The Second to Last Day of the BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE

            I woke up on my own this morning, nothing planned for too early.  I was wearing my swimsuit bottoms, nike shorts, and t-shirt.  The same outfit I had worn during white water rafting, on the cruise, and going out.  Why change now?  After breakfast I headed over to the market one last time with Colleen, Kylee, and Senta.  This time I didn’t bring any money with me.  If I couldn’t trade for whatever I wanted, then I didn’t need it.  Already having traded my sleeping bag and sneakers the day before, I packed my backpack with magazines, tampons, earrings, a t-shirt, a long sleeved shirt, socks, Pepto Bismol, and a UCT bag.  We made our way to the market, the sun already forcing me to sweat through my dirty clothes.  It was hectic once again.  This time, however, we ventured further into the market to the stands in the back.  There I traded my long sleeved shirt, UCT bag, a magazine, and tampons for my favorite trinket, which I cannot name.  I traded with a man named Doubt and asked if I took take a picture of his booth.  He excitedly agreed and then wrote down his address on a piece of paper so I could print out the picture and send it to him.  After taking one picture and agreeing to send it, I was doomed.

(Doubt)

            The rest of the time we were at the market I was continuously taking pictures of the vendors, showing them their picture on the digital screen, and then accepting their scraps of paper on which they scrawled their addresses.  One picture stood out above the rest.  Senta had decided to trade her watch, what for I don’t even remember.  She handed the man her watch and he immediately turned and placed the watch on the wrist of a young girl.  We came to find she wasn’t even his daughter.  But it was still the sweetest thing.  I took a picture of all of them, with their dad, and he proceeded to give me his address. 

(The man in the back is the one who traded and gave the young girl Senta's watch)

This time he also gave me his email and phone number, though I’m not sure I’ll need those, and suggested I could also send the kids presents at Christmas.  I didn’t make any promises, but ensured him I would eventually send the picture.  After trading a few more things and getting harassed a bit more, the four of us made our way back to the lodge.

            At 11 am Senta and I boarded a bus and rode to a gorge of the Zambezi River.  We were doing a tandem zip line across the gorge! 

(The gorge)

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t have a fear of heights, but if I had a choice I would rather not hang off a cliff.  Yes, of course I did actually sign up for this, but the thrill seemed a lot more exciting when I wasn’t near the edge.  A worker strapped Senta and I into our harnesses, making sure to scare the shit out of us with his jokes, and walked us to the landing for the zip line.  We climbed up to the landing and were hooked to the actual zip line part.  Things had been fine until now, but looking over the edge Senta began to freak.  As we stood there she continued to say she no longer wanted to do it.  The worker man ignored her, I assume they get people like that all the time, and had us sit on the ledge. 

(On the edge of terror)

As Senta continued to dismiss the idea of the zip line, I too became very frightened.  I had been before but kept my mouth shut.  However, with Senta voicing her fear, I couldn’t help but realize mine. 

(Before he let go)

At last I told her we’d be fine, the man told us to put our weight on our harnesses while he held onto the rope, and then he let go.

(Going...)

            It was one of the most exhilarating feelings of my life.  The wind whipped past my face as we dropped down the line, not in a free fall, but feeling like we’d fall forever. 

(...going...)

The zip line brought us across to the other bank and then we continued to glide back and forth on the line until we slowed in the middle, hanging over the river. 

(...gone.)

It was an amazing feeling.  The scariest part of the whole experience had been sitting on the ledge and looking over.  We sat there in our harnesses for what seemed like forever until one of the workers zipped himself down to us and then brought us back.  Though the zip line was a blast, it felt good to reach solid ground, and Senta and I quickly climbed down from the platform and behind the fences guarding people from falling down the gorge.

            We rode back to the lodge just in time for me to jump into the cab heading for the massage and Mani Pedi place.  As it turns out, the spa was in the backyard of the bar, Shoestrings, we had been to the night before.  Below a roof of sheets and walls of nothing, women pumiced my feet, scrubbed my arms and legs, filed down my finger and toe nails, and then painted them.  The nail polish colors in the basket looked like those a child would wear, but I humored myself and chose bright green for my fingernails and clear for my toenails.  Then came the massage.  After sleeping on the ground for a week and riding in a rickety bus, the massage felt great and I dosed off.  I had time to shower after coming back to the lodge, and then I had the lion encounter.

