Trunks, Insects, Animals . . .

Friends and Family,

I can't believe it has taken me so long to tell you about my adventures this past weekend. Probably because for me, writing a blog is a major undertaking that takes an hour or so. :) Now to the story . . .

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to travel to Yankari, a wild animal park about 3 hours outside of Jos. We left, my compound at 5:45am Saturday morning. I was joined on the trip by six other short-term missionaries and one of the SIM drivers and his family. The drive to Yankari was beautiful, watching the sun rise above the green plateaus.

When we finally arrived in Yankari, we headed straight to the office to sign up for a safari. It was awesome! We got to ride in a real safari jeep! Our safari lasted for almost two hours, we saw lots of animals such as springbok, monitor lizards, cool birds and even ELEPHANTS!! It was awesome, the elephants were just a few feet in front of our jeep!! It was awesome!

Along with seeing lots of cool animals, we were able to get out of the jeep at one point and walk around and see all of these caves that had been carved into large rocks deep in the forest. The caves were carved by people during the slave trade. People would escape he slave trade by running away and living in these caves. It was crazy to crawl around in them and realize that not only were the caves made by people, but people who were facing such challenges. It was so amazing to be able to walk around the African jungle. We saw bats, spiders, and millipedes! It was SO AMAZING! I will post lots of pictures.

After our safari we headed back to the main complex to have lunch. Now the whole game park is in the middle of nowhere, so wild animals such as baboons and warthogs just chill where the main complex is, they walk around your car and stuff . . . and they like to steal food as I found out the hard way. It is pretty common knowledge for anyone who goes to Yankari that you need to be careful of the baboons. They are very tame and not all that afraid of you, especially if you have food . . . they actually sell sling shots for you to use on the baboons (no kidding). Anyways, being aware of the baboon dangers we decided to eat our lunches in the van. Well as soon as we packed into the van the baboons knew what we were up to and we had about five baboons crawling all over the cars surrounding us, just hoping they might get a bite . . . We thought it was pretty funny and were taking lots of pictures . . . well it was getting quite hot in van with 13 people eating lunch in there, so we cracked the windows, thinking we would be safe from the baboons . . . WRONG! Tim graciously brought mini candy bars to share with everyone . . . so holding the candy bar in the right hand, with my back to the window of the van, I turned to thank Tim. Little did I know that Mrs. Baboon was carefully watching me, and saw this as an excellent opportunity for her to REACH INTO THE VAN AND GRAB THE CANDY BAR OUT OF MY HAND!!! I am SO NOT KIDDING! THE BABOON TOUCHED MY HAND!! I thought that Joseph in the front seat was trying to tell me something, so when I turned my head and saw a giant baboon head, instead of Joseph's head I screamed!! Everyone in the car was startled and was wondering what happened. When I finally caught my breath through my laughter and the tears that were streaming down my face (tears from laughing) everyone had figured out what happened and couldn't believe it! It was SO funny!! I will post pictures of Mrs. Baboon who thoroughly enjoyed MY candy bar!!

After getting over the disappointment of not getting candy bar that afternoon we headed down the natural hot springs for a swim. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life!! It looked like I was in Hawaii!! Crystal clear water, green grass, and Palm trees! The water was so warm, it was wonderful. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the water before we headed home. I will post a bunch of pictures! It was a good day! :)