Last View of Victoria Falls / Entering Botswana

Day 66: Kasane, Botswana

After I crossed the border back into Zimbabwe yesterday following my excursion to Zambia, I ran into Tom and Jude on the gorge bridge. We hung out there for a while taking pictures of the impressive double rainbow that formed a complete circle in the mist above the raging rapids. We then walked over to the park so we could get a grand view of the falls themselves. This view, although a bit further from the falls, was much better and grander than the view from the Zambian side. Walking parallel to the large unbroken sheet of water was a dramatic – and wet – experience. The falls are so powerful at this time of year that the water seems to disappear in an ocean of mist churning in a bottomless chasm. When the wind blows the water spray a certain way, the massive wall of water – the largest on Earth – vanishes completely, shrouded in a formless blanket of milky white. Rainbows appeared at several points, stopping abruptly in mid-air at the edge of the mist. As I continued to walk, the spray became more and more intense, and soon I was drenched, wetter than if I had stepped into a shower with my clothes on. The wind blows the spray around with such force that even the notes inside my wallet – in a zipped pocket of my waterproof poncho – were wet! The walk culminates in a point that juts out into the gorge. Dubbed "Danger Point," it is caught in such a perpetual deluge that rivers with no beginning and no end flow over the slippery rocks, changing course with the wind.

A rainbow over Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

A double rainbow over Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

The power of the churning water is evident in this view of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

A rainbow stops abruptly at the edge of the mist coming from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

In the evening, I went with Tom, Jude, and Nix to the Kingdom Hotel for dinner. A Las Vegas style venue with a casino and several restaurants, the Kingdom Hotel is thoroughly Zimbabwean in theme, inspired by the Great Zimbabwe Ruins. On the walk to the hotel, we were startled by a massive elephant that walked without warning across the main road, almost causing a car crash. This event is a sobering reminder of the human-animal interaction that sometimes occurs in Africa due to the urbanization of natural ecosystems.

This morning we set off towards the Botswana border, where we encountered a new peculiar procedure. Foot and mouth disease occurs in Botswana, so the country requires check points at borders and periodically along highways. We all had to get off the truck carrying an extra pair of shoes, step on a mat containing a mixture of disinfectant and mud, stamp our extra shoes in the disinfectant, and then climb back on the truck. Some of us do not have an extra pair of shoes, but apparently as long as the majority of us do, the officers don't really care – it's just another elaborate manifestation of African bureaucracy with dubious benefit.

We soon reached Kasane, situated at the edge of Chobe National Park. The Chobe River, which forms part of the border between Botswana and Namibia, had flooded part of our campsite, and some lodges and other structures along the river were partially submerged or cut off by the water. In the afternoon, we departed for a cruise along the river, and we finally spotted our first crocodiles of the trip. We also saw quite a few hippos and an exciting array of elephants, some of them babies, lined up along the river bank. A few of the elephants "performed" for us, spraying water from their trunks to clean themselves. At sunset, we floated leisurely down the river back to camp.

Elephants stand beside the Chobe River in Chobe National Park, Botswana.

Zam vs. Zim

Day 65: Livingstone / Victoria Falls, Zambia

This morning, I went to the post office in Victoria Falls to get all the souvenirs I have bought in Africa packed and shipped to the States. My first challenge was to find someone to wrap all the loose items up into a few manageable packages. No problem – as soon as I emerged from the taxi with bags of souvenirs, I was approached by multiple guys offering me a good price for packaging. I chose to deal with the guy who had a nice curio shop next door to the post office, but this caused an argument between the shop owner and another would-be packager. This second man would not give up on trying to get business from me even though I had already taken my items to the shop. He offered to get me some bubble wrap, as the shop owner did not have any. I conceded, as this would hopefully get the guy to leave me alone. A few minutes later, the man returned with two meters of bubble wrap and demanded $10. I laughed at the ridiculous price, and the man produced a receipt from the shop he had just been to. The total price was $5, and I asked the man if he really expected to make a $5 profit from walking across the street. He replied that it was two meters of bubble wrap, and that price was for one meter. Well, the receipt plainly stated that $5 was the total price, but the guy was just not going to give up. I told him I'd pay him $6, but no more. He kept arguing that he paid $10, so I told him that he was not going to get my business. He actually started crying and told me I was a horrible, terrible person (as I get told countless times every day by street hawkers for not letting them rip me off). When I still refused, the guy threatened me with "African tricks," whatever that meant. The shop owner, who was busy wrapping my souvenirs, heard the commotion and threatened to call the police on the belligerent man. This threat sobered the guy up, and he happily accepted $6 for the bubble wrap.

