Livingstone!!

Feb. 24th, 2012:

I have finally made it to Livingstone! I have been sick with a very nasty cold and am just starting to feel better today, so took the last few days off doing nothing but resting. I did go to Hope church on Sunday in Mongu which I really enjoyed. I was a little bit put on the spot when they asked if anyone was a visitor, of course I wasnt about to shout "i am!" in a church full of people who all carried their own personal bibles...my friend, however, decided that she should raise my arm for me, so I got a pamphlet and a sucker. It was pretty funny. She said that we were even, after she came to Safula Secondary School and stood infront of 200 kids and spoke when I had told her it was about 15 kids!  The choir had beautiful voices and although I couldnt sing to any of the songs it was wonderful to listen. Many people have beautiful voices here. At the Zen Nursing School, the class sung a song called My Desire which sounded like an orchestra it was so beautiful. They sing a song each morning before class. At Metoya Camp, my friend Catherine sang for me and it was amazing. I love to listen to their voices :).

After a long 8 hour bus ride on a rather rickety bus, we arrived in Lusaka to our Kalulu Backpackers Hostel! It was very nice. We went out to dinner at an Italian Restaurant called Papitos and I had pizza for the first time in 6 weeks, it was heavanly! I also had steamed milk. It was delicious, I didn´t realize how much I missed it until then. We went to bed pretty early that night as we had to get up the next morning at 5 to catch the bus to Livingstone. When we boarded the next bus, which was much nicer (had an emergency exit and much nicer seats) I couldn´t figure out why my legs were so itchy....only to find 30 misquito bites! There were no nets at Kalulus and I guess one misquito got in my little cotton sleeper and ate me alive. I think I fed it for the next month? I will definetly request a net on my way back, haha. After that bus ride which was only 6 hours this time, we arrived at Jollyboys. It is gorgeous here. There are two pools, a bar, a ping pong table, a pool table, lots of squishy chairs to sit and read your book, souvenir shops and computers to use internet on. I gave up last night on the internet when the one computer shut down randomly and the next one i tried to use had a haunted keyboard which garbled up your typing to what ever it thought looked better. I have been forced to ask random people to use their computers, haha! We are in Zebra room which is nice.   We went to the Ocean Basket and I had delicious fish and chips. A huge storm rolled in when we got home so we had to wait that out before getting into bed.

This morning, we went to Livingstone Island! It was AMAZING. You leave from the Royal Livingstone Hotel which was so beautiful, it even had people singing at the front when you walked in. After a short boat ride you are instructed to strip down and leave all your items in a tent with the staff. Now I didn´t think that I should wear my bikini. I was also not wearing the best underwear to take my shorts off unfortunetly....so I went in with my shorts on and my sports bra. The guides thought that was really funny and so did we. You hike up a little bit and then you dive in the water. It is so warm, like a really nice hot bath. You sit right on the edge of the falls! The guide is very careful, you don´t move a muscle without him with you. He says no one has fallen off the falls with them there and I can understand why with how careful they are. You can see Devil´s pool and right down the falls. It is 108 metres down. I stood right over the edge, it was so cool! Then you wade into another little pool to get a different view of the falls. The guide escorts you to this little rock and then he said "okay, no I will hide". Before I could even say anything he was gone! All I could think was "oh my god, now i´m stuck on the edge of Victoria Falls. great!" He then brought me where he was hiding and it turned out to be under this little bit of spray, it was awesome to sit under it and see the water. On the swim back, I slipped and was flailing my remaining limbs so scared I was going to go right over the falls! The guide had such an iron grip on me though that he just dragged me back to a rock. It was so exciting!

After the island, we bought our bus tickets home and checked out the craft market. Which was a huge mistake because I wanted to buy the whole market. You can bargain as well, so I was having a blast! It is really cool because you can trade Canadian things in for the items, like socks, sunscreen, etc. I was asked 3 times if I wanted the hair elastic I was wearing! There are about 15 little shops all in a strip that sell roughly the same thing but are all hand made. Most things they say take a week to a month to make. Very cool. I played a lot of ping pong and chess and am now just sitting waiting to eat some dinner. I am very excited to go to the National Park tomorrow and see the falls from the bottom this time! They say you get just as wet from the spray, which you can see miles and miles away. We are also going on the Booze Cruise tomorrow which will be interesting. I am excited to go with the people that we have met here, I have met so many people here from all over the world, all here for different reasons. It is really fun here, a wonderful way to end my trip to Africa! Until next time, I hope everyone is well at home and I wish you were here with me to see one of the 7 wonders of the world :).