...and the one where I fling myself off a bridge!

WARNING: The following post is long and extremely picture heavy!

So when I left off, we had just finished our adventures in the Victoria Falls Park! Absolutely stunning, right? But what I did next was certainly the highlight of my day!

One option that had been brought up when discussing the trip was bungee jumping over the Zambezi, right next to the Falls. Typically, I'm not a daredevil person and I prefer to stay on solid ground. But something inside of me was just itching to do this bungee jump! I was extremely pumped about it, up until the night before we went to the Falls. I then learned that only about a year ago, a cord snapped and left a woman flying into the Zambezi, which happens to be home to some crocodiles (Sorry Mom, it had to be said). I spent most of the night contemplating if I would rather drown or be eaten by crocodiles (although it should be noted that the woman survived with only a broken leg).

However, I woke up the morning of feeling 100% sure about jumping and I was more excited than ever. Even when most of the rest of my group was feeling butterflies, I was leading the charge onto the bridge! I have no idea what came over me, but I was going to jump off that bridge!

 Victoria Falls Bridge a.k.a. the bridge I flung myself off of

We were scheduled to jump at 11 a.m. and we arrived at the bridge at about 10:30. We actually got to watch another group jump which was one part terrifying and one part thrilling. We then headed up to the headquarters to officially sign up. We all chose to do the "Big Air Experience" which consists of: a zipline across the Zambezi river (crossing from the Zambian side to the Zimbabwean side), a bridge swing, which gives the same free fall as the bungee jump, but you get to stay right side up for the entire experience, and of course, the 111 meter bungee jump!

You had to start with the zipline, so we all got into our little harnesses and headed out! I don't really have any pictures of the event since we had to leave our cameras at the shop, but it was just your basic zipline experience. A good warm-up for the main event!

Once we had all crossed back over, we took our positions on the bridge...

 The view looking out from the bridge!

 And the view looking down! Plus a pretty rainbow :)

In my excited state, I decided it would be fun to volunteer to be the first person in my group to do the bungee jump. And honestly, it was probably the best decision I could have made. I had absolutely no idea what to expect so it all got to be a pure adrenaline rush. When I got up there, I was expecting to have a little pep talk once I reached the jumping area but all I got was a "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, bungee!!" and pushed over the side! I wish I could describe what it felt like to do the jump. It was just beyond anything I could have expected. The adrenaline rush was just crazy. I couldn't really tell up from down or where I was in relation to anything. I just knew that I couldn't imagine doing anything more exhilarating than that in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Getting my harness on!

 Ready to BUNGEE!!

 

After my jump, I went back up onto the bridge to do my bungee swing! I really enjoyed my bungee swing because you had the same thrill as the bungee jump, but you got to see the Falls more. I felt like I was on top of the world! But, as much as I enjoyed the swing, I would have to say I enjoyed the jump more - nothing can compare to the feeling I got from that experience.

Watching closely as I got fastened in!

Swinging above the Zambezi!

After that I got to stand back and watch all my friends jump as well! I honestly loved every single second of it and would jump again in a heartbeat! It was definitely an experience that can't be beat and I highly recommend it to anyone that is even remotely considering it.

After that we crossed over into Zambia and went out for dinner for the night. We were planning on doing a few other activities in Zambia, but they ended up being closed due to the heavy volume of water. Oh well, just gives me more reason to return!

My trip to Victoria Falls has certainly been one of the highlights of my study abroad experience. I have certainly gotten hooked on traveling and I don't plan to stop anytime soon! We are already planning a trip to Mozambique at the end of our trip that I'm going to participate in. I can't wait to experience all that Africa has to offer me!

 Reppin' my Alpha Delta Pi letters during the jump!

My crazy group!

A special thanks to Janine for taking all of these spectacular pictures! You're the best!

The one where I visit Victoria Falls...

WARNING: The following post is very long and extremely picture heavy!

Hello everyone!

So after being absent for entirely too long, I'm here once again to update you on my adventures! It's been crazy busy here is Bots - clinical rotations, classes, homework, traveling, and trying to get a little bit of sleep in between. Hopefully I'll be able to update you all on my daily life soon, but right now I want to focus on my amazing trip to Victoria Falls last weekend!