I proceeded inside the shop, where I watched the shop owner and his assistants wrap all the items in separate sheets of cardboard loosely formed into packages by random lengths of twine. As skeptical as I was that my souvenirs would remain in tact traveling halfway across the world in that kind of packaging, I knew that it was the best packing service I could manage in Zimbabwe. After a couple of hours, I was finally ready to tackle whatever obstacles might crop up at the post office itself. These obstacles turned out, unsurprisingly, to consume another two hours between the ridiculously dodgy customs forms and inefficient postal clerk. After such an epic saga, I was just glad to be rid of the items.

I had planned to cross the border to Zambia today, and the ordeal at the post office ate up a massive amount of time, so I skipped lunch and headed towards the bridge that crosses the Zambezi River. I exited Zimbabwe, walked the long distance across the bridge to the Zambian border post, and received my visa for Zambia. The main town of Livingstone is quite a long way from the border post, and I was short on time, so I decided to take a taxi. There was an American guy in line at the border post – one of the first Americans I've seen in Africa – and he offered to share a taxi with me to town. We haggled for a good price and hopped in the cab.

I was shocked at the contrast between the Zambian town of Livingstone and the Zimbabwean town of Victoria Falls. Although most of the tourism at Victoria Falls is now centered in Zambia due to the political situation in Zimbabwe, Livingstone is not an attractive city. The town on the Zimbabwe side was built decades ago specifically with tourism in mind, so it is a walkable city very close to the falls, and it features nice hotels and casinos. Livingstone is a rather unremarkable African city. One of the few attractions I noticed was the Livingstone Museum, so I decided to check it out. It is an average museum that showcases the history of Zambia from prehistory to modern day. There are a few amusing exhibits, however, like the comparison between traditional village life and Western life in the cities. The exhibit titles of "Our Village" and "Their Town" carry a hint of resentment toward colonial rule.

Next I took a taxi to view the falls from the Zambian side. The viewpoints are very close to the falls – the ground is soaked due to the intense spray, and the vegetation is a thin strip of lush rain forest. I was impressed at the sheer thunderous power of the falls, which far exceeds Niagara. After my short visit to Zambia, I had to get back to Zimbabwe so I could view the falls from that side.

Victoria Falls, viewed here from Zambia, is known as "the Smoke that Thunders" in the local language.

3 … 2 … 1 … Bungee!

Day 64: Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Saturday, we traveled seven hours to Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River in the northwest corner of Zimbabwe. One of the seven natural wonders of the world and the single largest sheet of falling water on Earth, Victoria Falls thunders through a gorge that separates Zimbabwe and Zambia. In the local language of Ndebele, it is known as Mosi-oa-tunya, "the smoke that thunders." Being the wet season, the water in the Zambezi is too high for rafting, but the falls themselves are spectacular – flowing at maximum capacity, 800,000 gallons of water per second plunge over a mile wide, 400 foot cliff into the maelstrom of the river below, making Victoria Falls the largest waterfall on Earth by volume of water. The spray from the falls rises 1,300 feet into the air and can be seen from up to thirty miles away. Known colloquially as Vic Falls, the area is one of the great adrenaline capitals of the world, and I certainly got plenty of thrills during our four nights here.

The town of Victoria Falls was built with tourism in mind. The walkable streets are lined with expensive shops and a couple of luxury hotels. The Zimbabwe side of the falls used to be the main tourist destination, but tourism has shifted over to Livingstone on the Zambian side as travelers in the last decade or so have been hesitant to venture into Zimbabwe. Political violence, economic instability, and general negative press have scared tourists away, but very recently, they have begun to slowly return to the damaged country. Converting to the U.S. dollar has been helpful in stabilizing the economy, but it has also made things quite expensive – sometimes even more expensive than in the States itself. Zimbabwe has also become an import rather than export economy, and this further increases prices.

Yesterday, Easter Sunday, has been much anticipated for most of the trip – it was bungee day! I woke up almost shaking from nervousness, ate a light breakfast, and walked towards the gorge with my friends who were also jumping. The bungee jump at Vic Falls is located on a bridge that spans the Zambezi River and connects Zimbabwe and Zambia, so the bridge is technically in no man's land. For people only going to the bridge and not to Zambia, the border post hands out slips of paper instead of officially stamping exit stamps in passports. As we walked onto the bridge, I dizzily peered down at the raging river 365 feet below – this is one of the highest commercial bungee jumps in the world.

A man sets up a high wire activity in Batoka Gorge on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia. The Victoria Falls Bridge can be seen in the background.

