the trade fair

After we settled in at Frank's house, we headed off to the trade fair. It is a big event that was up in Ndola for the weekend. The trade fair has booths from all the government ministries & various businesses. It was mostly large companies like ZamProduct & TV stations. There were some markets that sold tourist wares, but I wasn't in a shopping mood. So after eating some food we wandered over to the entertainment area where we found the most fabulous little carnival ever. It consisted of a hand-operated ferris wheel, rollercoaster, & merry-go-round and some mechanical swings.

Seriously.

I was too scared of the rollercoaster - you get pulled up the beginning slop by crank & then rely on gravity to do the rest. I was pretty sure that Frank & Leigh were going to go right off the end, but they survived.

Leigh & Frank

I was willing to try the swings. They were actually fairly scary. Not because we were spinning around quickly, but because the machine started making metallic clanking noises as we were at the fastest speed. I don't really trust the safety of anything in Africa so I kept imagining what would happen if my swing chains broke. Luckily, they didn't.

me, scared, on the swings

After we left the little ride area, Jacquee wanted to go on the go-karts. She was by far the best driver out there. I don't really remember my experiences go karting in the States, but I'm pretty sure we wore helmets & 5 year olds weren't allowed to drive them. When she was done, we searched out something we'd seen an add for: "Zambia's Crocodile Hunter"

Looks classy, eh?

It turned out not to be quite as exciting as I'd hoped. It was mostly snakes in cages & the like. We did get to see some crocodiles though:

A really awesome crocodile.

And one scary snake with a crazy man:
Definitely a good way to spend K10,000 ($3) and the afternoon in Ndola