Hello

At mo I am in Zambia at a campsite called The Waterfront which is in Livingstone.... the weather is scorching and it is nice to not have had rain for a few days! We have been at this campsite since Sunday and are leaving tomorrow lunch time.... getting here from Malawi was a nightmare ... it had been raining so the roads (mudtracks) are soft! The truck had two mishaps! Firstly we hit an oil patch and skidded off the road!! Luckily for us it was a wide road... then we came across a huge oil tanker that had skidded or broken down that was right across the road!! Ben our driver made us all get out to he could try and off road around it!! Apparently they make you get out if they think it might tip!! It did not tip but it did get stuck, we then spent the next 40 minutes digging the damn thing out! We had to take all the tents out and in the end about 8 of us had to huddle in the footwell to weigh one side of the truck down as he drove out!! I bravely offered my services and regretted it as I got bashed between American Dave and a metal locker for five minutes!! Fun was had by all!!

We ended up being in the truck for an extra 4 hours and we were fairly grumpy when we arrived!!

Luckily the campsite is a really really nice one, it is on the bank of the Zambezi River which is home to crocs and hippos and also flows into Vic Falls.... While we are here we have had the oppurtunity to do our own thing and I managed to fill my time walking with orphaned lions in Zimbabwe (extra stamp in the passport - yay) walking through Vic Falls on the zimbabwe side - which is much better than the Zambia side... Then doing a morning micro lite flight over Vic Falls - (brilliant) then yesterday afternoon I braved an scary afternoon of Abseiling, a fox fly --- where you are harnessed to a zip wire on your back and you take a five meter run up and dive into a gorge!! Then the mother of all activites here a gorge swing - which is basically a bungee!

Me and my tent buddy Sarah did a tandem jump, where you a harnessed to the same rope and clipped together... you then roll backwards into the gorge and free fall until it swings you across it!! I have a DVD of it and my face shows that it is the scariest thing I have ever done!! I do have minor whiplash (or a sore neck) and even more sunburn having to walk back up the gorge! but it was a brilliant experience!

Then last night we went on a Sunset Cruise (sounds posh) but it ended up as a full on booze cruise which a stack of overlanders taking full advantage of the free bar - last thing I remember is being rugby tackled by a welsh man and waking up with a sore head!!

Today I am relaxing by a pool and spending the last of my Zambia currency on food to soak up the hangover!! Anyway better go as once again the internet costs a small fortune..

Hope everyone is doing okay.. I miss everyone lots and I miss my comfy bed even more...

Take Care - Mel