Since we had only been in Botswana for a week, we hardly had any time at all to plan the trip. Luckily, Vicki and Janine, two of my friends, found the time to pull it all together for 23 of us in the program! Snaps for Vicki and Janine! :)

We ended up leaving for Zimbabwe Friday morning at 4:00. Most of us just dragged ourselves out of bed, into the private bus we had hired, and promptly passed out again. By the time we woke up, we were already halfway across the country! We were passing different signs that warned us of crossing pedestrians (normal), cows (a bit odd), and impala (well, we are in Africa, right?). But the next sign I saw looked something like this...

Elephant Crossing....Excuse me, what???

And the next thing I know, the driver is slowing down the car and I look out the window to see this guy staring back at me!!

Say hello!

Absolutely crazy! I was completely beside myself for the rest of the trip. There was a real life elephant just chilling on the side of a highway. It still blows my mind. But he wasn't the only friend we saw on the way there!

Kudu

If you look realllllyyyy closely behind the tree in the center, you will see a giraffe. Or maybe just a tree. There was definitely a giraffe in real life though!

Some monkey friends greeting us at the Zimbabwe border!

By the time we changed our money back to USD (it was so odd using it again) and gotten situated in our hostel, it was pretty late, so we ate at the hostel resturant and turned in for the night.

The next morning, a group of us went into the Victoria Falls Park to get pictures. I've seen pictures of the Falls before, but absolutely nothing compares to seeing them in person. Just hearing the water come crashing down is a wonder. I got a few good pictures, but it hardly does it justice.

 Heading into the Park!

This was a much more difficult picture to take than I expected - took about 7 tries. I thought I would just show you the best one!

The Victoria Falls Bridge

 Gotta love that ADPi <>

By the time we were done with the Park we were thoroughly soaked. Right now is the peak of their flood season - all the water from the rainy season at the Zambezi basin in November has finally made it down to Victoria Falls - so the spray coming up from the Falls was insane! Towards the end of the path there's an area that you can go out to and essentially take a shower because the water is coming down so hard. I chose not to get completely soaked because soon after I was heading to BUNGEE JUMPING!!! I'll do another post for that alone so I don't overload you with pictures! But I'll leave you with one of my favorite ones.

"And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."

Mokolodi Safari!

Hey everyone!

It's been crazy busy here - I was so tired I passed out at 9:30 last night with my lights on! Quite the surprise when I woke up again at 4. We started our clinical rotations and classes this week and it's been absolutely awesome! However, I still need to fill you all in on my adventures at Mokolodi Nature Reserve!

Mokolodi Nature Reserve is a game park near Gaborone, Botswana - maybe 10 minutes outside of town. Our program arranged for us all to go there to have a game drive (safari), educational lecture, and stay the night so that we could volunteer the next day. I was so pumped!

About to head out!!

We headed out on Thursday at 2pm and went straight to our lodging area to put our stuff away, then headed out to the lecture area. They started out by telling us that the government had recently banned the hunting of large game animals, which I initially thought was fantastic. However, they went on to explain that because of this, the reserve is currently at 158% capacity and so are many other parks around the country. This is a huge issue because the animals now have to be either given supplementary feed or humanely killed, while the park is operating at a loss. They pointed out that if they were allowed to auction off the hunting of just one animal, they would be able to make a huge profit and use that to save other animals as well. It was definitely a different way of looking at the problem - a way I don't think most Americans would ever see for themselves. It reminded me how self-centered our whole culture is - if it doesn't explicitly have to do with us, we just mindlessly promote whatever we "think" is best, without ever actually thinking about it. We so often forget how much influence we have.

After this thought-provoking lecture, we got into our game drive vehicle with our guides, Glen (a very sarcastic UK native) and Junior (a very good driver given all the potholes in the road) and headed out into the reserve! I honestly can't put most of it into words, so I'll just show pictures.

 Spotted Hyena!

 Male and female Kudu (the male is fully grown when its horns have 3 twists!)

