Friday, July 3, 2015

An Adventure of a Lifetime, Part 4

This will be my final post about our great African adventure.

One morning, while still at Sabi Sabi, we were given the option of either walking a bush walk or going to a local rural village. Tom chose the walk, and I chose the village. The village has a population of about 4000. I particularly enjoyed going to the pre-school. The children were so friendly! They loved giving "high  fives" and having their photo taken.




This is the school's  library.


We all were amused by the title of this book.


When it  was time for us to leave, a large group of children sang to us.


A group of ladies from the village also sang and danced  for us.


The sounds you hear in the background were made by this woman.


I also enjoyed watching another woman who was beading.


We next headed to Zimbabwe. We had a boat trip on the Zambezi River our first evening. We saw only a little bit of wildlife, but still enjoyed the trip.


Monitor lizard  (He was enormous!)




From our hotel we could see the mist from Victoria Falls.



The next morning we visited a wildlife sanctuary.

This is Sylvester, a cheetah, who was rescued as a cub before his eyes opened. When he was two days old, his mother and her four other cubs were attacked and killed by a lion. Luckily for Sylvester, a game scout witnessed the event. A husband and wife decided to take care of the cub and named him after the game scout who had saved him. When he opened his eyes there were only humans around, and he bonded with them. If interested, you can read more about Sylvester here.  He even has his own Facebook  page.


We were also able to get close to some elephants at the sanctuary. The elephants are very accustomed to people. There is a one-to-one ratio of elephants to trainers. These elephants are not held captive but are free to leave whenever they'd like.


If you wanted, you could feed  them.




After lunch, it was time for a mud bath.




Then we were off to Victoria Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The Falls are on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia. This bridge connects the two countries.


It was a beautiful day, and we were lucky enough to see several rainbows, including a double rainbow. We just didn't find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.




And so ends our great African adventure!  It  has been fun to share it with you.

7 comments:

Marilyn said...

I can see why this is a trip of a lifetime.
The pics are all amazing.
What great memories you have.
Thanks for sharing your trip wit us Ellen, I certainly enjoyed it.
Marilyn

Vickie said...

:D Well, once again, I love this post too! I have shared with my daughter. We love the school children.♥

Marsha said...

Wonderful!

Margaret said...

What an amazing trip you and Tom had! Thanks so much for sharing with us. This is the only way I will see such sites. It was wonderful to armchair travel with you!

Melody said...

What an amazing trip! So many memorable images..the falls are especially beautiful!

Annette-California said...

I would have chosen the rural village and had gone with you Ellen!
What a treat to see your all your wonderful videos also! I saw the one where Tom was running away from the elephant with the tusks!! But he was smiling as running away - lol! Thank you Thank you Thank you for sharing your Africa trip with us. Watching the falls is so relaxing, beautiful and rewarding. love Annette

geeky Heather said...

Oh, Ellen, I really enjoyed these posts!! I dream of being able to go on safari one day! Although to be ready at 6am, I would probably just have to stay up all night, LOL!!