We walked across the bridge to a building perched on the Zambian side of the gorge. We signed in for the jump and were weighed, and then we walked back to the center of the bridge where we watched people bungee while we waited to be fitted in our harnesses. The more people we watched, the more nervous we all became. By the time it was my turn to walk over to the platform, I was in such an adrenaline-fueled haze that I don't really remember those last minutes before the jump. The guys on the platform tied my feet together with padding, attached the harness, and adjusted the bungee cord for my weight. They helped me hop over to the very edge of the platform, my bare toes hanging over the edge. The thunderous roaring of the nearby falls was all I could hear, and water spray fell on my face. As instructed, I bent my knees, spread my arms into the air, and prepared to dive. One of the guys yelled, "3 … 2 … 1 … bungee!" The next few minutes were a blur. Suddenly I was plummeting head first at extreme speed towards the raging rapids far below. After only seconds, the bungee stretched, and I abruptly bounced back into the air almost to the iron arch of the bridge. I looked up and saw people far above leaning over the railing to look down at me. I tried to wave at them, then fell again, upside down and twirling uncontrollably like a helicopter. Blood rushed to my head, and I tried to regain my bearings as the river spun around and around below me. To one side, a guy in a harness was moving up and down as I continued to bounce. When we finally equalized, I grabbed his hand, and he hooked my harness to his rope. Finally upright, we slowly ascended towards the bridge, and I clambered onto the metal grating of a catwalk spanning below its massive arch. Thankful to have something solid under my feet, I walked barefoot along the catwalk and finally reached the stairs to the main level of the bridge. "Never again," I swore as I returned to my friends standing in the middle of the bridge. The bad part was not the fall itself, but the excruciatingly uncomfortable feeling of twirling upside down and waiting for someone to hoist me back to solid ground. I was queasy from the endless twirling, and I had a headache from hanging upside down for so long. However, I do not regret bungee jumping – I will always cherish the experience, and I think that it will allow me to be more courageous about trying extreme activities in the future.

Preparing to bungee jump from the Victoria Falls Bridge on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia

Bungee jumping from the Victoria Falls Bridge on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia

Bungee jumping from the Victoria Falls Bridge on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia

After free-falling head first into a 365-foot-deep gorge, I think I deserved to relax the rest of the day. In the late afternoon, some friends joined me for high tea at the historic Victoria Falls Hotel, situated on the edge of the gorge with a majestic view of the bridge. We binged on finger sandwiches, scones, and cakes that were elegantly displayed on triple-tiered trays. After tea, we took pictures with the wild warthogs that had wandered onto the grounds. Victoria Falls is situated within a national park, so it is not unusual to spot wildlife in the town. After such an action-packed morning and relaxing evening, I certainly slept well.

Today was another adventure: I had booked a full-day adrenaline package. Rested from my bungee jump yesterday, I set out towards a U-shaped section of the gorge with Nix, her parents, and a few others. There were five activities available, and my package allowed me to do them an unlimited number of times. First up was the Flying Fox, a horizontal line stretching 650 feet across the gorge. I was fitted into my harness, which I would wear most of the day. I walked over to the platform – basically a diving board jutting out over the cliff. After being hooked into the rope, I ran at full speed towards the edge of the cliff and leaped off, arms outstretched as if I was flying. I zoomed out over the gorge, high above the rapids. I made it about halfway to the other side before I started slowing down. I then hung over the river and enjoyed the view while I was reeled back in. The Flying Fox really wasn't scary at all, at least after the bungee jump, so I decided to do it again. This time I held my small video camera the whole time for a unique perspective.

The next activity was the zip line, which stretches at a steep angle 1,500 feet to the other side of the gorge. Standing on the platform at the edge of the cliff, it looked terrifying, but after I jumped it was pure excitement as I raced at 60 miles per hour down the line towards the river. Once at the bottom, I had to wait for a guy to come down and reel me back up to the top of the cliff. Like the Flying Fox, I decided to do the zip line a second time while holding my video camera. Nix joined me in a tandem ride, and with two of us, our extra weight allowed us to go a bit faster.

The third activity was the infamous gorge swing. Standing at the edge of the 400-foot cliff, I jumped off and fell for 230 feet along the face of the vertical cliff. Then I pulled away from the cliff in a gigantic pendulum swing that carried me over 300 feet out over the rapids. It was terrifying and exhilarating, and it was much better than the bungee jump. Like with the other activities, I went a second time. This time I faced with my back towards the edge of the cliff and leaned backwards, falling upside down along the cliff and then flipping upright once I began the swing. By this point, I was getting used to jumping off cliffs, and it was pure fun.

