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Published: October 26th 2008
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We're back from Zimbabwe safe and sound! Basically it was amazing! Amazing! Spectacular, crazy, fun, and amazing! Okay so let's see how long it takes to tell you all about it...
So we were supposed to leave at 5:30 so that we could be at the border at 6 when it opened. We got our first glimpse of the rest of the trip by leaving late. Then it took a couple hours at the border because for some reason it takes forever to get the truck through. We were in a big truck with open sides/windows. It looked like a regular big transport truck except with seats in it. Relatively comfortable, but kind of slow and windy. And apparently not in very good running condition. Every time we stopped we had to push start the truck! And we had to stop multiple times. Zimbabwe is having some troubles recently, in case you hadn’t noticed, so there are police out on the roads that stop every car that goes past. We got stopped 4 or 5 times. Eventually we learned to just leave the motor running so that we didn’t have to push it. Luckily the stops usually only took 2-3
minutes. We arrived to our first stop, Granite Ridge Matopos National Park near Bulawayo, a couple of hours late so our rhino safari was pushed up to the next morning. We stayed at The Farmhouse. Each pair of us had our own little cottage with our own bathroom and mosquito nets provided! There was a main area for meals and hanging out and a pool and nice grassy lawn. It was pretty small; with 13 of us we filled up almost all the cottages. Since we didn’t have anything planned until dinner we went to a nearby campsite with a nice view to watch the sunset. Granite Ridge is an area full of rock hills. It almost looked like Red Rocks in Nevada except not as red and not as big. The sunset was nice though! Sunrise and sunset are always gorgeous! The sun is huge and bright blood red and almost translucent, if that combination is even possible… They’re really fast though. One minute the sun is up in the sky, the next it’s relatively dark.
The next morning we woke up bright and early to see the sunset at 5 am. We climbed up on one of
the rock hills to see it. The spot that we ended up at didn’t have a very good panoramic view so I climbed up on another big rock to get a better view. Elin, Tom, and Warren soon followed suit. Then we saw some cave paintings from the bushmen time before having breakfast and setting off on our rhino safari. The next couple hours we spent tracking rhinos. We ended up seeing 6, all mother and baby pairs. The babies were mostly pretty big except for one smaller one. We got really close to them! Probably within 10 meters at one point! There are white rhinos and black rhinos. These were white which are less common, but also less aggressive so we were able to get closer. It was really cool! I was expecting them to actually be white though and they definitely weren’t. More just gray. The names having nothing to do with their actual coloring, as is usually the case. I know that now. But I have to say I was kind of disappointed that they weren’t actually white. It was still way cool though!
Next stop was Antelope Park, home of the ALERT lion rehabilitation center,
also run by African Impact (my volunteer organization). The park only has one resort and let’s just say it’s really nice! The grounds are gorgeous and there are little lodges right by the river to stay in. We, of course, didn’t get to stay in those. We were near the camping area in small rooms with separate buildings for bathrooms. It was still nice though and the food was good! In the late afternoon we had our lion walk. We were split in half so there were only 6 of us with 2 male lions, both 1.5 years old. Let’s just say it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life! You can’t even understand unless you’ve done it. We got to pet them and take pictures of them and walk with them. They’re kind of used to humans because they’re around them so much, but when it comes down to it they’re still wild animals so it was still really cool! Elin and I decided we want to go back sometime to volunteer because it sounds amazing!
The next morning Madeleine and I did the elephant training session before breakfast. We got to see their tricks
Lion Walk!
Yes that's the lion we were making friends with... and then also “pet” them, feed them, sit on their knees, and on their backs. It was pretty neat. My elephant got a little friendly and was trying to “play” with me by grabbing my shirt and grabbing me around the waist to forcibly move me from one side of her to the other. After breakfast a couple of us did a horse safari. Yes, Delana, I know you’re probably going to kill me for that. We got really close to a giraffe and a herd of zebra and wildebeests. We also saw a bunch of impala and kudu. In the zebra herd there was a baby zebra that was only 2 days old! It was tiny and adorable! We got way closer than you can in a safari vehicle. Giraffes are one of my favorites. Them and lions and elephants and… okay I just like most of the animals. Impala and kudu are kind of like antelope. Kudu have amazing horns! They’re all curly and long and crazy!
Right before lunch we went to the lion feeding. Imagine 5 huge male lions racing towards you at full speed with only a flimsy wire fence separating you from them. That’s
Group with Lion
From left to right: Back row: Madeleine, Jen, Warren... front row: Lucy, me, Tom, Elin! how it was. The food was right on the other side of the fence from us so they raced towards us to get it. Then the eating of course was insane. All of them trying to get the best piece. Pretty nice!
In the afternoon we had a tour of the breeding center. African lions are decreasing in population so ALERT is trying to fix that. They have lions that have been orphaned or bred in captivity that they then work to “set free”. There are 3 stages. The first stage is at the center, teaching them how to hunt and survive in a pride. Stage 2 is releasing them in a larger, but still small, enclosed game-park so that they can live together with other animals. Third stage is a really really really big enclosure, basically like the wild except with a fence around it still (I think around 500 acres). The babies that they have and successfully raise are then released into the complete wild. Obviously the ones who have had any interaction with humans can’t be released because they might associate humans with food and go into villages. Their cubs, though, can be released. It sounds like
a pretty good program. It sucks for the lions in the breeding center though because their cages are pretty small and they probably get bored. It was just started in 1999 so it hasn’t gotten very far. There is only 1 stage 2 area and no stage 3 areas. It’s pretty hard to get governments to give land for this kind of project. They’re working on it though.
In the evening we just hung out and played UNO. It has kind of turned into our group game.
Also, we woke up with a flat tire in the morning so our driver spent a while trying to fix that and the engine.
The next day we moved on to Hwange National Park. Or at least we tried to…
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kirsten
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that lion feeding picture is INTENSE!! ohhhh my giddy goodness! :]]