I jumped off a perfectly good bridge!

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So today was my day off for the week, a bunch (6) of us bungee jumped and went ziplining!

We got up at a little before 6 am in order to catch the van because Delano, one of the workers, was taking us to bloukrans bridge, the largest commercial bungee jump in the world! He asked us all if we went to the bathroom because it was a 2 and a half hour drive and one girl is like nahh my bladders a champ! and I was like yeah, mine too, 5 kids and 1 bathroom, you kinda learn to hold it. Then we started off on our drive and I must say the things they have on the radio here are hilarious! On Thursday, they have drunk news, and it just so happened that all the drunk stories from this week were about people from the states, but they also mentioned that one hotel somewhere, I forget where, replaced all of the complimentary Bibles with 50 shades of grey. We couldn't hear the rest of the story because the whole van was just laughing so hard. We also made sure to fuel up before we left, it ended up 570R which amounts to like 80$ so be thankful our gas prices are so low! :P We were also told to stop on the side of the road by the police so they could check our registration and stuff. We don't really know why....

When we got there we had to wait a little and then we signed our life away, got weighed, harnessed and started walking towards the bridge. I had volunteered to go first but we found out that we actually didn't get to pick. The bridge was 216m at its highest point and you can see it when you sign up but once you begin walking down in order to bungee and the floor is like metal mesh so you can see right through it and straight to the bottom. It was awesome but freaky.

When we finally got to were you jump they asked me or Jacob who wanted to go first so I went first because literally everyone was fighting about it in the car. Since I'm first they put weights around my legs and tie everything up and connect you to the bungee. I was the first jump of the day so the guys who go to recover you were still getting ready so I kinda just had to stand there near the edge looking down thinking what in the world am I doing? Plus they were playing music really loud to pump you up but that made it so hard to hear what the guys were saying! So finally they are all set and they help me to the ledge (you can't go anywhere with your feet tied together) and they yell 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 BUNGEE!!! and you are supposed to jump off and look forward so that you fall correctly but I honestly have no idea what I was doing because my brain just stopped working all together. Then I was freefalling for about 5 seconds, couldn't tell which way was up, then I plunged all the way down, and the cord tightened around my feet, only to loosen on recoil, I probably recoiled about 7ish times and each time I felt like the things were going to fall off my feet so I kept my feet flexed so they would stay in! It was an amazing view once you stopped moving and was just waiting for the guy to come down and get you. Then when he gets you you aren't supposed to grab onto him, just let him hook you up and he automatically makes you sit up. It felt like it was taking forever though so I put my hands behind my head to help with the blood flow problem. All the while they are taking pictures of you with the workers which was pretty funny. It was a bit awkward to pose when you're that nervous/excited. Once you finally get to the top, they sit you down and lift your feet up which is freaky because you don't know how close to the edge you are and of course you don't want to fall again! They kept asking me if I would do it again, I said possibly but I don't know....It was an experience I'm definitely happy I've had, but been there done that and need to do something new. Since I was all done, I stood and waited as all my friends jumped off. They were all wicked nervous, and the tension was building which is why I'm so happy I went first. One girl was so nervous, but we tried calming her down by saying you play with lions and tigers everyday, you can do this! So Pascal had the brilliant idea for her to clap and say NO! to the ground on her way down like we do with the lions, and she did! We watched it on her video, it was too funny. Pascal, also fly like a bird, they were the only 2 in my group to do anything cool. This one guy from cape town was also there and he had done this 4 times before so instead of the traditional bungee, he had something attached near his stomach and he ran and jumped off the bridge. It looked like fun and you never went upside down for very long so I feel like it was actually a bit easier than what we did... After we all went, we went to the store and I bought the pictures, DVD, a tshirt and a piece of bungee cord.

We then went for lunch at a diner type of place and I got a burger, we were seated right next to a tv so we were watching motorcross. Me and the other Americans all yell when we talk so everyone makes fun of us for being so American. My burger was good and my "chips" were amazing, some of the best fries I've ever had. On the plus side, they have orange Fanta EVERYWHERE here so I love it 😊

After lunch, we tried to find a bathroom but wandered into this weird store that had a slice of a like 300 year old tree! it was freaking huge! I was so impressed, but I had left my camera in the car.

We then traveled onward to the zipline where we signed our lives away and got our harness and helmets on. Then we started on the trek. Ziplining was fun, but I never quite got the hang of it. My legs are so long that its hard to know exactly what they are doing, which i know sounds weird but its true! So they kept asking me to land funny and everyone else had it down to a science but I never landed perfectly, and I came short twice! aww man I was so bad at it lol. It was pretty and there were waterfalls and stuff but it was nothing compared to bungeeing, neither was the height. I think if we had gone ziplining first, we would have thought it was wayy cooler. But alas, its another thing to cross off my bucketlist. I figured we weren't allowed cameras, just like for bungee so I didn't take mine, but Pascal did, so he has the pics, so I'll have to get them from him eventually and put them up here and facebook probably.

Our adrenaline was pumping but we were still really tired because it had been such a long day that we all slept on the ride back. Then it was play time with the animals, but there was a film crew in with the tigers and about to go in with the lions so we weren't allowed to play with them because we would get them all riled up which would not be good for the camera, so of course I went to go see the hyenas, but shanzi was in a biting mood so we couldn't stay long 😞 Then it was feeding time and the lions and tigers had switched enclosures so we had to get them to switch back so we harnessed the smaller tigers and put their bottle in front of them so they would follow us and brought them to the right enclosure. Then we had to wait for the lions to get into their enclosure so to keep the babies occupied, I fed him his bottle. Can I just say a tiger sucking on a baby bottle is adorable! They get so excited though that you have to use one hand to hold them and the other on the bottle so its definitely no time for a photo op, unless someone else can take them, but everyone was so busy.

Then we all made are way up to the restaurant to cook diner and I made a grilled cheese because I wasn't too hungry. I then watched the sunset, which is so freaking gorgeous its unbelievable, so many different colors! We made our way back to the cabin and then I stayed in for the night again because I was too worried about my Pepere, who had had a heart attack and I really didn't want to go drink with everybody. And so ends day three.

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