 Pumbaa and baby Pumbaa! (Possibly the cutest, ugliest thing I've ever seen)

 Giraffe! (We actually went on a hunt on foot for this picture! Shout out to Glen for being an awesome tour guide!)

 Impala!

We had a bonfire as the sun was setting (my camera had died so I'm stealing a picture from one of my friends. Thanks Michelle!) and toasted marshmallows. It was so much fun to hang out with everyone and just chill.

The next morning we were up bright and early for breakfast before gearing up to volunteer! We were filling in some of the potholes in the road that had gotten really bad and building flash flood barriers to prevent more potholes from occurring, while conveniently providing a little watering hole for the animals. I was rather painfully reminded that I have no upper body strength during this and promptly decided my best efforts would be best put into motivating those who could actually do work. But I did attempt for about 45 minutes, so I will consider that a success.

We finally came home at 2pm on Friday, after buying a few gifts in the shop for friends and family! :) I am so glad I had the opportunity to go and learn and I can't wait to go to some other game reserves here as well!

I had to end with this awesome Lion King mural they had in our lodge!

Team No Sleep

This past week has been absolutely crazy. 28 hours of traveling, changing dorm rooms 3 times, lectures, random water and electricity outages for conservation, jet lag, and a very different concept of being on time has lead to me getting approximately 4 hours of sleep each night.

Traveling here was definitely an interesting experience. From Washington D.C., I flew 8 hours to Dakar, Senegal, where we stopped to refuel and drop off some passengers. Then, an hour later we were back at it again, flying another 8 hours to Johannesburg, South Africa. I was lucky enough to meet up with 4 other girls in the program before the flight left, which was so nice because I hate traveling alone. The first 8 hours wasn't too bad but after leaving Dakar, it was rough. On the flight, I met a guy who was actually going to live with his Dad in South Africa for the next two years and study mechanical engineering! He's spent most of his life going back and forth between living in the States and South Africa. He gave me some tips on what to expect culture wise, which was very helpful because at that point, I felt completely unprepared.

After an hour long flight to Gaborone, we made it out of the airport and back to our hotel for the night. There, we were greeted by a candlelight dinner. Why? No romance in this one - the power was out. Gaborone is prone to random power outages in order to conserve power and electricity. They have a schedule, but unfortunately, they have to make unexpected cuts. Talk about a warm welcome! It finally turned back on and I was able to meet the rest of the 26 people in the program.

 First day in Africa!

 Our beautiful hotel

The next day we moved into the dorms. One thing that I have figured out about Africa is that they have a very different concept of time. In their culture, they are much more laid back and time is usually centered around 30 minute to hour long chunks of time. Due to this, it's not uncommon at all to see people running late or to have entire schedules reworked at a minutes notice. I'm trying hard to get used to this, but it's very difficult for someone like me who lives by the clock. So, moving into the dorms ended up being a bit of a mess, with rooms not ready and an uncertain arrangement, resulting in me changing rooms 3 different times. I'm hoping I'm finally in a room that I get to stay in for more than 48 hours. Cross your fingers for me!

Most days I've been spending in orientation lectures or out exploring the town/buying supplies for dorm life! On Wednesday, we were able to visit 3 different clinics in the area - Baylor Pediatric HIV/AIDS Clinic, Princess Marina Hospital (the largest hospital in the area) and the Extension 2 Clinic (the largest clinic in the area). I was only able to take pictures at the Baylor Clinic but I will be spending time at the Extension 2 Clinic so hopefully I can get some pictures then!

 Baylor Clinic!

An amazing piece of artwork inside - Africa made out of patches of HIV/AIDS ribbons

We ended our orientation week with an overnight visit to the Mokolodi Nature Reserve! It was absolutely amazing but I have tons of pictures to post and lots to talk about so I'll be doing that in a separate post. I'll just leave you with a few other pictures from this week!

 Spinach, Feta and Creamy Avo Sandwich from Juicy Lucy - a restaurant here {sooo yummy!}

All businesses have to have a picture of the President of Botswana in them - here he is!

Vicki {my roommate} and I at dinner!