zimbabwe october 20
patsenojexpedition
patrick and susan jones
Sat 20 Oct 2007 10:52
yesterday was a travel day from chiefs camp in
botswana to matetsi water lodge in zimbabwe. took a little 12 passenger plane in
the morning from chiefs camp airstrip (after all the baboons and warthogs were
cleared off the field,)and flew for one hour and fifteen minutes to the kisane
airport in botswana at the zimbabwe border. the landscape from chiefs to
kisane airport is compelete wasteland, with scrub
bushes, no roads, no water, and few animals. but at kisane, this is where
the zambesi river is very wide and where
the countries of botswana, zambia, namibia, and
zimbabwe all meet in the corner. and that area is where the huge national
parks are.
after landing in kinsane, took a little van to the
botswana border where stood in line with a bunch of other safari camp
arrivers. little place, disorganized, but non-event to get passport
stamped leaving botswana. then went down the road 50 yards for the
zimbabwe immigration formalities. zimbabwe is not a friendly government to
either its people or to the usa, so was always going to be a bit iffy (rember
that mugabe is the president). in fact i was taking a little photo of the
little immigration building (size of a one car garage, but full of people and
officials), and was told to put the camera away or it would be confiscated
because i was taking pictures of a government building. amazing, because
the building was just a run down garage . and each person entering has to
pay a 30 dollar visa fee, in a hard currency, which is how they make a lot of
hard currency reserves. total trip from kinsane to matsetsi lodge was
around 90 minutes, passing a lot of really third world villages, with hand
painted signs, then through miles and miles of bush territory. on the way,
saw the government billboards with messages to control aids, exhorting the
populace to follow a policy of abstinence as a safe practice. somehow i
think that policy probably will not be very popular in this part of the
world/
at matetsi, arrived to find a nice litte camp with
6 chalets along the river bank all nested among a lot of large trees, right on
the zambesi river, and overlooking the opposite shore which is
zambia. was delighted to find that the bedroom was airconditioned since
the midday temperatures are over 95 degrees here. accomodations are quite
nice with a nice large but no airconb'room and a little private pool in front of
a raised deck, i suppose this is nice thing to do, but that is the same
area where baboons, monkeys, hyenas, warthogs and bushboks play----the latter
being a type of antelope that has both stripes and spots.
the daytime temperature is so hot, that they bring
lunch to the little chalet, but you must be careful or the monkeys will steal
your grub. heard a hippo snorting while having lunch, which is interesting since
we are in the trees next to the river and the hippo could very will be 20 feet
away ready to eat us and the grub stealing monkeys at the same
time.
went on a game drive, and are pretty jaded by this
time---zebras are getting boring, as are impala, kudu, cape buffalo, giraffes
etc, but whenever we start thinking we have seen it all something else pops up
interesting. for example, as we returned from the game drive, saw at least
30 elephants just after sun set all walking to and through a pond---sounded like
a train, and all the elephants were marching purposefully in the same direction
like british soldiers, not stopping, just drinking and walking into the water
and out the other side and just kept walking. also a male lion cut short
our evening "sundowners cocktail time" when the guides stop the vehicle near the
end of the game drive at some nice place that has a
convenient termite mound or big tree where guests
can "mark their territory" . but the tracker (who accompanies the guide on
the land rover) told us all to scurry back on to the land rover since he saw
this male lion advancing on out little party. so we then packed up
and followed the lion as he went in search of his dinner.
perhaps the most interesting species discovered
during the whole trip was discovered right in our own camp. there was this
lady from dallas, who was probably at least
130 years old, who was probably a texas socialite
around the time the alamo was being attacked. she had bleached blond hair,
owl-like sunglasses, lots of garrish jewelry,
hot pink lipstick and fingernail polish, and
wearing a shiny white llamay (spelling) shirt. looked totally out of place,
and kept calling baboons "apes" and asked the guide where the
"prairie dogs" were. she was much more scary and
bewildering than any warthog we have ever seen.
perhaps you recall from your school days some poet
or writer (i was not concentrating very hard on poets in school as you can
tell), who wrote about the "mightly baobabs">
well i can report to you that the baobabs are truly
mighty. they often reach over 500 years old to even 1000 years old and are
virtually indestructible. elephants try to pull the bark off and
fail. fire does not faze them. drought does not fase them (huge
trunks, little foliage normally, deep roots) and they look like trees turned
upside down when the leaves are off (like now, before the rainy season)----with
the branches with no leaves looking like a huge root system and the huge trunk
looking like it is pointing into the ground.
today, game drive left camp at 6am and we returned
for breakfast at 9am. had to shoosh away 7 warthogs that wanted to dine
with us and are not only quite ugly but also bold.
only guests in our little camp today are a young
russian couple (he 33, she 26) from moscow that had spentthe last week all over
south africa. he is an attorney, with very broken english, but nice
people. they lost their camera in south africa, so i took a couple of
photos and got their email address to send to them later. they are
taking a side trip this afternoon to go to victoria falls (we are going there
oct 23/24), which apparently includes bungee jumping. had an interesting
conversation with them last night in totally broken english about thier commute
in moscow (2-3 hours each way) and also about the risks of bungee jumping over
victoria falls.
no pc or internet connections here, so am sending
this via satellite phone again. but i think that there is cellphone
reception (zimtel)at the reception area(very aptly named location), which is
quite a hike in the hot afternoon sun, so will check it out later in the
day.
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