There was little time to rest and relax on this trip, certainly so far as the wedding preparations were significant.
We came back from Kanyemba on Monday afternoon and then left again for Hippo Lodge on Tuesday morning around 7am.
Hippo is in the Kafue National Park that is huge and the camp was in the north east corner.
We traveled on an excellent tar road to the bustling metropolis of Mumbwa.. well maybe not bustling but there was not much competition. Here we turned off the main road (think Interstate in terms of importance) on to a smaller gravel road (think US highway). Mumbwa was about 160km from Lusaka and then we had approx another 100 km to get to the camp. The first 20km was rough and ungraded and you were lucky to get to 40kph. It was complicated by many of the potholes being in the shadows of the trees, so you hit some with a resounding rattle of everything aboard.
We stopped at about 10 for "padkos" which is the Afrikaans expression for "Road food". This can be a snack and a beer (even this early) or tea made on a small stove or fire. Anyway a nice break in the journey.
We had about 70km left and it was a great road to the turn off to the camp and then some very rough parts (10-15kph) and some good. Whole trip was about 5 hours.
Hippo Lodge has 4 chalets and only one of these is self catering (which was what we did) and our chalet was about 20m from the river. 
We had some neighbors in a pod of hippo that were laying in the river immediatly in front of the chalet but they did not bother us and we did not bother them. They huffed and puffed occasionally to let us know they were there but that was about it.
The chalet was fairly basic but very comfortable and adequate. There was a double room downstairs, two single beds in the living area and two beds up some VERY steep stairs with a rope handrail on one side.
Al and I stayed upstairs and the front of the "A" shaped room was just screen and no windows. We had the obligatory mosquito nets and a couple of geckos as company and mosquito control.
There was one nice bathroom downstairs all nicely decorated in "modern bush"!
There was an info sheet in the chalet that warned about the challenges of walking around unescorted at nights as animals freqently transit the camp and they nor you wanted to surprise the other. We had no need to wander as we had all we needed close by and a nice campfire in the evenings.
We mostly rested up from the drive and took a ride on Wolf (my brother (in) out law's boat and tried a little fishing.
Back by dark and a good home cooked dinner followed by sitting around the fire and listening to the bush and nature.
Africa gets dark mostly in a small band around 6pm and light at 6 in the morning. The transition is sudden, only taking 15-20 minutes but produces some dramatic sunsets and (if you are up) sunrises.
We were off to bed by 9pm and laying in bed and listening to the sounds of the bush through the night was fascinating, particularly as I had not done it in 17 years.
I think I will split the posts up and talk about game drives and boat adventures separately.
