Vic Falls, Walking with Lions and Adrenaline Rob!

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Into Zambia which is so different to the other countries we've been to so far ! It's a lot less commercialized still and the border crossing was crazy - Lots of beer changing hands to move down the queue to board the ferry and then across. There were people and cargo everywhere I was walking on my own and Dougie came to be my husband as he thought the local guys behind me looked 'dodgy' I hadn't noticed but him being from Zim he isn't quite as naive as me!

We got to the camp site and opted to share a family room with Catherine and Steph - it is soo much more expensive in comparison to where we have come from. We had a presentation around the sports and things to do which were on offer and we picked a couple to do the following day which was quite expensive but worth it as i will come to. That night we went into town for a group meal as it was Henric's birthday and all had quite a lot of the old vino - Myself, Rob, Steph and Catherine had shared 3 bottles throughout the afternoon - bad idea!
So after the meal Jimmy came up with the cunning plan of a club as it was our next to the last night and the group would soon be moving on without us so obviously we had to go hehe.

It was a bit of an experience as it was in the middle of the town with about a hundred locals outside all trying to offer you a taxi or something else. The club was concrete floor and walls and open outside with just four huge speakers at the front and lots of dancing. We had a pastor come up to us to start to talk about his faith and a few locals who took us under their wing and had a chat with us - Rob spoke the language of football which seems to be accepted more places than Visa!!

A few beers in and we were dancing with everyone - Jimmy and Heneric were being poached by a lovely young lady and so in the end had to come out as a couple and of course we aided in making it more authentic.

We got in just after 2am and had agreed to a Lion walk at 5.15am the following morning - 5 attempts later and Rob was up ish. A bit worse for wear we turned up and didn;t really know what to expect with the walking with lions but wow wow wow wow.

It is a program where some of the lions up to 18 months have contact with humans and they walk through the bush with them and then sit and you can stroke them. After 18 months they move to step 2 where they are put in an environment where they are encouraged to develop their hunting skills so there is game in the area. Stage 3 is where they are moved to areas where there are predators too and encouraged to form a pack. Any cubs born in this stage won't have the contact with humans and will go straight to stage 4 which is being released in national parks. It was fascinating and the two lions who we were with were 10 months old females but still huge !!! they were called Kia and Luca and Kia was a complete minx - it was amazing !!!!

From here we then went to Victoria Falls which is one of the most beautiful sights on earth and I loved running across the bridge in front with the spray coming over you like a torential downpour. Half way across the bridge you couldn't see either way when the spray came across and it felt like you were floating it was fantastic!

Rob being the crazy adrenaline junky he has turned into did a bungee jump from the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia - I stood on the bridge and leaned over which is quite an improvement hehe. He then did a zip line as well which was really peaceful but the bungee looked amazing as there were rainbow's forming as he went down (also doing a cheeky Meerkat as he jumped Phil - you should be proud!)

So back to camp for the last day and an emotional farewell to the people we have lived with for the last month.

Africa was a life changing experience and we think we left a part of us there as we can't wait to go back but we have a few more paces to visit before then ..... So home time and looking forward to seeing you all

Lots of love

N and R xxxx

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