The gorge swing: jumping backwards into Batoka Gorge, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Next we hiked to the other side of the gorge, where we would abseil (rappel) down a 150-foot cliff. My harness was all hooked up, I leaned backwards over the cliff, and hand over hand made my way slowly to the bottom. I've abseiled before (in high school), but never in such a spectacular setting or down such a high cliff. Once I reached the bottom, I had quite a grueling hike back up the top of the cliff that involved balancing on rickety ladders constructed of tree branches. The last activity was new to me – it was a rap jump, which is a forward-facing abseil. Instead of facing the cliff while walking down, I leaned forwards over the cliff and slowly walked down, staring at the terrifying height the entire time. To speed the descent, I hopped away from the cliff periodically and let the rope out to cover more distance. It seemed against gravity to walk down a cliff this way, but it was a unique experience.

After a few hours to relax, our whole group went out for dinner at The Boma, a game restaurant. There was an all-you-can-eat buffet where the meat was cooked in front of you. I had a plate piled absolutely full with all types of meat: African buffalo, impala, kudu, warthog, and ostrich. I also ate a mopani worm, a traditional delicacy in Zimbabwe. Warthog and kudu were definitely the best meats, and both were easily better than any pork or steak I've ever had. After dinner, we were treated to traditional African drumming and dancing, and then drums were handed out to everyone in the entire restaurant for an interactive drumming session. Between the quality and variety of the food, the atmosphere and music, and the fact that it was the goodbye meal for some of my friends who were ending their trip in Vic Falls, it was one of the best meals of my life.

Rhino Trekking

Day 61: Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Yesterday we drove a short three hours to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city. We had much of the afternoon free before we cleaned up and went out to a local bar. The bar was run by South Africans, and all transactions occurred in Rand, even though Zimbabwe's official currency is the U.S. dollar. We chatted with some white Zimbabweans, who said that we were the first tourists they had seen in a long time. There were no black Zimbabweans in the bar, as society is still quite segregated in this bruised country, and racial relations are tense. It was Jess's birthday, and we all had a hilarious time getting her drunk – and finding a guy in the bar to kiss her. I left in the early hours of the morning and walked back to camp with one other guy from our group, passing monotonous rows of dark, forbidding walls and gates that protect the houses in this well-to-do neighborhood. The fortress-like character does not necessarily mean that it is a high-crime area. High walls and barbed wire are commonplace in posh suburbs throughout Africa.

This morning, a small group of us set off early to Matobo National Park, about 45 minutes away. Andy, a stocky white Zimbabwean with a dark beard and mustache, was decked out in khaki safari gear and carried a powerful rifle (in case something goes wrong). As a tracker, he was going to lead us on a trek – on foot – through the bush to find rhinos. As we entered the park, a sign warned us to stay in our vehicle at all times. African parks are dangerous places, but we had an experienced guide armed with a gun.

At our first stop, we hopped out of the jeep and were overwhelmed by the billions of ants crawling over every square inch of dirt. When you walk, they remain on the ground. Stop for even a moment, and they immediately start to climb your shoes onto your legs. Luckily, these ants do not bite, but if you don't pay attention, it would be very easy to get ants in your pants! Andy led us off the road and into the bush. He soon spotted footprints in the sandy earth – they were left by a hippo, quite a long way from water. We continued walking and came across a huge pile of dung. It was rhino dung, and Andy stuck his finger in the pile to determine how fresh it was. He deduced from the shape of the bits of stick in the dung that we were tracking white rhinos – the angle of their teeth is different than that of black rhinos, and this difference is imprinted on their chewed waste. It was good news that we were dealing with white rhinos. Although much smaller, black rhinos are more aggressive and can not be safely approached on foot. This is not to say that white rhinos are docile. They are still massive horned beasts capable of charging with thunderous power. White and black rhinos are actually the same color, but they differ in the shape of their snouts. The "white" in "white rhino" is actually a corruption of the Dutch word for wide, referring to the shape of the snout. White rhinos used to be more rare than black, but conservation efforts have helped them to overtake black rhinos in number. However, both types of rhinos are still very much endangered.

