Go to Africa on a holiday? Are you serious? No way! Poverty, disease, why should we go there.

This is a tourists impression of Africa, and Zambia is no different. People think nothing of Zambia, even you may think nothing of it, and to hear about all its problems sure why would you care.

Well for a tourist you don’t have to care, but what is amazing is that not many people know about the absolute beauty of Zambia and the countries in Africa.

When I say beauty I don’t mean hundreds of babes lying on a sandy beach with little or no clothes on, trying to get a tan. What I mean is the beauty of the countryside and natural scenery.

Zambia relies a lot on tourism to the country. At a local level we witnessed this because the lodge we stayed in provided jobs for around ten locals and getting to know these people over the 2 weeks we learned that this job was all these people had, they relied totally on it. Otherwise they would have no financial input in their lives and would become very malnourished due to lack of food.

Because Livingstone is a tourist focal pint to southern Africa it boasts a lot of facilities such as the crocodile park, the Victoria falls, bungee jump, gorge swing, overnight safari’s and helicopter rides.

Another attraction of Zambia is the Victoria Falls, this waterfall one of the Seven Wonders of the World was about 10 miles away from where we were staying. To put this into context, it would be from here to Rathfriland for any Down people but for Armagh people present a more familiar route, Swords to Croke Park.

Africa has what is called the African big 5; this is the five main animals that can be seen. They are the elephant, leopard, lion, rhino and the Buffalo. Zambia has many wild life parks where these animals can be seen, when we were in Zambia we visited a wild life park, we were all excited when to see the wild animals but what we seen was only two giraffes and some monkeys. On leaving the park we were stopped and nearly arrested for trying to remove a wild animal, but we soon realised what they were talking about and reassured them that Richard was part of our group.

Africa has a very nice climate, 3-4 months of the year it rains. This is from November to February. They then have a hot season where the weather very rarely falls below 35 degree heat and in October can reach up to 50 degrees. For many people looking for a sun holiday this should be one good reason to come to Africa, it’s in daylight for twelve hours and darkness for twelve hours. I’m sure most of you seen Mr Grogan’s nice tan when he came home; this is not from lying out trying to get a tan as you all know but doing hard work as usual.

The crocodile park we visited rescues crocodiles from the Zambezi that have been injured and takes care of them until they are healthy again. This is not only good news for the crocodiles but good news for the local people as the centre needs to employ workers to look after them, and they make a lot of money opening it to the public to let them see the animals.

On a serious note, Zambia, to me is a magnificent country to visit, as you have heard the wildlife is brilliant, the weather even better and the countryside is just an endless horizon of green vegetation after the wet season. Africa is a magnificent place and anyone who ever gave anything there got a lot more back.

Zambia not just blew my mind, it opened it.