Livingstone - Day 1

Today was awesome!  Early in the morning myself and a few others were picked up at the campsite and driven to a lion refuge outside of Livingstone.  We were treated to a short video about the refuge and given instructions on how to behave around the lions and above all, we were told to listen to and obey all orders given by the guides.

So off we go.  We wander through tall grass and shrubs and come across a couple of lions relaxing under a tree.  The guide goes over to one of the lions and does a brief commentary about the lion's coat coloring and other features like the paws, ears and whatever.  While he is pointing out the various things, he's grabbing its paws, pulling its ears, etc.  Then comes the teeth part.  He grabs the lion's mouth and opens it up and starts talking about the teeth.  The lion is not too happy but tolerates the prodding.  Now our turn, so one by one we sit down beside the lions and have someone take our picture.  Some people are obviously nervous.  Shauna, travelling with her parents, was terrified and had to be coaxed into sitting with the lions.

After all pictures were taken, the guide pokes the lions and tells them to get up as they have to go for a walk.  They slowly get up and start walking down the path through the trees and bushes.  All the time we are walking either behind them or beside them while the guide continues his commentary.

Towards the end of the walk, while we are taking pictures, one of the lions jumps up and makes a mad dash right towards me.  I jumped out of the way and the lion brushes past me and heads down the trail.  Everybody is in shock, and the guide chuckles and explains that the lion knew it was the end of the walk and was in a rush to get back to where she was resting earlier.  Breakfast was included in this excursion so we headed back to the lodge and had a full breakfast before heading back to our campgrounds.

 

At noon a few of us headed off to the Devil's Pool, located at the top edge of Victoria Falls.  I thought it would be just a relaxing 30 or 40 minutes in a pool with a view - NOT!  Turns out we had to swim to the pool from a point that was perhaps 20 metres from the ledge where the Falls catapult to the gorge far below (108 metres) with only a rope between us and the drop-off if we were to get into some difficulty.  Not only did we have to swim to get to the pool, we had to also fight the strong current.  Dushani (we nicknamed her DJ) panicked and started to turn back.  The guide grabbed her and told her to grab onto his shoulders and he would take her to the pool.  It turns out that she should have advised the guide that she was not a strong swimmer as he had asked before heading to the pool.  We made it to the edge of the pool, about six metres from the drop-off, where we had to leap into the air and land in the middle of the pool some two to three metres from the drop-off.  We then had to make our way to the very edge of the pool where we climbed out of the pool onto a ring of rocks that was covered by two to three inches of flowing water.  At this point we were no more than half a metre from the drop-off.  Man, talk about exhilarating!  We were allowed to lay on our stomach and peek over the ledge and view the falling water far below with the mist displaying two beautiful rainbows.  We spent enough time here for everyone to have their picture taken before heading back for our noon lunch which was included in the package.

Leap of Faith

After getting back to camp and telling everyone about our exhilarating experience, a few others in our group decided to book the Devil's Pool excursion for the next day.

As an added note, a couple from Toronto (Wayne and Debbie) asked me if I would accompany them to the bungee jump as he wanted me to video his jump.  I went with them and watched Wayne take his jump.  It looked like something that I wouldn’t mind to try but didn’t like the idea of hanging upside down by my feet, for fear I might take a brain hemorrhage.  I asked if it was possible to jump with some sort of waist strap that would keep me upright and was told that it could be done.  In the end I decided not to jump.

That’s it for my first full day in Livingstone.