Helicopter Ride

We went on a bicycle ride through the town of Victoria Falls. We had two local guides to direct us.

 Cheryl standing on the banks of the Zambezi River. This is the river that flows over Victoria Falls. It separates Zimbabwe from Zambia.

We went on a walking Safari with Dean as our guide. He had a rifle, pistol and a knife. He grew up in Botswana on his family's farm. He has an English accent. When asked if he had ever had to fire his weapon on a walking safari he told us a story of how he had to kill a charging elephant. The story was frightening because the elephant got so close that when it finally fell to the ground it knocked him over and the two people on the walking tour with him were right behind him but were untouched.

With perfect timing a herd of elephants including a large bull elephant appeared about 100 yards from us. Dean got really nervous and was starting to sweat heavily. He told us where to run to if the elephant started charging. The large bull elephant turned and faced us and flapped his ears and took a long look and then walked away.

In addition to the elephants we saw lots of other animals. Here are two Impala that were jousting with each other.

Here is a mother and baby giraffe.

We went on our first ever helicopter. It lasted for 15 minutes and fortunately was very smooth.

We flew several times over Victoria Falls and the Zambezi River.  What a great perspective

On our flight home we had to stay overnight in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Two things surprised us, one was that where we stayed was a very modern city and two the temperature was in the low 60s.  The airport was huge.

For the trip we flew from Liberia to Ghana to Kenya to Zambia and then to Zimbabwe. We returned by going from Zimbabwe to Botswana to Ethiopia to Ghana to Liberia. Leaving the Airport in Zimbabwe we had our luggage searched three times including having to get off the plane and go back and identify our luggage. Apparently there was a bomb threat and the president of the nation was going to be flying in.

Overall it was a great trip. Our accommodations and the food were excellent. Our tours were excellent. Travel took a long time but we're glad we visited Victoria Falls while we were in Africa.

While on our trip we got informed that our project to provide solar power to the Redemption Hospital and the project to provide a trash vehicle for the city of Totota were approved. They will be our last projects.

Today we had a new young woman's president sustained in the Dolo's Town Branch. She is 17 years old.

This is her first counselor. I don't know how old she is but it's less than seventeen.  They also had a new secretary sustained that was about the same age.

It'll be interesting to see how they do. The presidency who was released were women of the typical young women's presidency age.

Another mangled large truck on the road on our way home from church. Usually they stay there for a few weeks.  Next time we see it in about a week there will be a lot of missing parts.