            About seven of us from Team Elephant and a few random people took a bus from the lodge about twenty minutes out to the Lion Encounter.  We were in the bush.  One of the guides gave us a talk about the different stages of ALERT, the program this lion encounter was a part of.  Basically, the lion population in Africa has dropped by 80% these past few decades.  This program’s job is to raise lions from when they are cubs and start to grow up until they are ready to be put into the wild.  While this program is in Zimbabwe, the guide told us they send these lions all over the continent when other countries request them.  The group then split into two; Team Elephant and a few other couples went with Paul.  We walked for about 45 minutes through the bush with two lions, a girl, Chete, 12 months old, and a boy, Chundu, 15 months old. 

(Chete)

Paul explained to us to use our walking sticks to tap the lion’s head if they started turning towards us, and to never get near the head at all.  We were all allowed to take turns petting the lions multiple times and took turns walking with them as well. 

(Petting Chundu)

Paul was extremely adamant about everyone getting a chance to walk with the lions and pet them.  He learned all of our names and proceeded to call us up, grabbing our cameras from us and snapping pictures with them.  Numerous times the lions sat down on their own accord and Paul hustled us behind them one by one to take photos. 

(Chete)

After the 45 minute walk we went back to the main house in the area, washed our hands, helped ourselves to Lion beer, and watched a video one of the workers had taken of us while on our walk.

            It was a twenty-minute ride back to the lodge where everyone on Team Elephant rested.  At ­­7 pm all of Team Elephant got on the truck and headed to Boma.  Boma is a restaurant that promises a typical ‘African’ experience.  Think of what you would consider to be a ‘typical’ African dining experience…and that’s basically what Boma was.  As we walked through the entrance a cloth was tied onto us like a sarong and our faces were painted, two dots below the left eye for girls and two slashes for boys. 

(Sarongs and face painting)

Inside the restaurant it was amazing.  There were huge wooden rods holding up the thatched roof, and decorations all around.  There was an impala cooking on a spit, men dancing in loin clothes and beating drums in the middle of the restaurant, and buffets of food to the side. 

(Dancers at Boma)

We were seated at a long table and then the employees washed our hands at the table.  We were each offered a drink of their homemade beer, which tasted like flour, and then we were free to feast.  There was guinea fowl, impala, crocodile, boerwors, ostrich, and warthog, and then your usual chicken, pork and sirloin.  There was plenty of other food besides the meats, but they were the most exciting.  I must say that boerwors (like a sausage), ostrich, and warthog were my favorite and were all very delicious.

(Crazy African meats)

            Also in the restaurant there was a man selling wooden carvings, a fortuneteller, a storyteller, and a medicine man who was going from table to table and offering to make his special drink of honey, cinnamon, vodka, and other ingredients. 

(Medicine man)

After most people in the restaurant had eaten, we were each given a drum and taught how to play.  After which the real drummers played while we all danced in the center of the room.  We were the last ones left in the restaurant, finally making our extremely full bodies walk to the bus.  Back at the lodge we all went to bed.  It was our last night together, and we tried to stay at the bar and talk, but everyone was much too exhausted to try and make conversation.

The Third to Last Day of the BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE

            Not everyone from Team Elephant signed up for a full day of white water rafting today, but those of us who did needed to be ready by 6:45 am.  I had been told the day before by a previous group that everything you brought got wet, and thus only wore my shorts and sports bra.  I was cold for well into the day until the sun really started shining.  We all met with other people going rafting and then drove in big trucks to the Zambezi River, where we would be rafting.  The guides told us we would have rafts with 7-8 people in each, so we had to get a group together.  The people from the earlier trip also told us there was a certain rafting guide to get, so SarahCatherine, Colleen, Tammi, Mike, Ketil, Aaron, Elroy, and I all grouped together and snagged the guide, Costar.  Then we all grabbed helmets, life jackets, and paddles, and made our way down multiple stairways of steep steps to the bottom of the gorge, and walked along the rocks of the shore until we got to the place where we would take off on our adventure.

            Down on the rocks the rafts were getting blown up in front of us.  Costar called our group down, the first to get situated in a raft, and then pushed us off from the shore.  We waited in a large area for everyone else to get into their rafts, and he told us all about what we would be doing and all the rules.  Basically, we were to listen to all of his commands.  There was ‘forward’, ‘backward’, ‘hard forward’, ‘hard backward’, ‘left forward/right forward’ (where one side paddled forward and the other side paddled backward), ‘stop’, and ‘get down’ (where you stopped paddling and crouched in the raft, holding onto the safety ropes on the outside).  He explained what to do if we fell out of the raft and then basically told us to have fun.  Then, as we waited for all the other rafts to get ready, he pushed us all into the water.  It was freezing, and it felt weird to swim in water with my sneakers on.  By around 9 am, we started our white water rafting excursion down the Zambezi River, separating Zimbabwe and Zambia.