Soon, another clue: a patch of flattened grass indicated that rhinos had been laying down in that spot. Soon, Andy led us out of the relatively sparse forest, and we began wading through an expansive sea of grass eight feet high. The grass was so tall and dense that we could have been ten feet from rhinos and not known it. We continued walking for a few kilometers and finally made our way back to the truck. Our first trek was unsuccessful, but we had found some valuable clues. We continued along the dirt road, keeping our eyes peeled for rhino tracks. We didn't see any fresh ones, and the road was a giant loop. This meant that the rhinos were somewhere in the island of wilderness we had just encircled. We soon embarked on another long hike, but this one was unsuccessful as well. We took a break for lunch by a picturesque lake punctuated by prehistoric stacked rock forms that are the distinguishing feature of the Matobo area.

A white rhinoceros: trekking in Matobo National Park, Zimbabwe

Refreshed, we resumed our search in the afternoon. Walking single file in absolute silence, we tread carefully over muddy streams and dodged acacia thorns and stinging nettles. A startled bird flew from a tree branch, the beating of its wings thunderous amidst the total stillness of the forest. We entered a field of tall grass, and after a while Andy turned around and gave us a hand signal. We had found white rhinos! There were three of them in a clearing maybe fifty feet away, more than close enough when rhinos are concerned. In a whisper, Andy warned us that if they charged, we should go through the grass into the nearby river. We silently crept closer, and the rhinos backed off into the forest. We gently walked around and approached them from another angle so we could get a bit closer. We were persistent in following them, and the gigantic creatures soon became annoyed. They started to approach, and Andy told us to back off slowly. Running could provoke the rhinos to charge. The beasts continued to approach a bit faster, not quite charging, but certainly inciting us to back off ever more quickly. The rhinos continued past us and off into the forest. Our incredible encounter was over, and we hiked back to the jeep.

A tracker, armed with a rifle for safety, finds white rhinos in Matobo National Park, Zimbabwe.

We still had enough daylight left to visit one of the area's famous cave paintings. We rode in the jeep for quite a while on appalling roads, the worst I've seen so far in Africa. As we traveled further up into the hilly terrain, Andy explained that the park could not repair the roads until after the rainy season. The road had been washed away into deep ruts that ran like chasms through the mud, and it even ended completely at one point so that we were driving directly on the exposed granite surface of the mountain. After one particularly jolting impact on a large rock, one of the rear wheels began squeaking. We soon reached an unusually steep section of the road. We had been going very slowly, but Andy warned us that he had to drive up the hill fast in order for the vehicle to make it to the top of the incline. He accelerated, and we jostled our way up the mountain until the terrain leveled out. After a short but steep hike, We finally reached Nswatugi Cave, where we gazed at the mysterious paintings on the rock wall of the natural shelter. According to experts, they could be anywhere from one hundred to five or six thousand years old. The paintings mostly depict animals such as zebra or giraffe, but there are also horses. This fact indicates that the paintings may be younger rather than older. Horses only arrived when this part of Africa was colonized as Rhodesia. If the rock paintings are from the nineteenth century, it is interesting that the technique has not changed for thousands of years. Based on appearance alone, it is impossible to tell these paintings from ones that are known to be much, much older. As dusk fell, we descended the rocky hill and rode over an hour back to camp in Bulawayo.

Up Close and Personal with Lions

Day 59: Gweru / Antelope Park, Zimbabwe

The Conical Tower inside the Great Enclosure at the Great Zimbabwe complex of ruins, Zimbabwe

Sunday, we left Bird Park outside Harare at 5:45 in the morning, and five hours later we arrived at the Great Zimbabwe Ruins near Masvingo. The vast complex of stone walls is probably the most significant archaeological site in sub-Saharan Africa. The central circular structure, the Great Enclosure, is an impressive example of precolonial stone work. The dominant feature is a conical tower whose exact purpose is uncertain, and the enclosure's tall, curving walls create several narrow passageways. There is also a museum at the site that explains the history of the ruins and contains several bird carvings found among the stones – one of these birds has become the symbol of Zimbabwe and is featured on the nation's flag.

The Great Enclosure at the Great Zimbabwe complex of ruins, Zimbabwe

After lunch, we made our way to Gweru in the center of the country, four hours away. Our destination was Antelope Park, a premier wildlife park dedicated to returning the threatened African lion to natural habitats throughout the continent. The park will actually be featured in a new British television series called "Lion Country", which will hopefully bring attention to the plight of lions – the number of the cats in the wild has diminished dramatically in the last few decades, a result of poaching, encroaching urban communities, and many other factors. Antelope Park, like Bird Park near Harare, has had to fight passionately to accumulate enough land to carry out its mission. As the government bureaucracy in Zimbabwe presents major obstacles, other African countries such as Zambia, Mozambique, and Ghana have expressed interest in establishing sister parks to help reintroduce lions into the wild. It is a multi-generational process: specialists at Antelope Park will help cubs develop their instinctive hunting skills, and once those lions reach maturity, they will be bred. The resulting cubs will learn how to hunt and survive from their parents rather than humans, and they will then be released into the wild. During our four-night stay, Antelope Park offered us a unique chance to witness the different stages of their mission, and to get up close and personal with the lions.

