Lion Gate Park Has No Lions... But It DOES Have a Roller Coaster

So I went to Lion Gate Park/Resort yesterday with about 25 people from the choir and it was SUPER fun! It’s this water park/theme park sort of thing about 15 minutes outside of Gaborone. I was expecting something teeny and, well, less than it was. But my god! It was a bit like being at home except for all the thatched roofs. There was an honest to god WAVE POOL, two slides, and a two-level kiddy pool. There were 8 rides (though four of them were kids only and a fifth was out of order). There was even a ROLLER COASTER. So basically, I had tons of fun playing in the pool and once I got over the “OMG, this is a theme park ride in AFRICA a la Flying Swings and Tilt-A-Whirl! What if it BREAKS!?” I had a lot of fun there too. SOME HIGHLIGHTS! While swimming in the pool, the guys had the funny idea to start doing fake “baptisms” like you see on travel programs where the priest is dunking peoples’ heads in the ocean water and yelling. So… they proceeded to grab all the girls in the group and “baptize” them, much to everyone’s amusement. I was not spared, lol! Another thing is that… almost NONE of them had ever been on a roller coaster before. And we ALL went on the Ghinza Roller Coaster for 14 Pula each… It was hilarious! They were all so nervous but excited and you would not BELIEVE the screaming. All the guys were acting macho and saying they’d have their hands in the air the whole time… I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that did that. It was a good sized coaster, it even had a loop, but it wasn’t THAT big. Some of the girls were a bit traumatized and most of the guys admitted to being scared out of their wits after some obligatory manly posturing. But they all had fun and didn’t regret trying it, so I suppose it’s okay. The last highlight was near the end when things LOOKED like they were winding down, but then we started singing. In a huge group. In the pool. With dance moves. In Setswana. And of course I was the only foreigner. But it was so much fun! People outside of the pool kept trying to take pictures and little kids kept trying to join in even though they didn’t really know what was going on. It was a pretty fun day!