Warthog's

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Kariba Town is on the Zimbabwe side of Lake Kariba. Part of the Zambezi river, it is considered the world’s largest man-made lake by volume. A dam was constructed in the Kariba gorge for hydroelectric purposes which affected the home of the local river god “Nyami Nyami.” Literally translated the name means “meat meat.” Idk…anyways, the lake is beautiful but the wildlife is even more so! I got to camp by myself, again, which means all the animal sightings were seen only by me and the few staff that was around. Kariba Town is known for the heat and said to be the hottest place in Zimbabwe. Well I can tell you when the sun woke me up at 6:30am after cracking the horizon for about 15 minutes, I immediately thought of swimming in the lake, but schistosomiasis had other plans. Its also known as bilharzia and katayama fever and is pretty much a funky flat worm that wants to live inside you caused by infected snails in tropical fresh water lakes….ew. Soooo I took many showers that day and did a little laundry. When checking my laundry I was startled to find an elephant about 50 feet away from my tent! Woa! I grabbed my camera to shoot a video and im sure glad I did…He was walking straight for my tent as you can see in the vid when I decided to whistle to alert him. Like “Don’t run over my tent!!!” He immediately flared his ears and swung the probing trunk in my direction. I stopped filming. And then he took a half step towards me the way a bull digs into the ground to get traction for a locomotive move. Now I have learned what to do when a bear gets too close or a moose or a mountain lion, but not an elephant. So on the second mock charge I bolted making sure my tent and 2 trees were in between me and this beast…He didn’t pursue to my surprise and relief and I hid in the toilets til he passed. What a ride J About 10 minutes later, 7 elephants strolled along the same path right through camp, but I didn’t have my camera. Then about an hour later 17 were down by the lake to catch a drink. What a day. Just me, the staff, and a bunch of giant pachyderms trying to keep cool in the mid day’s heat.

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