Hwange NP and Vic Falls

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, and rather than sleep in the sheets get into your sleeping bag.  We set off on an afternoon game drive, and stopped at a tower over a watering hole to watch the kudu, impala, baboons and crocodiles.  We also saw some elephants, which surprisingly are not that easy to find this time of year since food is plentiful and they can be anywhere in this vast park, not necessarily close to the roads.  And we saw the carcass and bones of an elephant that had probably died on dehydration in the previous dry season, the bones picked clean but the grey hide still lying there, it`s so tough that nothing can eat it and sounds like a sheet of metal if you rap your knuckles on it.                                                                   

After dinner we went on a night game drive with a spotlight, wearing our sleeping bags.  We spotted smaller creatures like the African wildcat, looks like a grey tabby housecat, and bat-eared foxes, and stopped at a floodlit watering hole where we saw only a few impalas.

The next morning was another shockingly early start for a morning game drive.  Early on, we saw an elephant close to the road, and going further discovered we were surrounded on both sides by a group of about 20 females with babies.  They were trumpeting and growling their disapproval of us, flapping their ears to challenge us and running a few steps closer as a group then stopping several times.  Yikes.  Our truck could be easily overturned by one of these girls.  They are protecting their babies, and likely were on high alert due to some other danger, like a lion in the area.  Our guide calmly told us to just sit down and be quiet and enjoy the experience. This is hard to do when you are holding your breath and trying to figure out who might be a slower runner than you are if you need to escape.  But of course like with all the animals you need to stand your ground, if you run they will decide you need to be chased.  We waited until they decided we weren’t a threat, while standing a couple of truck lengths away with ears still flapping, before we slowly moved on.

We carried on to a spot where lions had taken down a giraffe recently.  We knew they were still feeding on the putrid carcass because of the hundreds of vultures patiently waiting their turn in the trees.  The lions were a distance away lying in the tall grass so we didn`t really see them though.

We packed up and got in the truck for the last time to our trip end at the town of Victoria Falls, about 3 hours away, where we went for a group dinner at the Victoria Falls Hotel, the old hunting lodge that is still one of the premier hotels in Africa.  We had a buffet on the grounds from where in the daytime you can see the Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world. 

In daylight I went for a walk around the viewing area of Victoria Falls.  They are at full force now and you get soaked from the spray at some of the viewpoints.  I rented a raincoat and still got really wet.  There is no rafting on the Zambezi river below, best whitewater rafting in the world, at this time of year.  After that I went to the bridge over the river, in the no mans land between the Zimbabwe and Zambia borders, where you can bungy jump or swing across the gorge for a little bit of excitement.  

I spent my last couple of nights here at the end of the trip in a luxury safari tent, complete with its own open air shower, huge comfortable bed, white towels that at dusk are covered in tiny biting ants, and naughty monkeys who almost got away with one of my flip-flops when I wasn`t looking.  I don’t think they got inside the tent, but Im sure they could get in through the shower if they really wanted to.   Instead they settled for running across the top of the tent in the morning to wake me up.

And then 45 hours tent to home, with lost luggage, a missed connection and a blizzard to welcome me back.