Thursday, Feb 6.  Routine day.  Early breakfast, drive, brunch, siesta (or walk), learn and discover (Botswana affairs and intricate basket weaving), second drive, dinner.  Stopped for tea and coffee.  “High tea” also.  The emphasis on tea is getting old.

A wealth of wildlife.  The highpoint was watching hundreds of zebras cross the river.  Deep enough to force the babies to swim.  Occasional fights among two or three zebras. Just incredible show.  Also encountered several testy elephants.  Truck’s battery died at one point (“This is when an elephant is supposed to charge!” Said I). We had to push start it.

No “cats”.  Saw a jackal from a distance.  Tomorrow we are promised a cat.  Every cat I’ve ever seen at zoos have in fact been boringly docile, so I’m hoping to see one, but not expecting fireworks.  (The lion we saw on day one yawned.)

Pulled out my photo printer and became much sought after by staff. Health is improving.

Wednesday, Feb 5.  Rhinos!  No more than 15 feet away at times.  Guards with ancient AK47s gave brief safety instructions, then showed us where they were. Six in total.  There are eight in the entire country.  If a rhino charged us, the guards weren’t there to shoot the rhino but to arrange our funeral.  Rhinos almost never stopped eating grass.  Gigantic, but how scary can an animal be that eats grass?

Transfer to Botswana. (Pronounced “Boat”, not “Bot”.) Crossed the Zambezi River as passengers in a motorboat, leaving our bus behind.  One-vehicle ferry boat, holding one truck at a time.  Hundreds and hundreds of trucks waiting to cross.  Weeks maybe.  Prostitutes. Bridge being built, which will revolutionize things. 

Observation: Zimbabwe walks.  Zambia rides bikes.  Botswana (thanks largely to diamonds, found after the UK surrendered the country to independence) drives cars.  Seemingly much more advanced country.  Shopping centers. 

Short remaining drive to lodge.  Entire staff turned out to sing.  Nice place, on the edge of a ravine, which provides frequent wildlife parades.  Shorter walk to room, a relief.  Excellent views.  Lodge serves pasta! I like this place.  Still, bugs own the world.  We’re just guests in it.

Rest, then drive along flat land, which later in the wet season becomes a wide river.  Some rain.  Massive lightning all over.  Incredible number of birds.  Eagle, storks, vultures, etc.  Huge number of vultures.  Something died somewhere.

Illness has been curbed by taking regular doses of Ibuprofen. Though we aren’t walking much at all, lots of exercise bouncing along the roads.

Tuesday, Feb 4. Been feeling ill, so I skipped the morning town trip to a market, “doctor”, and museum. The clouds opened up around noon, which cancelled our afternoon wildlife drive. Illness has lessoned to the point that Ibuprofen covers up the symptoms. Should be good henceforth.

There is an understandable desire to see a rhino and here is the only place that that can happen. So there will be another attempt tomorrow.

Monday, Feb 3.  Photos tell most of the day’s story.  We visited the Zambian side of the Falls, which is supposed to be the bad side.  I find it hard to believe.  In about 9 days we’ll visit the Zimbabwe side.

A fine briefing about Zambia’s history and condition.

A nature drive.  A bunch of animals.  

Sunday, Feb 2 (02/02/2020).  Transfer from Hwange National Park to Toka-Leya Lodge (a few miles north of Victoria Falls on the Zambia side of the Zambezi).  Few animals seen on the trip.  Stopped nearby the airport to experience a low-style strip mall.  Visited a wood-carving Co-op.  Stopped briefly at the hotel where we’ll stay for the last two nights of the Adventure.  Very non-African.  Wifi, which actually wasn’t essential as our final destination has it (hence my updates).  Walked across the Victoria Falls Bridge.  Surprised to learn that the river flows in the opposite direction than I expected.  I wasn’t alone.  Bungee jumping available (NO!).  Zipline (maybe).  Our full day at the Zimbabwe-side Falls is on the last day.  This was just a taste.

The lodge is in a small national park with no “cats”.  Giraffes, which have a much light shade of hair.  Hippos!  On land.  Terrific lawn mowers, grass being the only thing they eat.  Monkeys.  After an extremely late lunch (I was watchful for food-stealing monkeys), we had a brief siesta.

Boat ride towards the Falls (3 miles away) to spot wildlife.  A seemingly infinite number of bird variety.  Hippos of course.  A couple of crocks, which were immobile. Lots of party boats, sparsely populated.  Sundays is not actually a busy time for the Falls.  I only carried my camera, so naturally the battery died.  Must always carry the bag with spares.

Apparently, the repetitive action of bringing up the camera and holding it to my eye caused stress to my elbow.  This morning, while washing the back of my neck, something popped.  It’s still functional (except for washing), but it’s a pain I feel every time I take a photo.

The lodge’s rooms are elevated, meaning I can stand on the porch without fear of hippos.  There is a lower part of the boardwalk (literally a hippo crossing), so walking around unescorted is forbidden.  But it’s hot out there and the room has AC(!).  Incredible room, except for mosquitos.

Skipped dinner.  Wasn’t hungry, didn’t see any food I wanted, and a little tired of all the social interaction.  Everyone is really nice and very experienced, but several speak in whispers that I can’t hear without exhausting concentration.

