Goodbye!

Sniffle. We left Nairobi and said farewell to six people, Jenny, Rowdy, Judith, Simone, Sabrina, and Erin. We'll miss you!



Some good times

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Kenya Believe We're In Kenya?

Badum dum chsssh. Hilarious, yes, I know!

There's really nothing to this post. I just wanted to make that joke. Kenya believe it?


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Zanzibar

Now in Tanzania, we set off for the island of Zanzibar. It's a few hour's ferry ride off the mainland. I stayed for three nights on the beach and one night in Stonetown, the island's main city.

I stayed in Sunset Bungalows on the beach. Ladies on the beach were offering henna and I got some painted on my right hand.







And the next day I SWAM WITH THE DOLPHINS! That's a check off my life list right there. There were baby ones too.

The next day, I swam with sea turtles. I wasn't as excited for this one but it was really, really cool.




Leaving the beach but before getting to Stonetown, we did a spice tour. We saw different plants and learned how we use them from cinnamon to iodine.




Our guides, one climbing his way up the tree.




Iodine

We were given gifts too. Hats, purses and a necklace for the ladies and a hat and tie for the gents.




In Stonetown, we saw more of the cultural side of Zanzibar. Walking around, you could find all sorts of nifty things. A few of us went to a night market and had street food.






The narrow streets and winding paths felt like the medinas of Morocco. Islam is also becoming more common as we make our way north again.



Cute :)

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Lake Malawi

Moving on from Zimbabwe, we crossed into Malawi and worked our way to Lake Malawi. We had a pig day, truck olympics and I learned to scuba dive through the training program PADI.



Yummers



Pull, pull, pull (we won this one)!




Three legged race




Wheel barrow race

And see that island out in the distance? That is where I did my first scuba dive. The deepest I got to was ten meters (30 feet) where I was a cool sunken boat, fish, and coral. Before that, I had to learn about my equipment, how to use it, how to cope in an emergency and other techniques. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to the Red Sea in Egypt.

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Antelope Park

I'll start off with saying our 5 days in Antelope park were pretty freaking cool. The park's ultimate goal is to bring more lions back into the wild. They have a four step lion program. Step one raises lion cubs to hone their instincts, two puts them in a semi-wild environment with no human contact, step three puts them in an barely controlled environment and those lions have wild cubs. Step four is full release into the wild, but only of the wild cubs once they grow up to be adults. Lions with human contact can never be released into the wild. The park has rescued orphaned elephants as well.

Our first full day, I started off by riding one of these elephants. Her name is Chibi. We rode for half an hour in the bush.




My view




Our shadow

She was such a friendly girl. She even gave me a hug and got elephant snot all over my arm. But of all the problems to have in the world, I'd take elephant snot any day.


It was slimy.

That evening I went on the lion walk. This is part of step one to familiarize the cubs with the bush.




Crazy! This is Laili, an 18 month old lion cub.





The two cubs under a tree. They were so cute and playful together.



She looks pretty viscous but she is yawning.




Looking right in the camera.



She tried to pounce on my camera after these pictures, haha!

The next day I got to interact with the elephants. Ntombi was the one I was with this time. You'll notice she only has one tusk. Most of the elephants had just one because of their history before they were taken in.



Feeding her.




Om nom nom!



Who needs a car anyways?




Eye see you!




Kisses :-*

Originally I wondered at how ethically the elephants were treated. But once a day they do the walk and interaction and the rest of the day is theirs to wander through the park and graze and just be elephants. They even wandered through our camp a couple of times.

That evening was the lion feeding. Ever wonder what it's like to have seven full grown male lions gallop straight towards you at full speed? I'll tell you: it's spectacular but I just about peed my pants. What happened was we were on one side of a fence and a dead cow was on the other. They the lions were let loose to eat and, boy, did they go for it.





This happens so the dominant male can be picked out and eventually put through the next stages. They want the best of the best to go into the wild.




Mhhhmmmm





This one turned out to be the dominant one. He was super protective over his food and roared at us to stay away. He didn't like me much.



You have a bit of cow blood on your chin, bud. Nope, the other side. There, now you got it.




And then when they were done eating, they all laid down and slept. They are cats, after all.

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Chimanimani

After a long drive day, we spent a couple nights in Chimanimani. This town used to be popular among tourists. But people have stopped coming and I could tell. But this town had some cool things to offer and everyone was very nice to us.





A few of us hiked up to Bridal Veil Falls. Guess what? It looks like a veil of a bride!


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Great Zimbabwe Ruins

Traveling through Zim, we stopped at the Great Zimbabwe Ruins. These ruins are from the 13th-15th century and I was impressed by how intact they were.





My group's guide was named Marie. We first went to the museum to learn the history of the place then we hiked the ancient path to the hill complex.




Up up up!





Up here is where the king lived. They had caves, ritual grounds, meeting areas and all sorts of places a king would need. It was believed the last king to be here had 250 wives- that's almost one a day! But they lived below him. He yelled from the top of his rock dwelling if he wanted a wife to come to him. What a player, eh?




Marie draws in the dirt of what used to be the place of rituals.





This is the great enclosure where the main wife lived. It is where Zimbabwe got it's name. "Zim" "bab" "we" means "big" "stone" "house". At that, my friends, is a big house of stone. It's almost all still the original stones and they don't even have cement or plasters holding them together.





Marie and I in front of the famous passage way. It's famous cause it leads to this (the two trees and the tower, meaning abundant food and wealth, which is a symbol for Zimbabawe):




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