Suspension Saturday

Day 33

Suspension Saturday!

My day started with a fire alarm going off at 6:30 in the morning. Great. I packed up my things and headed down to the lobby, where I met Dr. Tullos and Ian. They were both waiting for their Rhino walk to start. Apparently the side of the hotel the girls were residing did not go off. Eventually the alarm went off, and I returned to my room. I was wide awake now so I waited until 7:30 to meet Cari and Kara for breakfast before we headed to the markets together. Breakfast, as always was great. The hotel food was excellent. After breakfast we headed out to do some shopping before our exciting activity that we were going to do together later in the day.

Unfortunately, I got separated from them because of a misunderstanding. I thought we were going to meet in a certain market, but they took too much time in another shop and decided not to go to the market I was at. I waited for them and quickly realized that I needed to head back to the hotel or else I was going to miss our planned activity. It was a 45 minute walk back to the hotel. But on the way a Zambian man named John, who originally tried to sell me things, kept me company as I walked the long journey back. We talked about all sorts of things, Zambian copper, Namwinga, jobs in Zambia. It was very interesting, and nice.

I arrived at the hotel, Kara was a little stressed about me arriving late, but soon we were in a cab and headed to our destination. Our destination you ask? Well we went bungee jumping! On our way there we listened to great music which made us laugh. Once we arrived at the site we walked through a customs check point because the bridge is half way in Zambia and half in Zimbabwe. Once we started the process of starting to sign up for bungee, the lady informed me that they only took cash. Great. Well I didn’t have cash, but Cari and Kara did. The lady told me that there was a ATM in a nearby hotel, and she also mentioned a five minute walk, which was not the case.

I started my walk to the hidden ATM. I had to journey back through customs, back through all the creepy cab drivers, and passed a police check point. Finally after a twenty minute walk I arrived at the hotel where a very kind lady directed me to the ATM. During my walk through the drive of the hotel I noticed some ponds, and then a sign that said, “Beware of Crocodiles” Nice. Finally I arrived at the ATM, withdrew the money and headed back to the Bungee site. I signed up and was ready to jump.

Cari, Kara, and I were super excited. The girls in my absence decided that I should go first. So we went to the bridge and got suited up for jumping. It was very excited. All the workers were very nice. It was time for my turn to jump. Kara took lots of pictures. My feet were wrapped in no time and then it was time to jump. I scooted to the edge, raised my arms, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Bungee! I leaped up and out and began falling. It was an amazing experience; I loved every second of it. I bounced up and down many times until I stopped swinging, and then a man came down in a harness singing; which made me laugh. He grabbed on to me, pulled me upright so I was sitting and then they lifted me up to the top where I could walk across the bottom of the bridge over into Zimbabwe, and then walk back. I watched Kara jump after me and then Cari. Once Kara was on top of the bridge, she was so excited that she started jumping/running towards me, which I decided that I should do the same. It was a very picturesque moment. After we were all done we headed back to where our cab dropped us off and headed to Olga’s for lunch.

Olga’s was great again. I got a calzone this time. After lunch we did some more shopping, this time I was with Regan and Cari. I got a few things and then headed back to the hotel, because it was time to head back to Namwinga.

The trip back we were all very tired, so it was a quite ride. When we arrived at the Hamby house we ate dinner and then hung out till movie time, which I ended up not attending because the bulb broke and it took too long to fix it. So I decided to blog and then go to bed.

 Thanks for all of your prayers.

Ben