Zambezi Zinger Resurrected

This week marked a milestone in Jasmin's life. Not her birthday, not her first tooth, not even her first day of school. This Monday marked her first visit to an amusement park and first ride on a roller coaster (of sorts). Now, I don't remember much from being her age, but I do remember my reaction during my first kidde-coaster ride as approximately halfway between abject terror and utter panic. It would be years before the trauma subsided enough that I could brave another coaster ride. But enough about me. Of course, after arriving at Mirabilandia (the only true theme park in the entire northeast of Brazil), the first ride that Jasmin wanted to go on is the coaster. With some trepidation about whether she would react similarly to the way I did, I led her up the steps and onto the "Dragon." Now, don't let the name spook you, this "animal" had a vertical drop of at most 6 feet. But it actually did get moving faster than I expected and was able to pull some really good g-forces going through the turns.



Jasmin began screaming the moment the ride began and didn't stop until all four "laps" through the track were completed. And then, at the exact moment that the train stopped, she finally took a breath and shouted: "Again! Again!!!" She must have ridden that thing and its caterpillar-like cousin at least 50 times. It was by far her favorite ride of the park. By the end she was throwing both hands up over her head as the coaster went over the drop. I was and still am flabbergasted. Even the attendant who was running the ride could only shake his head in amusement at each inevitable repetition of, "again, again!" every time the ride came to a halt.

When we finally left for the night, Jasmin looked over at the big roller coaster - the one with the upside-down loop - and asked me, "when I get big enough, can I ride that one?" What can a father say but, "of course, sweetie."

Oh, and about the title - my final re-introduction to the world of roller coasters after that initial childhood trauma was with a ride on the famous old standby at Worlds of Fun, the Zambezi Zinger. What a fine, fine ride it was. Although many roller coasters have come and gone at Worlds of Fun, the Zinger was the original - the only coaster to survive from the first day the park opened in 1973. When it was torn down after 25 years of service, it was a sad day in Kansas City. Well, any one who may have special memories of that great beast might find these photos of the Broca roller coaster in Montenegro, Colombia quite intriguing. When I first ran across them, I thought, holy crap, someone made an exact copy of the Zambezi Zinger. Well, it turns out I was wrong! It isn't a copy. It's the actual Zambezi Zinger, rebuilt to full glory in South America. It kind of makes me happy to know that it's still out there for kids of all ages to enjoy.

Oh yeah, and one more thing to mention -- there are new photos uploaded to Flickr!