            For four hours we rafted.  We went through rapids from grades 2-5.  The highest grade rapid is 6, but when we got to the one part where there was a grade 6 everyone had to get out of their rafts and walk on the rocks by the edge while the guides rafted through the rapid.  There were 18 rapids total, each titled with a ridiculous name, and our raft didn’t flip once, while many of the other rafts flipped multiple times.  And, only one person fell out of our raft the entire time.  Every time we got through a rapid unscathed Costar had us do a cheer.  We held our paddles up in a tepee and he yelled “One, two, three…” and then we all yelled “Happy Days” together, then slapped our paddles on the water. 

            The whole rafting day was fantastic.  I felt like I was cheating death every time we made it through the rapids.  I was scared for my life, but I was having the time of my life.  Multiple times we had to pull other people into our raft who had fallen out of theirs, and help other rafts get resituated after tipping over.  About halfway through we took a long break on the river, just floating in a big open area, letting the sun scorch our bodies.  Towards the end of the trip, Costar let our raft jump out and just float down the river.  We floated through some rapids and I could feel the water pulling me toward the side of the river.  Costar then yelled at us to swim the other way.  It was so exhilarating.  We were the first raft to reach the end of trip, saying our cheer one last time and then climbing onto the rocks of the shore.  There were people there taking care of our raft and telling us to climb up the mountain for lunch.  Little did we know they literally meant we had to climb all the way up the side of the gorge.

(Happy Days)

            It was prime sun time, about 1 pm.  I was dehydrated.  I was carrying my helmet, paddle, and life jacket.  I was climbing up a makeshift path practically on the side of a cliff.  It took about 30 minutes to climb to the top.  There waiting for us was shade, water and drinks, and a lunch of burgers and potatoes and such.  I drained a bottle of water and helped myself to a loaded plate of food.  We all sat in the shade, exhausted from the day.  I helped myself to a local beer, Zambezi, and we headed back to the lodge in the huge trucks.

            For those of us who signed up for the sunset cruise on the Zambezi River that night, we had about two hours until we had to meet.  SarahCatherine, Colleen, Ketil, Jeff, Aaron and I decided to head over to the market during that time.  We had been told about this market before the trip even started, and came prepared.  Basically, things cost money but you could trade with the people and barter with them.  As soon as we got closer to the market people came up to us and asked us to come to their lots at the market, telling us they would give us deals and such.  It was hectic to say the least.   

 (Trade Market)

The market was full of goods, all of the trinkets at each station were mostly the same, but the venders kept coming up to us and nagging us to buy this and that.  This first day at the market I ended up trading some socks and giving money for a few things.  The problem was that they did want to trade things, but always wanted a bit of money on top of the items so that they could then go spend it.  I only spent money at the first vendor, and then refused to spend any more.  4 pm rolled around and we were still at the market.  I was making a trade with a man named Brian, while the rest were urging me to finish up because we had to go.  I really wanted a few things that I can’t name, but he wanted money and I wasn’t willing to give it up.  In the end, I gave him my name and the lodge we were staying at.  He was going to come by after I got back from the cruise to pick up my sleeping bag and tennis shoes that I had agreed to trade.  It probably wasn’t a fair trade for what I got at all, but he trusted me enough to give me his trinkets I had traded for before I had given him my things.

 (Brian and the things I traded)

            We just barely made it back to the lodge in time to drop off our goods in our rooms and then jump on the bus.  For two hours me and a few others from Team Elephant, along with people from other parties, rode along the Zambezi River, watching the sunset.   

(Zambezi River)

(Zimbabwe Sunset)

While we sat and relaxed on the boat, a waitress came and we ordered a few drinks.  When the waitress handed SarahCatherine her Sprite, I couldn’t help but notice how old the bottle looked.  It was reused from 1994.  It was no wonder the Sprite was flat, but it was so cool that they reused these old bottles.

 (1994 Sprite)

            By a bit past 6 pm, after the sun had just set below the river, we made our way back to land, and then drove back to the lodge for dinner.  Elroy had made steak burgers and corn on the cob and we watched the white water rafting video that had been taken earlier that day.  We all hung around the bar and dining area for a while, danced a bit to the music, and later went into town to a backpacker lodge and bar called Shoestrings.  From there we went to a casino, I did not gamble, and then headed back to the lodge a little after 1 am.

