Spring Break Photos are in!

So in case you were still wondering, I not only survived my mid-semester break, but I also had fantastic adventures! It would take a good hour or more to tell all the stories of what happened, so I'll spare the details here and just say a few highlights.

I will never forget seeing my first elephant. Sarahi and I were hitching a ride in the back of a little red pickup truck from Nata to Kasane. I was lying down in the bed, trying to get out of the wind for a bit, when Sarahi started slapping my leg. "What?" I asked, getting up. Her response was an awestruck face, a pointing finger, and the wind-strangled cry, "ELEPHANT!!!" I turned and saw: a massive gray creature the size of a tree, flapping its ears at us and pulling up grasses from beside the highway. It was the biggest elephant I would see, but it was certainly not the last. Dozens more would be spotted along the road on our way to, and later from, Kasane. They weren't kidding when they said it was elephant central up there.

Victoria Falls really took my breath away. It was quite impressive, and definitely lived up to its name: Mosi-oa-Tunya. The smoke that thunders. That was my first impression of it, and those three words were all that I could say for a moment or two. The mists surrounding the Falls are hard to describe - they're like the mists you get from misters, except that the droplets are much thicker and actually will rain up and down and all around you. It's bizarre, and such a cool feeling. There's a bridge you can cross that takes you right through it, and it's like getting super-soaked and then lying out in the sun to dry on the other side. Very cool.

The Okavango Delta is probably the most chill, serene, zen place I have ever experienced. Everything is so calm and slow. You're sitting in a dugout canoe, a man poling it along with a big stick, and just gliding over crystalline water and through tall reeds whose gaps form a veritable causeway of paths and junctions and ways from A to B. It's very neat, and very beautiful. The experience of hiking around on the Delta islands, the earth under your feet, taking things at your own pace, seeing animals and reacting to them and they to you... it's much more real and much more natural than the safari truck rides. You have much more of a sense of caution and uncertainty that keeps you on your toes and really on the lookout for animals.

Alright, well if you have any questions, feel free to ask. If you'd like to see pictures, click here! :)