Victoria Falls onward….

We left Chobe and headed to Victoria Falls which would mark a point of a lot of changes. Since this trip is really three individual trips merged together, for some people this would be the end of their experience and we would also be picking up others ready to start their adventure. Six people left and two joined so we now had 11 paid customers plus our cook in 12 double seats. This meant each person had their own space to stretch out in, very nice!

Victoria Falls is in Zimbabwe our 4th country visited. It is also where Robert Mugabe runs things in a pretty corrupt manner. Zimbabwe, despite the highest literacy rate in Africa, has 80% unemployment and little outside investment due to the government. On the other hand, they have just discovered one of the largest diamond fields in the world, but it seems to be feeding the corruption machine, not the people. Also, I remember years ago, my mother telling me about relatives who fled Nazi Germany and moved to Southern Rhodesia where the capital city was called Salisbury. Today, that country is Zimbabwe and the capital is renamed Harare. Northern Rhodesia is now the bordering country of Zambia, which we will not be visiting. These areas had the typical African issue, minority whites held all the land and the money and it was only a matter of time until the local tribes would take over the government and repossess everything. Farmers are still being removed from their lands today and they are being redistributed to friends of the government, but the issue is, the new owners aren’t willing or able to work the land so the once productive farms are now producing nothing. Another thing is the flight of all young educated people (black and white) who can’t find jobs or social security. I’m told this is happening in South Africa too.

Everywhere we went in Vic Falls, there were street people hawking goods and looking to trade for our shoes. One of the popular things to sell is one trillion dollar bills printed by the Zimbabwe government. When that failed they converted to the U.S. dollar which makes it easy to buy things. Also, the town is maybe 5 streets in total and not very impressive. The falls, however, are spectacular but not safe for our cameras. This photo was taken with a small digital point and shoot we carry, thanks Chris D.! I took the time to get a haircut. I got a clipper cut with the #2 fitting so it’s really short.

Here's what Victoria Falls looks like...



We left Victoria Falls and headed to another camp in a park called Hwangi, where we had an exceptional local guide who took us on two game safaris and educated us on local people, plants used in the bush, animal activity, etc., quite an amazing guy. We saw lots of animals and birds but mostly different views of ones we had already seen, pretty nice viewing with close looks at elephants, giraffes, baboons, etc. We got a better view of a cheetah than before too.

We found a sable antelope there...



A young elephant



This is a cheetah resting on a huge termite mound. We have seen some mounds of amazing size...



A zebra up close...



A lilac breasted roller



Leaving Hwangi, we headed to another camp where we would stay two nights in Matapos National Park. The guide from the prior day pinch hit for the guide who usually does this part of the trip. Our goal was to see some ancient wall paintings done by the “bushmen” and then try to find rhinoceros in the park. The paintings were interesting and we were told there were at least 3,000 more caves like the one we visited.



We then went into the park and drove around looking for rhinos or hippos. After three hours of searching plus a stop for lunch, our guide had us dismount for a walk through the bush to track rhinos. Imagine walking through tall grass where you can’t see 10 feet ahead in land inhabited by rhinos, hippos, hyenas, lions, etc. I’m no hero so this was scary to me, too. The only reason any of us took even one step was the ability of the guide and his knowledge of the land, plus he was carrying a rather large rifle. This man is a very capable, well adapted fellow who knows what he’s doing. We walked through the brush for two hours and were hot and tired while he told us he was tracking a rhino and we just wanted to get back to the vehicle and have a drink and a rest. Well, sure enough, he found two white rhinos, each weighing around 2,000 pounds. We proceeded to track them until we were as close as twenty yards away. These animals are huge!. The sad thing is, to keep the rhinos alive; they have to cut off both of their horns. Otherwise, poachers will kill them and cut off the horns for sale in Chinese markets. It seems the rhino horn has some specific uses in Chinese medicine and for some, there are aphrodisiac qualities too. So, these rhinos have been darted and tagged (in the ear) and had their horns removed. Now poachers won’t kill them.







Finally, a hippo showing his open mouth as a warning...