Monday was a pretty relaxing day. In the late morning, we took the truck into town for a few hours so we could eat lunch and go to the supermarket. Then we enjoyed the atmosphere of Antelope Park for the rest of the day. It is the nicest campsite we have stayed at – a picturesque, slow-moving river lazily flows past the camping area, the staff are genuinely the friendliest we have met, and the dining area offers free tea, coffee, and juice all day long.

A lion yawns in Antelope Park near Gweru, Zimbabwe.

In the evening, I set out for my first activity with the lions, a night encounter. I climbed into an open top truck with several other visitors and a few lion trainers, and we sped down the dirt road outside the camp gates. We soon arrived at one of the lion enclosures, and the trainers opened the gate and released three of the lions. We continued to bump along the rough road, this time with three lions walking alongside the open sides of the truck. If they had wanted to, the lions could easily have leaped into the vehicle with us, but these lions were well behaved. The objective of the night was to assist the lions in making a kill. One of the trainers controlled a large red light, and when prey such as impala was spotted, he would shine the light on the unfortunate animal, guiding the lions without disturbing their night vision. This activity hones the lions' hunting skills so that once they breed they can teach their cubs to hunt more effectively. Among the trees, two scarlet orbs reflected in the beam of light – we had found a target for the cats. It was a giraffe – surely too large for lions who were learning to hunt. But our lions must have been hungry, and a chase began. The driver accelerated and we raced across the rugged terrain as the lions charged at full speed towards the giraffe. Giraffes can run unbelievably fast, as it turns out, and the lions tired quickly during the chase. We had to search for easier prey. Soon we passed two more giraffes, one of them a baby. One of the lions must have had her mind set on giraffe, because she initiated another chase, this time directly down the road. All of a sudden, a herd of startled zebras darted across the road directly in front of us and disrupted the chase. The baby giraffe was safe. As exciting as it would be to see the lions take down a giraffe, it is dangerous prey – a giraffe can kill a lion with one powerful kick. As the evening wore on, we illuminated numerous impalas with the red beam, but none of the chases were successful. One of the guides explained that the full moon, although it made it easier for us to see the chases, also allowed the prey to see their hunters more easily. Every time, as the lions stalked quietly through the grass, the targeted impala made a loud warning sound and bounded off into the darkness. Although the lions returned to their enclosure hungry, it was fascinating to witness firsthand their stealthy hunting technique. After returning to camp and eating a cold, left-over dinner, I fell asleep to the splashing of water birds (or crocodiles?!) only feet from my tent, accompanied by the echoing, ghostly roar of distant lions.

Posing with a lioness in Antelope Park near Gweru, Zimbabwe

Yesterday was packed with activities. First thing in the morning, I walked with lions. The walk was similar to the one near Harare, but this time featured much larger twenty-month-old lions who had already made some kills. The dawn lighting was also much better for photography than the previous dusk walk, and I was able to pose with the majestic cats. When posing for photos, we had to approach the lions from behind and were not allowed to pet them on the face or ears. The lions have been conditioned to view people on their walks as older, taller members of their pride, not other animals or humans. However, if you take an action that might make you seem inferior (such as crouching down), a lion may pounce. This is not malicious, but rather a playful act of asserting dominance. Lions wrestle with other members of their pride, but a twenty-month-old lion wrestling with a human could be deadly. To further protect ourselves, we carried sticks – not to beat a misbehaving lion, but to distract them by dragging the stick back and forth through the dirt. Lions, just like domestic house cats, quickly lose focus and are attracted to the nearest interesting object.

Posing with lions in Antelope Park near Gweru, Zimbabwe

A young lion drinks water from a puddle in Antelope Park near Gweru, Zimbabwe

As soon as I returned back to camp, I set out for the horse stables for a horseback safari through the park. We all picked our horses and mounted – but mine didn't want to cooperate. The other horses automatically walked towards the trail we would be taking, but mine just walked back into the stable and stood there! No command would convince my horse to budge, so I asked for a second horse. This one seemed acceptable at first but soon made its way to the front of the line, ahead of our guide. The guide said that my horse was a natural leader – not exactly what I wanted to hear considering this was my first time ever riding a horse. As we began the trail, something startled my horse and it sort of bucked – luckily I stayed on, but it scared the crap out of me and I demanded yet another horse. After two duds, the third one was a charm. It was a calm, normal horse who stayed near the back of the line and kept eating a lot of grass. Once I became more comfortable controlling the reins, I learned how to make my horse trot by kicking it gently in the ribs. The horses walked for most of the trail, but whenever I fell too far towards the back of the line, I gave a gentle kick. We saw a few animals, mostly various antelopes, and by the time we were heading back to the stables, I felt a bit more natural. At one point, there was some standing water in a dip between two hills, and it was great fun to give my horse a kick and splash through the water up the other side of the hill. Still, a trot was plenty fast enough for me.