The Seventh Day of the BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE

            This morning was the optional game drive through Chobe National Park.  Everyone on Team Elephant had decided to do it, so we all woke at the ungodly hour of 5:15 am.  Elroy set out rusks and hot water for our instant coffee (which I have unfortunately grown accustomed to), and then we all bundled up and headed to the campsite bar where we met the safari jeep like trucks that we would ride in.  The sun wouldn’t be up for a few hours, which meant it was chilly.  We split into two jeeps and made the cold and windy drive into the park.  From 6-9 am we drove along the dirt roads of the park, bumpy and hilly, holding onto the sidebars for life.  At first we didn’t see many animals.  It was still cold and dark and they were probably all still sleeping.  But as the sun began to rise over the trees, casting rainbow colors over the waters of the river, and the birds began to chirp, and the air became warmer little by little, wildlife began to emerge.

(Light of the sunrise)

We got extremely close to hippos, elephants, impalas, baboons, giraffes, other types of antelope, lots of birds, lots of animal tracks, and an impala and a buffalo carcass.

(Hippo)

(Elephant)

(Impalas)

(Giraffe)

(Other Antelop-notice the huge semi-circle horns on the right)

(Guineahens)

(Bird)

(Impala carcass)

(Buffalo carcass in the distance)

            The whole experience was incredible, but there were a lot of breath-taking moments packed into those three short hours.  We saw a baboon mother sitting right next to her child, which was cute, but even cuter was seeing a mother baboon walking on all fours with her child hanging from her belly. 

We saw two impalas fighting. 

We saw a young elephant feeding from its mother. 

We saw a 2-3 week old giraffe and saw it run, both right legs first, then both left legs.  We saw the giraffes spread their front legs to reach the ground with their heads.  We got stopped by an elephant herd, the elephants crossing the road in front of and behind our jeep.  We found lion tracks, and our driver Jack saw a lion in the woods, forcing us to hunt down the lion, speeding down the dirt roads and swerving around other safari jeeps in the way. 

(Lion tracks)

We never actually did see a lion, but heard the call of a bird, warning that a lion was close.

            By the time we got back to the campsite the sun was already high in the sky and it was getting warm.  Elroy had a real breakfast of sausages and scrambled eggs for us to eat but Trevor forced us to eat quickly and pack our bags and tents up so we could get on the road.  It was only a ten-minute drive to the border of Botswana with Zimbabwe.  Usually there is a long line to cross, and the workers are extremely disorganized, but Paul was able to cut in front and budge our way to Zimbabwe in record time.  From there we had about an hour drive until we arrived in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. 

Trevor surprised us with rooms in the lodge, instead of camping for the last three nights, and we unpacked everything from the truck.  Paul had to trade Shashe for another truck, as another trip needed it.  The people running the activities at the Adventure Lodge gave us brief summaries of all the events going on, and then hurried us to sign up, as we were leaving to see the falls at 4 pm.  I signed up for a full day of white water rafting, a sunset cruise, a massage and Mani Pedi, zip line, and walking with lions.  There was no time to pay before Trevor hustled us all onto our new bus and we drove to the entrance to Victoria Falls.

            After we all got into the park area we had two hours to tour around the falls.  Victoria Falls is one of the seven natural wonders of the world.  It was amazing.  We walked along the path of the falls on the Zimbabwe side, the side the falls fell from was the Zambia side, stopping at all the look out points to the falls, often getting sprayed with extremely cold water that misted up from the falls.  A rainbow could be seen in the gorge of the falls, almost touching the water.  At the end of the path we came upon the best lookout in the park.  There was no make shift fence of sticks, no sign of humanity, nothing between you and Victoria Falls. 

(Victoria Falls)

For a while I sat at the edge, my feet dangling over the river, looking out at a wonder of the world.  The falls felt like magic.  The sun was setting as I sat there, the rays shining through the mist from the falls, creating a suspended sort of light. 

(Victoria Falls)

The rainbow was still there, to my right, almost hitting the water. 

(Victoria Falls)

It’s too obvious why Victoria Falls was named one of the natural wonders of the world.  Until it was time to go I sat there, taking the whole falls, whole trip, whole time in Africa in.  Words can’t describe the sight, can’t describe the feeling.

            Back at the lodge we paid for all of our activities for the next two days, and ate a dinner of noodles and ice cream sundaes.  A group went out on the town but I was too exhausted.  I had an early morning wake up call for white water rafting and I wanted to be as rested as I could be.

