Lions, bungee and microlight, oh my!!!!

Well, moved onto Zambia. That's country number 6 now. Had a little snafu in Malawi with a busted valve on the truck and had to hang out at Lake Malawi for a couple of more days. Not a bad place to chill out and rest up. Always nice to take advantage of some access to laundry and upgraded to a small cabin, and i do mean small to get through a few rainy days. The definite highlight was playing soccer (football to you non Americans, which I am constantly reminded of, by my aussie/brit compatriots) with the local village kids. Our team was made up of about 9 guys from various overland groups and a couple of the locals who were awesome. Luckily since "football" is practically mandatory for all non Americans, we faired well and managed a 5-5 tie. It was quite competitive and there were times, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Haven't played a real game since high school, which many of you know was quite a few years ago. I have been complemented that I played well for an American. There was about 30-40 people there including the players and the level of play (not by me) was quite high. Just one of those special experiences that sometimes you get sheltered from when you are with a tour group. I will treasure it, especially the time I spent on the sideline with the little kids as they showed me how to make a simple little mini rocket with the long grass. I love how kids can just have fun with the smallest of things. Who needs Xbox? Lake Malawi is so beautiful and huge, and they have many times off in the distance what looks like large puffs of smoke on the horizon. It turns out that these puffs of smoke are actually millions of insects (i think stone flies) hatching at around the same time and flying around and I think mating. It's just amazing!!!! We next moved through Malawi to country number 6, Zambia. Everything is beautiful and green and relatively hilly. The 2nd day in Zambia was fraught with a couple of mini disasters that could have proven quite perilous but we managed to survive. About an hour after driving, many of us were woken by a loud crashing sound which I perceived as something falling off one of the shelves, but which turned out to be another truck coming from the opposite direction smashing into the side mirror of our driver which shattered and entered his window and landing on the floor. There were shards of glass everywhere and both the driver and one of the girls in the seat behind him had some cuts on their faces and glass in their hair. Luckily the girl, saw the truck at the last moment, and closed her eyes. After the clean up and replacement of the mirror, because these guys have replacement parts for everything on this truck, we continued onward. Hours later, I was again woken (we sleep a lot on the truck) by the truck being at a rather odd angle. There had been a truck trailer that had fallen over the side of the road, so a crane was taking up over half the road trying to yank it up. As we passed on the other side, the right side of our truck sank into the mud and we were at a 45 degree angle, feeling like we were going to topple over. After getting out of the truck which felt a lot like the old Batman series where everything is at a weird angle, the truck was able to backup and move closer to the crane to continue onward. And then Finally, we entered Livingstone, Zambia, named after you guessed it, Dr. Livingstone, I presume. His presence is all over Africa. The man has been everywhere. Well, that was two days ago, so, on my second day in the morning, I walked with a couple of lions. Yes you read it. A small group of us had the opportunity to help walk some lions with a program called ALERT which is working to increase lion populations in several countries in Africa by breeding lions and training them to survive in the wild. This entails exercising them daily, because they are essentially lazy animals until they reach about 18months where they place them in a controlled wild population without other predators and then after time out into the real wild to compete with other predators. In the 1st stage they can be with humans because their natural instinct to kill has not matured, but they are still large and powerful animals which are very unpredictable. We were instructed about proper actions and behaviors that we were supposed to have such as not crouching (which is a submissive position), not running or else you are like prey and they will run after you and either play with you or eat you, and to not back down if they approach you. We were all given a small stick about 2 feet long and we were to actually step strongly towards them and yell "NO" in a firm domineering fashion to teach them who was boss. All the while, hoping to not crap in your pants. Luckily neither of the two lions actually advanced on us, but the thought was quite frightening. We had the opportunity to pet the lions and I actually held one of their tails as they walked ahead of us. One of the lions even climbed into a tree for a few minutes. Just amazing. So for most people, this would be quite a full day, but for wild bill in Africa, it was only the beginning. As a group, we then met back at camp and jumped on the truck and headed to Victoria Falls, where we had to actually pass through immigration to enter Zimbabwe. Why would we pop into another country after only being in Zambia for less than a day. Well, to throw yourself off a bridge 111 meters thats over 350 feet to most of you towards the Zambezi river tied to a big rubber band. About 7 of our merry band decided to take the plunge off the bridge that falls between Zambia and Zimbabwe (of note, 1 dollar gets you about a several million zimbabwe dollars) border. As usual the experience was amazing though I was a little nervous when they were tying towels around my calves to use as part of the support device for the jump. I survived though I thought my eyeballs may have temporarily exited the back of my head, and I had blurry vision for a minute or so as I dangled from the bridge. After that 5 of us hiked around the other side of the falls for a soaking like you couldn't believe. I was even wet under my rain gear. It is one of the most beautiful sights I have seen. The fall stretch on for a few hundred yards and are so powerful it's like you are in the middle of a raincloud or hurricane. Now if that wasn't exciting enough, as we walked through the jungle like terrain, we were only 50 feet from the exit when we saw a cute large baboon (don't be fooled people, they are evil, evil creatures) munching on some nuts in a plastic bag that he had stolen from some poor tourist. He was just a foot from the walkway, so as we were passing towards him we stopped for a photo and some quick video since he was so preoccupied. Seconds later he turned on us and rushed at one of the woman scratching her leg. We all started yelling and screaming at it but it kept coming at us, standing up almost 3 feet tall. One of my buddies then went at it and started swinging his arms to scare the baboon away, but it started swinging at him, looking like a prize fighting match. It was actually quite frightening and finally after what seemed like forever, the baboon backed down followed by one of the guards shooting rocks with a slingshot at him. WOW!!! Wild day, right, well I am not quite done. A few hours later, I was taking off in a microlight/ultralight which for those that don't know is essentially like a go kart with wings and a propeller on back. I like to compare it to the freedom of being on a motorcycle. You are completely at one with the world around you but you are flying through the sky. My destination was following the Zambezi river over the top of the Victoria Falls. It is one of the most amazing things I have ever done. I was crapping in my pants, but was completely exhilarated as we floated around seeing the power of mother nature. On the way back, my pilot was pointing out elephants, hippos and crocodiles oh, my!!! Don't worry folks, I have video and photographic coverage of all of these activities, coming to a theater near you. Just an amazing day and probably untoppable for awhile, at least, though I did go on a rhino walk this morning which involved a walking safari with 4 others, a guide and an armed guard with an AK47 which is mandatory on all walking safaris (though as our guide told us, is not really effective against rhinos and elephants, but great against human poachers which was the original intent). We walked about 1/2 kilometer to where the rhino was grazing in field and literally walked to within 15 feet of an amazingly large white rhino which weighs a few tons and as our guide told us run faster than Usain Bolt in a 50 meter sprint. A little disconcerting, but we survived intact and followed him for about 30 minutes or so. It was incredible. Ok, that's enough for now, been on the computer too long and my bladder is about to spontaneously combust. Onto Botswana tomorrow. Take care.