We then headed to Harare for an afternoon to tour around. There was not much to see. The typical big city attractions like botanical gardens, National archives and galleries have been neglected and allowed to fall into disrepair. We walked toward the Presidential residence and had lunch in a sports club at a cricket field where everyone was watching the India-Pakistan match. Then back to the city center where there wasn’t much to do. Our group decided to make an early start and try to cross two borders in one day plus drive over 400 miles. This was going to cause a 15 hour travel day, but it would allow us one extra free day in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. We got to the Zimbabwe/Mozambique border and had a two hour wait while they manually wrote up our visas.

I don’t know much about Mozambique except they were a Portuguese colony at one time so the language is still used here. We drove across one section of the country and arrived at the Mozambique/Malawi border at 6:30 PM. The Mozambique exit office looked closed but it turned out they were using candles to work from due to lack of electricity. Since the border closes around this time, we felt lucky to get through. Then it was the Malawi border entry office for another stamp before driving 90 minutes to our camp where we upgraded to a bedroom for $2.50 per person.

Chobe National Park

Our group next headed for Chobe National Park in Botswana, leaving Namibia for the last time. Chobe is an amazing place and the home to over 25,000 elephants. We camped at a five star lodge so the facilities were quite nice. Internet was available, shopping good and the camp and grounds beautiful. We stayed at camp the first night and had an early wake up for a game drive where the viewing was excellent. We had another close encounter with lions and then warthogs, baboons and even oxpeckers. An oxpecker is a bird that sits on the back of a large animal and eats the bugs and parasites growing there.

Morning photos...

A pensive Baboon (kind of an oxymoron)



A cute warthog (another oxymoron)



A lion roadside from 20 feet away...



A lion yawning sequence from 8 feet away. (Don't worry, Susan was between the lion and me so I felt safe)









Oxpeckers on the back of a Cape Buffalo



Note: All of these photos were taken from a safari vehicle with a local guide. There were 6 people on our vehicle.

After lunch and some chill out time, we took an afternoon cruise to see the park from a different angle. Well, we certainly did. The elephants that were not around in the AM were all out bathing where we were cruising.















pretty ain't they?





Approaching storm...




There were lots of interesting things to see as the photos below show, and as a big rainstorm moved in on us, our captain spotted a real treat. On shore, hunting for its next meal was a leopard. Our boat tracked the leopard near the shore for over 30 minutes as the leopard paced back and forth looking for food. At some times, we were 100 yards away and others we were 20 yards away. We were so close, it seems like the leopard could have jumped onto the boat.









Chobe is my favorite location to date.

Many more places to go!

Africa Journey - Day 10 thru 18

This is written day 18 of the 60 day Africa journey. Please be aware there are some photos of bare chested women in this blog as I have been photographing normal daily life for some people.
The first group, called Himbas, were unique for their crafts, the way they assemble their hair and color their bodies with a clay type of mixture. I spent a few minutes trying to get good photos in bad light.

We left Swakopmund, Namibia after a three day break and headed north out of the desert toward the swampy grasslands that looks more like what most people envision Africa to be. On our way to this new area we made one last stop along the Western Coast of Namibia to view a huge colony of Cape Fur Seals and I found this guy…

Our first stop was a rather boring looking area with a bush camp. A bush camp is what you would have if you camped on your local football field. No view to look at, no activities, no shower, no toilet, etc., you get the picture. So envision this boring bush camp with tall rocky cliffs around, yawn. Then it started to rain, African style, like our days in Texas, nothing halfway. Soon, there were rivers where dry ground was ten minutes earlier, there were waterfalls cascading down from all of the cliffs, there was a shower you could stand in and bath under. Oh yeah, there were tents floating downstream, some blowing downstream, some just collapsing. There was a huge tarp to attach to our truck so we could eat and cook underneath away from the rain. It either had too much rain to stay up or the wind was too strong and it kept blowing off its moorings. Thirty minutes later, the storm passed; an hour later the streams and waterfalls stopped flowing and we returned to our activities of getting camp set up, soaking wet. Not an enjoyable evening but a true camping experience.

The next day, under clear skies, we headed to Etosha National Park in Namibia where we would spend two nights in two different camp sites. We set up camp and then set out on a nature and game drive. Truly, too many things to describe but the highlights were giraffe and zebras. Of course, we thought this was pretty good, but it was just the warm-up.

