Trip to the Falls

So, the past few days were spent at the Falls. Victoria Falls to be exact. One of the seven natural wonders of the world, and rightly so. The Falls border Zambia and Zimbabwe, and technically I have now been to Zimbabwe (and yes, I made it back fine).
The other four mini-missionaries and I started off Thursday morning at about 4:00 am. We left the village at 5:00 am, got on the bus at 6:00 am, and left Lusaka at 6:35 am. We pulled into Livingstone at 1:00 pm, and were met by the owner of the lodge we would be staying at, Richard. He drove us the five minutes back to Chanter's Lodge, where Megan and Katie shared a room, and Melissa and Kristi and I shared the other. We got unloaded and soon headed to the market in town. We bought a few things, and hopped into taxis to go to the Royal Livingstone Hotel. There, we had High Tea! Interestingly enough, none of us got tea, which is kind of regrettable, but I have had a whole lot of tea since I got here, so I tried an espresso. There were desserts galore, and I tried a little bit of everything. I hardly ate all day to save up stomach room for that. It was an amazing experience. Then, we went outside and sat on the deck on the Zambezi River and watched the sun set, and saw a whole lot of monkeys playing in the yard of the Royal Livingstone. We let our food digest and just lounged on a big couch outside. Then we got back in a taxi and went back to the Lodge. I fell asleep pretty early since we had just an early start to the day.
On Friday, we got up and ate breakfast at the Lodge, which was included. Since an English man owns the Lodge, we had toast and tea and cereal and eggs, and there were other things offered like mushrooms, bacon, sausage, beans, and tomatoes. Then we were all picked up at 8:30 to go to the Falls. Once there, we paid our way in and headed to the poncho stand. We got our ponchos and headed out on the trail where we would get pretty wet if not for the ponchos. The views were amazing and we had a really good experience viewing the Falls. We then returned the ponchos and went on a few other trails that did not take us as close to the water so we did not get wet. We went on the upstream path, which put us right on top of the Falls, so we sat and watched the water tumble over the edge for a while. There were also some pretty spectacular rainbows that we viewed. At noon we headed over to the bridge that goes across the river and goes between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Megan decided to bungee jump over the bridge, so we played on the bridge while she did that, and got to technically step into Zimbabwe and take our picture there. The land between the two countries, about a meter wide, is called ZimZam. We saw some zebras at the Falls that were in the yard of the Zambezi Sun Hotel, and Melissa got in trouble for taking pictures of them for some reason, but we talked our way out of it and promised not to tell anyone about it. So then we went to the market at the Falls for a few minutes until our taxi driver picked us up at 1:00 and we went back to the Lodge to get ready for our game drive. At 2:00, we got picked up to go to the national park. In the park we saw baboon, impala by the dozen, buffalo, warthog, wildebeast, monitor lizards, bushbuck, lots of birds, zebras from afar, the one rhino named Fwanya, and a family of giraffe! There was a mom and a dad and three children. That was definitely spectacular. We got to see the mom run too which was an amazing sight to behold. After the game drive, we got dropped off in town and went out to dinner at a local restaurant. The food was really good, but the service was not great. All I know is that I got a waffle with ice cream and chocolate on it. We walked back to the Lodge afterwards in the dark and thankfully made it safely.
On Saturday, we got up and had breakfast at the Lodge and then headed into town again. We went through the market a little bit, went to the Livingstone museum which was kind of boring, lots of history and such, and walked around for a while and got some ice cream and went in to a bunch of stores in town. Then we headed back to the Lodge, finished packing, and went to the bus station at 1:00. We left Livingstone at 1:30, and got into Lusaka at 8:15. By the time we got back to the house it was 9:30, and we were all really tired. It was Melissa and Kristi's last night here so they packed and we made popcorn on the stove and stayed up for a little while.
This morning, we took Kristi and Melissa to the airport on the way to church, and off they went. There are three of us in the house now and it is quieter. Tomorrow starts the last week of school until late July. Hopefully everything goes well and that we can prepare for the recitation on Friday.
Well, I am glad to be back at the village because it kind of feels like home now after six weeks of living here. Oh man. It was a great vacation and I am really glad I got the opportunity to see God's marvelous creations. Much love from Zambia!