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Tuesday, 1 January 2019

Crossing Borders

We awoke up to a baboon staring at us from our balcony! After recovering from our shock, we proceeded to enjoy a nice relaxed breakfast before packing to move. Somehow, we were not provided lunch by the lodge and neither were we provided a packed lunch. Otherwise, our transfer day which went over lunch time and beyond thankfully went smoothly. The border crossing from Botswana into Zambia was easier than expected! We were driven from Muchenje Lodge back to Kasane Airport where we transferred into another van taking us to the border crossing. Our driver accompanied us into the immigration hut where it was a matter of getting our passports stamped. We were then loaded onto the boat along with our luggage to cross the river into Zambia. This point is very close to where Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia share a border. Once on the Zambian side, we were picked up by the next driver and loaded up into the van. He then accompanied us to get our visas. Only 1 representative per family was required. We assumed we still had to go through immigration but once visas were issued, we were done! We proceeded to drive to Livingstone Airport to get the last of four international flights out of Livingstone. Our destination was Nairobi. Surprisingly, the small Livingstone airport had a priority pass lounge! They had, however, run out of food…so they kindly went to the cafĂ© downstairs to buy us some food. We had the lounge to ourselves with very fast wifi until the arrival of a large Indian family.


The three hour flight to Nairobi was uneventful. We were all grateful for the USB charger, the inflight meal and the choice of 2 movies on the inflight entertainment system. We were met by &Beyond representatives and taken to our hotel, a disaster that is Southern Sun Mayfair. It was hotel branded as four star hotel but really would only just scrape it to make three star. The rooms were tired, run down and mouldy. By this stage, it was past midnight and we were exhausted. Too tired too to do much more than writing to the &Beyond travel agent who booked our trip for us, citing our disappointment at the minor issues to date. I was even too tired to take photos of the room like I usually do!


Goodbye to the river scene

The children relaxing with games

On the river crossing from Botswana to Zambia!

The lounge at Livingstone Airport!

That's our plane! The last international flight our of Livingstone

Waiting to board...

The captain was kind enough to do a figure of 8 loop over Victoria Falls so we could see. Saved us on the costs of a helicopter flight....

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