We packed up camp and left for a conservation area for the rare painted hunting dogs, and got to see a couple of the dogs who reside at the centre.  They are skinny and of course dog-like, and are so ugly theyre cute.  They can take down antelope in the wild, and are endangered due to being easily snared in poachers wire meant for other game.  The centre sells stuff made from the poachers wire that is gathered from the park. We entered Hwange National Park, home to 40,000 elephants, for that nights camp, but got to stay in basic cabins.  This means toilets and showers outside in a block,…

In Matopos National Park, set off in open 4x4s to go rhino tracking.  The rare white rhino is still killed by poachers for its horn, sold to the Chinese as an aphrodisiac.  This doesn’t make much sense since their horns are made of keratin, like our fingernails, and can be cut off without having to kill the animal, they grow back quite quickly.  This is different than the elephant, whose ivory tusks are attached to the skull and don’t grow back.  Rhinos in this part have had their horns trimmed off to deter poaching and save their lives. We followed some signs, like big piles of poop and scratching, but…

We got to the Zimbabwean border around opening time, again taking well over an hour to get cleared through. Canadians pay $75, the most of any nationality (other than a Chinese girl who had to pay $500), apparently because our PM was the head of a committee that determined Zim should be expelled from the Commonwealth due to human rights abuses, in 2003. There are almost human-sized naughty baboons running around in the parking lot of the border agency looking for food. Carried on to Harare, capital of Zim, modern city of 2 million, looks great until you look at the ground to see garbage and crumbling sidewalks. We passed…