The Craziest, Most Exciting, Most Terrifying – But Best Day Ever

We walked a cheetah, zipped along a zip line, swung on a gorge swing and the next day we went on an elephant ride.

First, we walked Sylvester the cheetah. Sylvester has a very interesting and sad life story. He was chased by a lion with his other cub siblings and most of his siblings were very injured or sad to say it, dead, but Sylvester wasn’t injured at all. So, the people who are now his ambassadors went back and stayed there for three days waiting for his mother to return, but Sylvester’s mother never came. So, Sylvester was taken in by humans. When he was old enough, the new cheetah ambassadors took him in, cared for him and raised him.  

Now, he is used to educate people about cheetahs, as you take a walk with him and the ambassadors. It was really amazing! First, we let Sylvester off of his leash. Next, we got to walk with him off leash and feel his shoulder blades and fur. We learned that a cheetah’s shoulder blades are not connected to his collar bone so they are able to move so much that it allows them run quickly. Sylvester can run 100m in three seconds and up to 70 miles per hour. As we were walking, Sylvester found a pond and was thirsty. So, we followed him to the small pond that had no connections to the river. Sylvester put his nose in and decided he did not like this stale water, so he moved to another pond connected to the river that was flowing. He started drinking water and we were able to take a bunch of pictures of him while he drank. Sylvester drank so much water that his belly started expanding. I felt very happy when we were walking with Sylvester because I love animals. I liked Sylvester’s stripes on his face and getting to feel his tongue when he licked my hand. Sylvester’s tongue felt like sandpaper!

Our next activity makes me feel hot and cold right now just remembering it! We went to a place called the Lookout Cafe that has a gorge swing and a zip line that goes across one of the gorges of Victoria Falls.

First, we got suited up. Mom and I and Brayden and Dad had to put an extra harness on so that we could attach to each other. This is called tandem. Brayden and Dad went first on the zip line. I was so excited to watch them go down the zip line into the gorge. Then, Mom and I got strapped into the gorge swing. It was scary getting strapped in because the ropes were so heavy they were pulling us really close to the edge. The rigger strapped us into all of the equipment for the gorge swing and then he said on the count of 5, you jump! And mom kept saying, “I don’t want to do it! I don’t want to do it!” Then we heard “5…4….3…2…1…!” and he PUSHED US OFF! I was so scared that I was looking down with my eyes shut tight!

I was trying to scream but nothing came out of my mouth! We did a free fall for 230 feet and then swung out into the gorge for 300 feet. At the bottom we were still scared and happy it was over! Then, when we were climbing back up Dad and Brayden asked, “Do you want to do it again?” and we said, “No! Not ever again!” I am glad that I did the gorge swing because now I know I will never sky dive in my life, and I also know that if I ever go on a roller coaster with my friends I can tell them it’s not scary at all! After the gorge swing, we had lunch, but I was not even hungry. I was still so excited from all of the adrenaline of the swing.

We had the rest of the day off to relax and recover from our experience. Sylvester was awesome, but I’m never going back on the gorge swing!

The following day we rode elephants in the rain. The elephants were very sweet. The elephant that Dad and I rode on was the alpha male in the ‘herd.’ The elephant Mom and Brayden rode was the wife of our elephant. She had a baby elephant too that walked next to her, as she was being trained. The baby elephant was super cute, but didn’t have tusks so she was still nursing from her Mom.

I loved riding on the elephants, they made me very happy. The elephants have very small eyes for how big they are. Our elephant ate A LOT. It was very funny because towards the end of the ride, our elephant took a huge branch off a tree with his tusk and ate all of it. WOW!!

After all of that comes the fun part for us and the elephants…we get to feed them treats!! We would either say “trunk up” or trunk down” each time we fed the elephants. “Trunk up!” meant for the elephants to put their trunk up and we would throw treats up into their large mouths. “Trunk down” meant for the elephants to put their trunks down and we would show them our hands and they would suck up the treats and throw them into their mouths just like you would see in a TV show with peanuts. 

A couple elephant facts I would like to share. Did you know?:

• Since elephants only have one stomach, they can only digest 40% of what they eat (called non-ruminant)

• Elephants eat 18 hours a day

• Elephants only sleep six hours a day

• They poop every 30 minutes

• The ones we rode know 20 verbal commands

• They can eat up to 200 kg daily — and the big males (or bulls) can eat up to 300 kg daily

• They grow until they are about 48 years old and live to be about 65 years old

• Most are right-handed (tusks)

• They have more than 40,000 muscles in their trunk? Some have even said they could have up to 100,000 muscles in their trunk (depends how you define the muscles)

• Their babies nurse for up to four years

• The males can weigh six or seven tons and the females can weight up to four or five tons

• Females have a 22-month gestation cycle…that’s almost two years they are pregnant

• They can smell up to 10 km away

• They have bad eyesight (not as good as a lion, but about the same as a human)

• They have 30 forms of communication – rumble, trumpet, scream, and some vibrations we cannot even hear

 

Elephants are very interesting, graceful, and smart animals.

These were two of the most incredible days of our trip.