Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Victoria Falls Part 1

Well, it has been quite a while since I've attempted to post about something that actually happened while I was in Botswana, and I think it's time I do something about that!  So, without further ado...here's Zimbabwe!
Heaven on Earth

Here's some random info: Vic Falls is about 450 km (270 miles) from Maun; because of poor road conditions, it used to take close to 10 hours to get there from the plot.  Fortunately for us, there have been a lot of improvements made and it took maybe around 7 hours for us.  So much better than the 13 hours it took for us to get to Swakopmund when I was an intern!!  Also, this time around we had the nice, comfy, spacious intern van for all of the girls (plus myself and the 3 Lackey men) vs a Corolla for 5 of us to squish into back in October!

We took off for Vic Falls right after church on Palm Sunday.  That morning, we all wore our Sunday gear to church and changed in the bathrooms as soon as the service was over.  Since we really needed to hit the road ASAP (we wanted to get there before it was dark), we were thankful that the pastor was going to be on our trip and he could control the length of the service!  Angie and I snuck out a bit early to run to town, pick up lunch, snacks and fill up on gas (oh, Wine and Dine, how I miss your delicious food).  Once we made it back to church, it was time to hit the road!  Before we could do that though, I had a heck of a time trying to peal Shawn and Sheldon out from under some seats.  Sneaky kids!

This was actually one of the most relaxing road trips I've ever been on in my life...I got to sit in the back (thanks to Pastor Jerry driving the entire trip!) and just put on my headphones and enjoy the African bush.  The definite highlight of the drive was when we came across a little family of elephants that were crossing the road!  Here you go:

One other part of the road trip that sticks out in my mind was when we stopped at border patrol.  First of all, you need to understand how immensely grateful I was to have Pastor Jerry along for this part of the journey.  I didn't want to have any problems with passports, or "losing days" for myself or the girls.  Apparently, there's always a chance that you could lose the amount of days that Botswana government gives you when you arrive.  This was particularly stressful for me, since I had to go to the immigration offices about 5 different times while I was in Maun, and I was warned by some people at LBOM that there was a chance I wouldn't be let back country if I left for any amount of time.  However, like I said before, I was very grateful to have Jerry along for this trip.  It was smooth sailing leaving Bots, and we got a kick out of seeing all the monkeys running around the property.  

When we arrived to Vic Falls, we went straight to our hotel, which was the beautiful Elephant Hills Resort.  We made it to our rooms, took in the view and then met up for a nice buffet dinner downstairs.  We even had entertainment!  These guys came out and did some traditional singing and dancing for us.  Since we were really the only group in the dining area, it was a little bit, um...intense to have so much attention directed towards us.  They were really talented, though, and a lot of fun to watch!

After that, we went back to our rooms and basically passed out.  Monday was going to be a big day (I was planning for it to be one of the best of my life)...
    
  

3 comments:

  1. I just laughed so hard that I started choking. But you nailed it. I was going for a cliffhanger to keep people wanting more... :)

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