Zim Trip Part 1

I am finally able to blog! I got the morning off because I worked the night shift at the clinic last night. Right now, I am at this cool little restaurant outside of town, waiting for my zigzag special to be served and I am not leaving till I am caught up. Here is goes:

I returned Sunday from a weekend that will probably be the most memorable in my life. And finally, I am able to show you what I mean through pictures, rather than just explain it to you.

This last weekend we took a trip to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. There were 22 in our group and all of us stayed at a lodge in the center of town. We arrived on Friday night and went to a restaurant in this hotel. they had a huge menu, but only had 3 things in stock. Because of what's going on with the economy and the inflation in Zim. There is no food in the stores, hence no food at restaurants. Anyway, it was pretty relaxing. All of us played the game where you write names and places where they met, fold paper, and pass it around. I for some reason thought that our family invented this game, but when I told my friends about it, they informed me that this game has existed in England for quite sometime. I also was introduced to the game of Rugby, and was forced to watch the World Cup where England got their asses beat. People in our group were less than happy.

The next morning we woke up early, and headed for the Lion Encounter. I knew that we would be hanging out with lions, but really had no idea what to expect. Our guide, JB, introduced himself and explained what the lion encounter was all about. He had us all sign a paper that basically said that we won't sue there company if we get attacked. I was a little hesitant at first, but still cocky about the whole thing so I signed. They then handed us skinny 3 feet long sticks, and told us that if the lion starts to bite or claw, we are supposed to point the stick at them and say, "NO!"......Um....really? That is when the cockiness melted away, and pure fear took it's place. 1. They acted like this clawing and biting was an everyday occurrence, and 2. If a 200 lb, full grown lion comes up to attack me, I am supposed to point a dinky twig at him and say, NO?! I was pretty much freaking out at that point. It wasn't until I actually saw then that I became petrified with fear. They were not enclosed in a cage, they were roaming free on a reserve where they were fed by volunteers, but also were able to hunt baboons (which we are descendants of, by the way. Do you see the correlation?). So, I couldn't help but think that maybe this was not going to end well for me. All the volunteers were making fun of me the whole time because every time one of them would even approach a lion, I would yell, "Don't step on their tail!' or "Watch out for the tail!" We finally found the lions, Loco and Londo, lounging underneath some trees. They were huge! JB started asking who wanted to pet these lions, and so I stood in the corner behind a volunteer and did not raise my hand. Eventually, I got up the nerve to touch them. As approaching them, JB informed me that they are actually mild mannered when they are not looking you in the eye. Mine looked me in the eye. The minute they started to, the four guides started banging there sticks together to get him to look away. As if it wasn't scary enough, now I every time the lion turned it's head, I started to hear loud banging from every side of me. As the encounter went on, I got a little cocky. I even got yelled at for misplacing my stick. I let one of the cubs licked my hand. And at the end of the encounter, I tried to just walk up and pet the cub (not the smartest idea), and he tried to pounce on me. So, that was the end of my lion encounter. Oh! and by they way, the man who owns the lion encounter has one arm. Can you guess why?

Here is what you are waiting for:

This is my first time seeing him.

My first time touching him, if you can't tell, I am very scared.

As you can see, I am getting closer. the cockiness is setting in.

Yes, I am walking him.

The Next stop on my lovely trip was the Elephant Back Safari. Now this was definitely cool, but not as cool as the lion encounter. Really, how many time do people go on Safaris, let alone elephant back safaris. We didn't see any animals, but it was fun. My favorite part was getting on and off. Anyway, I will let the pictures speak for themselves:

This will have to be it for right now. My battery is about to die. But, there will be more tomorrow. The restaurant we went to was amazing, and also very blog worthy.