Leaving Zambia for Johannesberg

So, I can't seem to upload any pictures here, the blogger server keeps timing out on me - therefore pictures will have to wait until Jo-berg hpoefully.

Anyways, updates on what I have been doing since we got to Livingstone, Zambia. There was a lot of nothing for the first day,. I've been lounging around the hostel a bunch. On Friday, Mina and I went to the local craft markets for souvenirs. There was a lot of bartering - trading goods for my hair ties, ziplock bags, and tee shirts. I picked up a good number of things for decent prices.

I was supposed to go on a Rhino Walk at a local park however, on Thusrday night, poachers broke into the park and killed one of the rhinos and seriously injured the other! They went in for tusks and basically the park now is shut down - how awful is that! I was so shocked. Instead, Mina and I went to Zimbabwe yesterday morning to do a Lion Walk - basically it's lion cubs in a park that are being rehabilitated and we can interact with them. Several other people on our tour had done it a few days ago and raved about it. The Zimbabwe thing was a bit weird, with our visa money going to support the awful gov't over there, but then again, by contributing to the local tourism industry, I figured that we were doing some good for the workers. Anyways, the Lion Encounter consisted of us (8 ppl) going on a stroll in the park with two 12-month old lion cubs - and I thought that they'd be little, but apparently, they were 80kg! They were big! I got a bunch of pics with them, petting them, will upload when I can. But it was for about 90 min and we learned a lot of lions and the project that the company is doing to try and reintroduce lions to the wild. Apparently, in the 1970s, there were over 250,000 lions in all of Africa and now there are only about 20,000 due to poaching, snaring, and regular hunting. Crazy!

Yesterday afternoon, b/c I hadn't spent enough money, Mina talked me into doing a gorge swing. A GORGE SWING. Me - afraid of heights and free falling (altho skydiving was different) and who days before, watched other people from our tour group bungy jump off the bridge at Vic Falls and hated it, got convinced to do two gorge swings next to Vic Falls as well. So basically, you jump from a platform and the swing itself is only 53 meters (vs 114 meters that was the bungy jump) and then you're still 43 meters off the ground and have to be lowered to the bottom of the gorge and hike the 96 meters back up. Mina and I started with a tandem swing (and you swing down backwards) and then I did a single forward jump - both super scary! Walking off a platform into a free fall is the MOST unnatural thing ever. I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone unless you are an adrenalin junkie - which I think Mina is and I am not. So, while I am glad that I did it b/c I was so scared, my body is a bit sore today and I don't think I would do it again. I would skydive again, but not gorge swing. I have pictures of that too. Apparently, there is video of me during my solo swing screaming "oh my god oh my god oh my god" on the way down. I'll try and get that uploaded here too. Shout out to Motion Box instead of YouTube b/c my former boss now works there.

We're flying out of Livingstone today to go down to Jo-berg for a few days, we have to leave in about an hour to go to the aeropuerto. Ann leaves us today, she has to get back to NYC to start her job next week. We said goodbye to a lot of our tour friends over the past few days, while I am glad the group tour is over, some of the people I met were really cool and it was nice to interact with them here in Livingstone in a different setting vs sitting on a truck for 8 hours a day and tenting next to them. Anyways, Jo-berg will be a big errand stop for me - laundry, mail stuff home (like all those crazy souvenirs that I bought, plus the camping gear that I do not need anyore), and we (Laura, Mina and I) are going to see the Apartheid Museum and do a tour of the Soweto township. That should be really eye opening.

Anyways, sorry for the long text update, but I will try and get photos on here when I can!