The next day we went on a frustrating game drive covering one entire section of the park and there was little to no animal activity. We proceeded to the far side heading for our camp area when we began to see lots of wildlife. From a distance, we found a mother and young cheetah frolicking near some zebras.

We found some zebras all around us in many locations, some with young, some playing together, or just eating.

So, tired from being in the truck all day, we headed back toward our camp. First, we saw some vultures in a tree which is a sure sign there is something dead or dying nearby. We found the unfortunate victim of life in the wild and what happens when they fall.

In the waning light, we came upon an unexpected delight. Sitting by the side of the road, watching life go by, was a huge male lion with six lionesses! Almost close enough to touch. Our noisy diesel truck really didn’t disturb the lions, as they moved a whole 25 feet away and went back to lying in the grass ignoring us. These photos taken with a telephoto lens but not enlarged or cropped were from approx. 20 yards away.

We left Etosha and headed to an area populated by “Bushmen” who have been living a traditional life off of the land for a very long time, like Native Americans used to. We watched them make a fire from dried out weeds and pieces of wood, no flint or other ignition besides the friction of the wood. Other photos show parts of the normal bushmen life. I also took a video of the group but can't upload it yet.

Our next camp was supposed to be a really good one, but the recent rainfall had washed away the road so we skipped to the subsequent camp and spent two nights there, relaxing all day the 2nd day with nothing much to do so I worked on processing photos. Of some concern was the sign hanging at our site that said, “Danger – Crocodiles”. They claim this is just to discourage swimming, but you have to wonder what sign they have hanging in the water to discourage the crocs from coming on shore.

We left this camp and headed to the Okavango Delta to camp for two nights. This required crossing from Namibia to Botswana, no big deal. Two things concerned me. One was that we would be transported in mokoros (dugout canoes). Some will remember my failure to correctly board a canoe in Minnesota, dumping my camera in the fresh water and causing the loss of a camera and a lens worth $2,000 a few years ago. (covered by insurance, but still…)

The other concerning thing was a posted warning on our truck that said:
1. Never go to the toilet alone, at night.
2. Avoid going to the toilet in the middle of the night.
3. If you have to go, shine your headlamp outside and if you see eyes glowing in the dark and staring back at you, stay in your tent!

I guess not too many 55 year old men go on this trip.
The good news is, I managed to survive both concerns. We had an amazing trip through the reedy water inhabited by hippopotamus that can be quite dangerous to man even though they are vegetarians. I didn’t get a Hippo photo at this time but can share one from our campground.

Well, maybe not what you were expecting but no man stood too close to these urinals.

The land is full of elephants, who are “in season” so they are a little boisterous too. Monkeys and baboons are all over the area too. Not many good photos but lots of signs and sounds of the existence of many wild animals on the two walks. One amazing sighting was a pearl fish owl and another was a fish eagle. In the late afternoon, I took a guided walk to look for animals to photograph. While there was an established path, it was mostly overgrown and a machete would not have gone to waste on this walk. Two thoughts went through my head… First, I imagined coming around a corner and finding Dr. Livingstone and uttering the famous words, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.” (Note: We do go to the town of Livingstone in the next week.) The second thought was I could envision Johnny Weissmuller high above the canopy swinging from tree to tree, giving his best Tarzan call.

Leaving this camp, we headed back to Namibia for one more night in our “crocodile” camp before going to another fabulous wild animal area in Botswana the next day.
It surprising that the first section of this journey is almost over since it ends in five days in Victoria Falls, as six people will leave the group and two will join. If I didn’t take another step, there are enough memories and photos to fill a book so I can only sit and wonder in amazement what the next 5½ weeks will bring. The size and scope of Africa is stunning, the nature and wildlife also amazes everyone. The only thing I’ve seen that comes close is Alaska but even that beautiful area doesn’t have the scale and scope and diversity of life, animal, bird and human that this part of Africa does. I haven’t said much about birds but the size, scope and beauty of the African birds justifies its own blog. Likewise, the people we have encountered are amazingly nice, cheerful, smart, thoughtful, understanding, etc.

At breakfast this AM, we were threatened with rain but got this instead…