Monday June 1, 2015

Victoria Falls and Shopping 

      Woah! Today was a busy day for us girls! We woke up at 5:45 am in our tiny tents of two.  Some girls were lucky enough to wake up and see lion tracks near their camp sites.  Others felt blessed that there were none! Waking up in the pitch black with only a fire going was quite interesting. We ate some breakfast that was either cereal or yogurt with granola around the camp fire until our drivers were ready to get on the road.

     Our adventure back to the border was super fun but very cold. All us girls, Coach, Corie and Elem were separated into four jeeps with no windows.  That just gives you a taste of how cold it was. It was especially cold when our driver got a call on the radio saying there were lions. In order to be able to even get a glimpse of the lion we would travel at 60 mph on windy sand roads! If you were passing by any of our jeeps you would most likely see us with our hoods up with no faces visible.  Since we were on the road very early, we all got to see the beautiful sunrise! 

   When we finally made it back to the border, we had to take a quick boat ride across the border back into Zambia. Following that, we took an hour car ride back to our wonderful hostel- Jolly Boys.  However, we had quite an issue.  The Jolly Boys we were supposed to go back to overbooked so we ended up going to another. As we arrived to the new Jolly Boys, none of the rooms were ready so it was a very interesting morning.  All the water got turned off so you would see many of the girls filling up water bottles from the sinks to shower!  After we got settled in, we had some lunch and then got ready to tour the famous Victoria Falls.

      We took a few vans to the Falls and everyone was excited. The view was absolutely incredible! God is so good! We hiked all the way up to the top and all the way down to the bottom (the boiling pot) . The bottom was probably most of our favorite parts.  We all thought it was a very powerful God moment.  The waterfall was massive and beautiful. Did we get wet? We got DRENCHED!! Crossing the bridge was probably the part when it felt like it was pouring down rain. We took tons of pictures and saw spectacular rainbows.  Think we were tired yet? We couldn't be! We had shopping to get to!

  

      After shopping was finished, we headed to our favorite restaurant Olga's again! Everyone enjoyed wonderful pasta dishes and delicious pizzas. We then headed over to a different place to get gelato and then went back to Jolly Boys for the night. Today was an exhausting day for all of us but was full of once in a lifetime experiences we will never forget. It is crazy to say that we started off our morning seeing lions prowling around in the bush and by mid day we were staring at the breathtaking Victoria  Falls. To see so many of God's wonderful creations in one day was unbelievable.  Many of us are very sad to leave tomorrow but we are so thankful for such an incredible experience. We are sad to leave but excited to see our families!

      After we left the Falls we took vans to the market and tried to bargain our way to get the things we wanted. Some of the deals were rather amusing. Jess was walking along with her high Nike socks on filled with mud- they looked gross.  Next thing you see is that a guy asked for her socks for a large drum!  The people at the market were very intense and it made all of us a little stressed. Every vender would say, "I give you a good price!" and would try to push us into their shops.  Our team went a bit crazy since it was our last day. Let's just say we bought enough stuff for everyone back home.

                                                       Love,

                                                              Bobba and Audra

Sunday May 31, 2015

Sunday morning we were out the door for the safari by seven o’clock. The safari was in Botswana and the border of Zambia and Botswana is a river. So we all got on a boat and said goodbye to Zambia for the day. Once we crossed the river we got into four open-air jeeps (typical safari jeeps) and ate breakfast at the Coffee Buzz. Once we were finished with our breakfast we got on a boat for our river tour/safari. The boat had two levels, so some of us were on top and the other half were on the bottom. We rode around the Chobe River and saw many animals like hippos, water buffalo, crocodiles, elephants and more.  We were able to watch the elephants swim across the river, which was very entertaining. After we were finished on the river we ate lunch back at the Coffee Buzz, then loaded the jeeps again for our land safari.

            We were at Chobe National Park each of the four jeeps went on different trails. For many of us we drove along the river for majority of the afternoon, so we saw a lot of the same animals we did on the river safari. The only difference about seeing the elephants for example was that they were so close we could touch them. But don’t worry we didn’t.  Everyone really was hoping to see a lion or a leopard, so when one of our tour guides heard there was a leopard spotted everyone went looking. Our guides did not waste anytime! They flew over to this open grass field in search of the leopard. Some of the jeeps did some off-roading to try and find it. Unfortunately no leopards were found. Around four o’clock three of the jeeps stopped for a stretch break. Our drivers were eating chips and a monkey that was near by snuck up and stole a chip. After that Kyele tried to feed another chip to the monkey and it lunged at her. The tour guides were not happy with her trying to feed the monkey, but we all of course found it funny. Then when we were driving we were trying to find a lion, so we stayed more toward the main land. Lions did not come out until it got colder out, so once the sun started going down we were on lion watch. There were about four female lions spotted at different times throughout the evening.

Around six o’clock our jeeps headed toward our campsites for the night. Two jeeps went to one site and two to a different one. The goal was to have Corie at one site and Coach and Elem at the other. Unfortunately the guides did not understand that and all three of them ended up at one site. Don’t worry parents everyone was perfectly safe!  We ate dinner once we got there and sat around the campfire for a couple hours talking. Everyone was a little on edge because the animals were free to roam through out site whenever. Although we heard the animals make noises none of us actually saw them. Overall we all had a great time!

           

                                                                        With Love,

                                                                                          Hoobs and Rae