After eating lunch and relaxing with some free tea in the camp's shaded dining area, I walked over to an enclosure that contained a few lion cubs. A guide let us inside the enclosure, and we were able to play with the cubs for a while, rolling them over and patting their bellies. One of the cubs is apparently not fond of people, and he growled and backed off whenever someone approached him. The other two cubs were personable, but even they became grouchy after spending too much time with us. We left the cubs and then took a vehicle out to the large lion enclosures for feeding time. As we approached the fence, the stench of a decaying cow carcass became overpowering, and the buzzing of hundreds of flies grew louder. We crouched down by the carcass and waited for the gate to open – then, from the far corner of the enclosure, several massive adult lions charged at full speed towards the meat, skidding into it and sending blood and flies spraying through the air. They ripped the carcass to shreds and then each took a piece of the meat gnawed it to the bone like dogs. I had one more lion walk before dinner, but the cats were lazier than they were on the morning walk. Still, I couldn't help but think about the lion feeding and the ferocious, pent-up power within these imposing beasts.

After dinner, I encountered another of Africa's most impressive creatures: the elephant. It was an elephant-back safari, illuminated only by the glow of the full moon. There were four elephants, and two people plus a guide rode on each animal. Nix and I shared a 23-year-old elephant, and we clumsily climbed onto the leathery creature from an elevated wooden platform. I sat in the back, all too conscious of the animal's hip bones shifting back and forth like pistons underneath the thin blanket on which we sat. Halfway through the walk, our elephant suddenly ran into the trees off the side of the path, and I thrust my arms around both Nix and our guide as we nearly slid off the beast. The elephant behind then charged us, its tusk nearly missing my foot. After the animals calmed down, our guide explained that the two elephants don't like each other. So we continued the walk, this time with our arms in a death grip around our guide's waist. At the end of the walk, we dismounted onto the wooden platform and carefully descended the ladder-like "stairs" constructed of horizontal tree branches. Back on solid ground, I realized that I could hardly stand, as my legs had been so widely spread while straddling the massive creature.

I had an excellent night's sleep, as Tom and I upgraded to an A-frame lodge for the last two nights at Antelope Park. It was $20 per night, but it was the best upgrade of the trip so far. Today I did absolutely nothing except take a much-anticipated bath in the luxurious tub, lounge around the cabin, and gaze at the calm river flowing by the windows.

The interior of an A-frame lodge at Antelope Park near Gweru, Zimbabwe

Frustrations and Surprises in Zimbabwe

Day 55: Harare / Bird Park, Zimbabwe

We reached Cuchamano on the Zimbabwe border at 7:30 yesterday morning, and it took two and a half hours to cut through all the red tape and finally enter the country. We proceeded through all sorts of convoluted formalities – off the truck to receive exit stamps out of Mozambique, back on the truck, off again to show our yellow fever vaccinations, back on the truck, off yet again to receive our visas to Zimbabwe, back on the truck. At this point, I was called into the immigration office again because the official had forgotten one of the stamps in my passport. Back on the truck once more, and then we had to wait for a long time while the border police questioned our driver, who was accused of paying for his visa with counterfeit bills (which are disturbingly common here). As Zimbabwe's currency was utterly destroyed, the country now uses U.S. dollars, so some people asked me to check their bills to make sure they were not counterfeit. we got off the truck again so it could pass through the border empty, walked through the border, showed our passports yet again, and finally boarded the truck one last time. The mission statement of the immigration post, displayed next to a poster of Robert Mugabe, is to be one of the most efficient border crossings in the world. Ha!

It took almost four hours to reach Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. Although Zimbabwe has been devastated in many ways in recent years, its infrastructure has remained intact, and Harare is probably the most developed city we have seen in Africa so far. We stayed at Kuimba Shiri Bird Park on Lake Chivero, about 25 kilometers west of the city center. The area is teeming with wildlife, including more species of birds than North America and Europe combined. Waterbirds gathered near the reeds along the shore of the lake. Of course, swimming in the deceptively inviting water would be foolish due to the many recent crocodile-related deaths.

