Hey guys, welcome back to the ongoing saga of our african safari, just over half way through and having a great time.
Day 21 - Lake Kariba
Another early start and long drive over some rough roads to get to our next campsite. We started up a bonfire and were having our meal, as usual, Tans the courier was outlining what was happening over the next few days when someone told her to be quiet because there was a hippo standing about 20 feet behind her, luckily there was a bit of a bank and it didn't seem too interested in saying hello to us. A bit later our driver came out of the toilet to find three hippo's surrounding him, he spent a pleasant hour stuck in the toilet block until they moved off.
Day 22-24 - House boats
The following morning saw us fronting up to the house boats. I'm not sure what Trina was expecting but think it is safe to say we were blown away with how good they were. Everyone had there own cabin with en-suite, upstairs we had a bar, sun area, and to top it off a jacuzzi. Out back was a swimming cage, the cage was there to protect you from the crocs. We were told by the staff that once we were out in the middle of the lake it was okay to swim, we had a great time diving off the top deck into the lake (about 20 feet). Found out later that it was a bit of a myth that the crocs don't swim in the middle of the lake. Needless to say no one really hung around in the water much anyway. One guy told us of a relative who had been swimming and got attacked by a croc, he manged to escape and made it to dry land and promptly got stood on by hippo!!! Apparently in terms of fatalities hippo's are the most dangerous animal in Africa (after the mosquito).
That night we invaded the other trucks boat (where they were having their bad taste party), had a few drinks and then returned to our boat to continue the party. The next day was very lazy, lots of lazing in the sun and reading books. I've just about cleaned out the truck library now.....
Day 25-26 - Antelope Park
Arrived at Antelope park late in the evening after a bit of a drive. The place itself looked awesome and we decided to upgrade to the river tents for our stay there. The river tents were basically a 5-star hotel room inside a tent, only downside was two single beds :-(. Our veranda overlooked one of the lion cub area so we could see them running around in between walks. That evening was my (Nick) first go at cooking for the truck, no major cases of food poisoning so can't have been too bad. That night we sorted out our activities for the next day (everything we could fit in) and then went to bed. The next morning woke up bright and early for our first lion walk (Thanks heaps Bec's and Paul). We had a group of about eight people and four lion cubs so plenty to go round. They told us the lions were only 11 months old but looked a lot bigger to us. They were very playful and loved sneaking up behind people. They were having a ball playing near the stream and occassionally falling in. A wet cat is definitely not a happy cat but they soon got over it. It was funny seeing how uncoordinated they were as they were still young. At one point one lion was up a tree, it tried to turn around and fell off. They say cats always land on there feet but obviously doesn't apply to lions. A very grumpy cat lay on the ground for a few minutes while it recovered it's dignity. We took literally hundreds of photo's between us and had lots of chances to sit with the lions. One of the girls got a good face licking from a particularly friendly lion.
From there we went for a cub viewing where you sit in an enclosure with six 3 month old cubs. They were having a great time crawling over everyone giving a nip here and there. One cub was particularly impressed with Trina's rear end and gave it a good chomp!!! We all came out of there with a healthy respect for a lion jaws. From there it was time to go and feed the lions, being in the same cage as a lion chewing on a big hunk of horse was an interesting feeling. That afternoon we went for an elephant ride. We foolishly decided to go for a full hour, and all I can say is ouch. By the end of it I don't know who I felt sorrier for, us or the elephant....The rest of the afternoon was more cub viewings and another walk with a different set of cubs. We also snuck in to look at some of the baby cubs...very very cute.
Day 27 - Rhino Walk
From there we drove further south to Bulwayo where we meet up with our guide for the day. A chap called Ian, he has been guiding for about 20 years and was a wealth of knowledge. First off he took us up to a cave where there were loads of bushman paintings. He could even speak the language which was pretty bizarre (some of you may remember the movie 'The Gods Must Be Crazy' about the bushmen).
From there we drove into the national park to try and find us some rhino. Ian took us to a likely area and we all got off the landrover and went on foot looking for rhino. Oddly enough everyone got a lot quieter at this point. He split the group into two and one half would sit on a high rock while the other half went off looking for rhino. On the second attempt the other group found three white rhino (the friendlier type). Apparently the black rhino are the nasty ones with a tendancy to charge any strange noise. Mind you when your sitting a few metres from an animal weighing near on two tonnes, friendly isn't the first description that springs to mind. They had to beat a hasty retreat after the rhino decided the bit of grass they were on looked mighty tasty. Our turn was next and the old adrenalin was flowing (as our guide said, adrenalin is coloured brown). We got to within five metres of the three rhino's and it was an incredible experience. They looked at us a few times and decided we weren't a big threat. Not sure what constitutes a threat to an animal that size. The guide told us about a dehorning project. Dehorning doesn't hurt the rhino (much) and makes it useless to poachers. The tranquiliser lasts three minutes and they had that much time to chop the horn off and get away before a very pissed off rhino wakes up and wonders just what happened to his horn. That night we sat up and were treated to a full lunar eclipse.
Day 28 - Ivory Lodge - Elephant Walk
The next day the truck moved on to Hwange National Park, also known as Wankie national park. We met up with our guides for the evening game drive. By now we have seen most of the game in that area and it getting harder to maintain an interest in antelope, zebra (not another zebra...) but we still spot interesting stuff. Still have not seen a bloody leopard. The other truck is about a day behind us and they have seen lots. On this game drive we saw giraffe eating grass (a very unusual sight watching something that big bend down to pick stuff off the ground. Apparently they are so tall and there hearts are so powerful that if they put their heads down for 30 seconds their heads will explode from the blood pressure. We found a watering hole and proceeded on foot to track some elephants (they had neglected to mention the 'on foot' part, am now a big fan of land rovers. We searched around for a while and just on dusk found a group of females and young. Unfortunately they are the most skittish as they protect their young and we could only approach to within about fifty metres. That was close enough for me anyway.
Day 29 - Vic Falls
A very early start the next day and about half a days drive to get to Vic falls, we haven't yet seen the falls but are planning to go do a gorge swing, fly over the falls in an ultralight. Apparently the waters are at the highest in 27 years so no water activities are allowed. That night we went on a booze cruise just above the falls with both trucks. The booze cruise is about two hours of all you can drink. Needless to say a few people were a bit worse for wear and went straight to bed. We stayed up till about 2am talking to a few other travellers, not the smartest thing given we were meant to do the gorge swing the very next day.
That's about all for now, have been on the internet for an hour now and still haven't managed to send a single email because the internet is so slow, pole-pole (african for slowly slowly) is definitely the word of the day.
Hope everyone is well and a huge thank you to Paul & Becs for the wedding present of a lion walk, it was a definite highlight of the trip so far.
Hope everyone is well and having half as much fun as we are :-)
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