think James will ever be able to face reading Funny Bones or the Hare and the Tortoise ever again it has been well worth it. On Friday we visited a the local 'cowboy community pre-school' and were welcomed by tiny little 3-5 year olds singing the school song at the tops of their voices. The school is impressive, starting out with 5 local children in a few grass covered shelters to its current 50 pupils.It has all been achieved by a local man and quite inspiring, all his profits go into the school and the local community, we both felt privileged to see what was being achieved with so little.

Possibly the highlight of the morning was playing musical bumps to a soundtrack of the Hoosiers followed by musical statues to the Killers. The kids loved it, nothing like a bit of Mr Brightside surrounded by dancing children.

The last week hasn't all been hard work. The group of us indulged in High Tea followed by cocktails overlooking the Zambezi and copious amounts of cake were consumed.

James and I have now also swallowed a large amount of river water after white water rafting yesterday on the 'mighty Zambezi'. The climb down to the river was an experience in itself, pretty sheer slopes with rickety twig ladders had to be negotiated, my legs were like jelly before even getting in the raft. Our first rapid aptly named the 'Gnashing Jaws of Death' was monumental, we paddled hard in an attempt to get up enough speed to crest the first wave, looking up we were faced with a wall of water somehow we made it over only to be faced with another huge wave which nonchalantly flipped our raft with ease. We all found ourselves dumped unceremoniously into the rapids and despite clinging on to the 'oh s***' line at the edge of the raft for dear life I found myself under the boat! Soon made back into the swell and made it to the edge of the raft only to find myself pulled away again as we were tossed and turned around. Soon our guide has righted the raft and we were all pulled back in. James was raring to go and loving it whilst I was cursing the fact we had another 13 rapids to go...how did I get myself into this!

We made it through the next few rapids without incident and the view all around with Zimbabwe on one side and Zambia on the other was almost enough to take my mind off the fact we still had to negotiate our way through the 'washing machine, the terminator, terminator 2 and oblivion to name but a few. Having recovered from our serious dunking I got into my stride and was beginning to think this really wasn't that bad after all!

Our arms were soon aching with the effort of paddling through the white water and everyone was glad to pull up on a pure white sand beach to stretch our legs and warm up in the sun. As we were hungrily chomping our way through an apple a little green mamba snake was spotted basking on a rock. All to soon we were on our way heading towards the 'three ugly sisters' and our guide helpfully told us, 'the water is about 70 meters deep through here so don't fall in...' just what we wanted to hear.

Heading for another big rapid we were the first boat through and made without flipping, turned round to see the other two boats go over and picked up a few stragglers as they were washed down river. We tipped once more before the day was out. Back at the top of the ravine we were completely knackered and glad of an ice cold drink and a sit down on solid ground! Returning to base we tucked into a big lunch before seeing the pictures of the day. James and I were stunned by the generosity of a South African couple from our raft who came up to me at the end of the trip, gave some dollars and asked us to treat ourselves to the pictures as a honeymoon memory. We couldn't believe it and want to say another big thank you wherever you are.

Another great day was rounded off with a final BBQ masterfully cooked by James and roasted marshmallows dipped in melting chocolate - perfect