Saturday, Feb 1.  Within the first ten minutes of our full day drive we had the thrill of the day when we were literally circled by a herd of elephants.  Fabulous.  The “bouncer” was on duty, nicely trumpeting and kicking up dirt when we approached too closely.  Great show, especially from where we were seated.

The rest of the day followed with less theatrics.  Hippos, Crocodiles, Impalas, buffoons, monkeys, tortoise, giraffes, dung beetles, ants raiding elephant dung. All kinds of birds.  Rapid, heavy and short rainstorm.  We got most of it. Would have been nice to see another lion, but it was a fine day.

During lunch Mado (Trip Leader) told more of the story about the illegal killing of Cecil, a world-renowned lion.  The similarities of what I read about killing wolves in Wyoming was astounding.  

Many natives drive the difficult roads to fish at the Park’s lake.  Various forms of cheap and improvised poles.  Regardless of the quality of equipment, the fish were biting.

The lodge has two female employees, who are actually the two in charge.  One spoke to us about the challenges she faced to get to where she is now.  She spoke of the challenges of her two worlds: serving the needs of westerners at work and living within the traditional Zimbabwe lifestyle at home.

After two days of fiddling with my new camera (often with bad results), I went back to basics and just used the “Auto” setting.  Much better.  I’ll try to expand my skills one feature at a time. 

We leave tomorrow for a lodge closer to civilization.  Might have wifi.  This lodge is excellent, but it’s Out There.

Friday, Jan 31. Slept so very badly.  Bedroom is full of bugs. But it didn’t impact my day.

Lion footprint. Elephant, mom and child.  Warthog. Impala. Leopard Tortoise. Lots of more elephants. Various birds.  

Visited supermarket.  Better in appearance than the general community atmosphere.  Adjoining bank with a long line of people hoping to get their weekly allowed withdrawal from their own accounts.  About $17.  “We can’t trust the banks!” Says our trip leader.  The country is broke in a very literal sense.  A lot of routinely accepted illegal activity supervised partly by the police..  

School.  Catholic.  Test questions on pages dated 2001.  Deplorable condition, though the children’s cloths are nice.  I took a photo, then asked the boys if they wanted another with their teacher.  Frowns.  “Teacher is not good,” whispers one student.  It’s a sad situation. (China, by the way, contributes nothing to the wellbeing of their employees beyond a paycheck.)

Homestead.  Large loose family commune.  A central water faucet.  Cattle is their currency.  Very sad condition.  Very cheerful though, with the women screeching their welcome. Each time they start, I cringe. I compare it to Native Americans on the warpath.

After a siesta, we did a little drive, seeing a few animals. Many elephants though.

Lunch and dinner are western style.  Though the temperature hasn’t been as hot as I feared, it’s still obsessive.  

Thursday, Jan 30. Most of today was transportation.  Flight was routine.  Victoria Falls Airport (in Zimbabwe) had the obligatory singing warriors out front.  Failed to get the proper two-entry visa, so I’ll have to get another when returning to Zimbabwe from Botswana.  Met Mado, our Trip Leader.  48 years old with 6 children.  Doesn’t look 30.  The country’s main east-west road is poor.  Large coal mine along the way, funded and largely built by Chinese company.  Zimbabwe has a dependency on China that I don’t think is healthy, but they are the only country to take any interest in Zimbabwe, which is taking a “gift horse” approach.

At the park entrance transferred to two ten passenger jeeps with open stadium seating.  There’s only ten of us, so we all get an excellent view.  Within minutes we spied a giraffe towering over large bushes.  Spotted a lion, sadly hiding behind a bush.  As forewarned, the greenery is blocking views.  But we’re told that seeing any part of a lion on the first drive is very rare.

Camp is nicer that expected.  24 hour power, a bar, no wifi.  Armed escorts took us to our tents after a late dinner.  Good food.  Pea soup, short ribs (beef), cauliflower with heavy cream sauce, apple pastry with ice cream.  Told to not leave our tents until the area is cleared by staff the next morning.  Not sleeping well yet.  

The country is poor.  Painfully obvious.  

(Closing thought about South Africa.  Wealth disparity is obvious.  The country has a very long way to go.  Mandela had to have been a magician to keep the nation from imploding.)

Wednesday, Jan 29. Flight from London was the opposite from yesterday’s. Empty seats, bigger gap between seats, and they nearly begged us to drink booze. Arrived on time. Long walk out of airport. On the warm side, which is something I need to get used. Tour guide arrived with a busted AC in his car. Apartheid Museum, Memorial to the school students’ riot/massacre of 1976, Nelson Mandela’s home in the 50’s. Drive by Desmond Tutu’s home, two blocks from Nelson’s. Two Nobel Peace winners on the same street. But overall, it was a sad display of man doing awful things. We can and should do better. Ordered home made potato chips. Got French fries. I should have known.

Bailed on everything else on the tour. Hot and tired. Hotel is nice, with a complementary bottle of wine. I think I’ll sleep well tonight.

Tuesday, Jan 28. Eleven hour flight. Thought I’d try a new method and sit in a window seat so I could lean against the bulkhead to sleep. Due to configuration, the seat was a foot away. So failure. My row mate, a taciturn Italian, slept nine straight hours, preventing any “walk around” time. Agony.

Successful sojourn at Heathrow. Got a seat change from middle to aisle, security was a remarkable breeze, found a nice camera bag, and lastly entered a fancy lounge, thanks to my new(ish) credit card. Complementary glass of Prosecco, complementary food. Shower available.