A storm brews over the city center of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.

In the evening, we had a costume party, wearing hilarious and embarrassing garments that we bought for each other at a market in Malawi. Most of us upgraded to the shared dorms – it's nice to have an actual bed sometimes, although mosquitoes are more of an issue since there is no protection from a tent. The power and water go out often in Zimbabwe, and it was frustrating to coordinate showers – the water was completely out by the time it was my turn for one, but I managed to have one this morning.

After breakfast, a few of us wanted to go into Harare, so we walked to a "bus stop" on the nearby highway that was really just a bunch of locals standing by the side of the road. A group of Zimbabweans waved down a combi (a sort of shared van), but it was too packed for us to fit. More people climbed into the backs of pickup trucks that served as taxis, but they were piled almost on top of one another. Finally, an empty pickup truck stopped when we waved it down. A man was driving, and a woman holding a toddler sat in the passenger seat. It was not a proper taxi, but just a friendly Zimbabwean family on their way to town who decided to give us a lift. We climbed into the bed of the truck and enjoyed the breeze as we raced along the highway towards downtown. When we reached Harare, the man asked us through the back window of the cab where we wanted to go, and we told him Avondale Shopping Centre. It was a bit out of his way, but he was happy to take us there. When we reached our destination, we gave him a dollar each (the price of a combi), but he was shocked that we wanted to give him money for what he thought of as an everyday act of kindness.

We ate lunch at a pizza place inside the mall – the restaurant looked like any you might see at a mall in the United States, and the food was excellent. After lunch, we walked around the nearby market, where stalls sold everything from paperback novels and pirated DVDs to clothing and wood carvings. Jude and I needed to get back to camp for activities in the afternoon, but everyone else wanted to stay in town for a while. The two of us walked to a nearby combi stop and crammed into the vehicle for the short ride to the main part of downtown. We walked past high-rises that contained banks, offices, and hotels while we were followed the entire way by a little girl demanding money. She stayed by our side for half an hour before finally realizing we weren't going to give her anything. As easy as it would be to just yell at the girl and tell her to leave us alone, it was important to remain calm – there were literally no other white people anywhere to be seen, and racial relations can be tense in Zimbabwe. We didn't want to draw a crowd of locals who might think we were harassing the little girl.

We needed to make our way back to Bird Park, so we began hunting for a combi that was heading to Norton, the suburb where the park is located. We walked one block off the main street, and the orderly rows of glass and concrete buildings gave way to a chaotic mass of combis. We asked one combi driver after another if they were headed to Norton, and most either returned a quizzical look or gave us phony directions and demanded money for the lame advice. One driver finally said that he was going to Norton, so we crammed into the empty seats in the back of the vehicle. Luckily, we asked some of the people in the combi if it was headed to Norton, and they said that it wasn't. The driver had just given us the typical African "yes" and probably didn't even understand the question. We climbed back out of the combi and continued asking locals how to find public transportation to Norton. We kept the search up for close to an hour before finally breaking down and taking a taxi. It was ten dollars each, a cheap price for maintaining some sanity.

We arrived back at Bird Park just in time for an afternoon speedboat safari on the lake. Our guide, the owner of the park, is a white Zimbabwean who is incredibly knowledgeable about the wildlife of the area. Like many white landowners in Zimbabwe, his citizenship was revoked and he has had to fight for his land. Such passion makes for an amazing guide, and he managed to get us within ten feet of three white rhinos grazing along the lake shore. Most animals are not scared off by watercraft like they are by land vehicles, so sneaking up to them is much more feasible by boat. We also saw zebras and several species of birds, including fish eagles, before returning to the campsite.

A white rhinoceros stands at the edge of Lake Chivero near Norton, Zimbabwe.

White rhinos stand at the edge of Lake Chivero near Norton, Zimbabwe.

Next was a visit to nearby Lion Park, where we met a five-month-old and two seven-month-old cubs. We were given a brief safety lecture about how to behave around the lions, and then they were let out of their enclosure to go on a walk with us. Occasionally, one of the lions would flatten its ears and concentrate intently on someone's flip flops – their behavior is very similar to that of domestic cats. To prevent them from pouncing on our sandals with their razor-sharp claws, all that was needed was a quick distraction by a stick being drawn through the dirt. Like domestic cats, lions have a very short attention span. As dusk drew near, we said farewell to the lion cubs and returned to Bird Park to our "luxurious" dorm beds.