The Sixth Day of the BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE

            SarahCatherine, Colleen, Evan, Aaron, and I had planned to get up half an hour early on Thursday to do some yoga.  This was not the case.  We stayed up too late the night before, bonding, and missed the alarm going off.  Along with everyone else we awoke at 6 am to Trevor’s voice.  Like a routine engrained in our brains, everyone packed their bags and put them on the truck, took down their tent, packed the tents and poles away, and rolled up their sleeping pads.  Once the truck was packed I enjoyed the usual breakfast of rusks and coffee, sitting with others around the empty fire pit.  The sun began to rise behind the Baobab trees as we brushed our teeth and made one last visit to the bathrooms.  Only a four-hour drive ahead of us!

            On the drive we played a few card games, but everyone was exhausted and ended up napping, as did I.  Lack of sleep was catching up to us.  On the drive we made a pit stop by the other trip’s truck, which they had left on the side of the road, broken down.  Bored waiting for Paul to look at the truck, Ketil and I tried to break open a Lalapalm nut.  Elory handed us a hammer, and Ketil got to work hitting the nut against a rock. 

(Ketil trying to break up the Lalapalm nut)

Only two hits with the hammer until a piece of the nut broke off and hit SarahCatherine in the face.  Not quite what we were aiming to do with the nut and hammer, but a story just the same.  For the rest of the trip SarahCatherine would have a little scab on her chin…from that time she got hit with a Lalapalm nut on the side of the road in Botswana.  

(Ketil and SC after getting hit in the face)

The drive continued and we got to the Thebe River Safaris camping site by lunch, right outside of Chobe National Park.

            Lunchtime was no fun, and probably the worst part of the trip.  It was t-shirt planning time, when we got to design a trip t-shirt to remember the ten days.  Today was the worst day to do this; everyone was sleep deprived and extremely cranky.  As expected, the planning was a disaster and I was not a happy camper in regards to the result.  But now we laugh about it, and looking at the t-shirt remember how horrible it was to design them, and how messed up the t-shirts ended up being.  After the disaster of a lunch we had a bit of time to explore the campsite, and then it was off to the bottle store.

            At the bottle store everyone purchased his or her alcohol for the game cruise on the Chobe River that night.  I got a few local beers and ciders.  At 3 pm we made our way to the dock, where we climbed aboard a large boat, joined by a few other travel groups, including the Southern Ambition trip that we always bumped into.  At the start of the cruise everything was new to us.  Boating down the Chobe River, the driver pointed out that while Botswana was on our left, Namibia was on our right! 

(Botswana on the left, Namibia on the right)

He pointed out an island that both Botswana and Namibia claimed as their territory, and then continued to lead us down the river.  Far far away we could see a herd of elephants by the water.  Everyone leapt to their feet to squint through the sun and glimpse the lumps on land.  Little did we know that we would literally be feet away from the elephants when we got close, and that we would continue to see elephants for the entire cruise.

(How close we thought we'd get to elephants)

            For the next three hours, we took in a million sights of wild animals:  more than 100 elephants, 14 giraffes, baboons, warthogs, hippos, 4 crocodiles, antelope, and water buffalo.

(Giraffes)

(Warthogs)

(Crocodile)

We witnessed a hippo opening its mouth out of the water, and watched a baby elephant run through a group of giraffes, trying to find its mother. 

(Hippos)

(Elephant lost)

The elephants we saw were all covered in mud, which they used as sunscreen, our driver told us. 

(Elephants wearing their sunscreen)

The cruise was amazing.  Never in my life have a witnessed such beauty.  We saw these wonderful animals in their natural habitats, while watching the sunset, glinting off the water and turning the sky into colors of pinks and yellows. 

(Sunset)

(Sunset again)

I was in great company.  This cruise brought us all so much closer, gabbing to each other, and drinking with each other as we witnessed incredible scenery and wildlife. 

(Team Elephant)

The cruise ended as the sun finally went down, and we all clamored off the boat, exhausted from the sun on our faces the whole time and the continuous excitement of the ride.

(Post sunset/game cruise)

            At dinner that night there was no denying how much we had bonded on the cruise.  We wolfed down our chicken a la king and rice as we laughed about the day and recounted stories that had literally just happened that day.  After dinner we blasted music in Shashe and danced in the truck until we blew out the speakers. 

(Dance party in Shashe)

Then we all sat around in a circle and played another question game.  This time, however, the question you whispered to the person next to you had to be a question that the person could answer by pointing to someone in the group.  People headed to bed after the game, but I obviously stayed up once more, with a few other people, and played ‘Asshole’ until a little before midnight.  The next morning was an early morning game drive, and we actually needed sleep.