Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Victoria Falls – Zimbabwe

The falls were named after Queen Victoria, because an English man, Livingstone, was the first white person to “discover” the falls. There is also a world famous hotel here, the Victoria Falls Hotel. Many years ago, the royal family used to holiday here. They would fly to Durban, and then take a royal train right to the Victoria Hotel.

For Warren, the falls are somewhat of a trip highlight. To get the most out of it, he joined some of the other travellers to go on a helicopter flight over the falls. Rosi and I, we decided to go zip lining instead, over one of the side canyons across the Sambesi River.

He are some pictures Warren took on his flight:

While Warren was exploring by helicopter, my mom and I went gliding! To get to the gliding spot, we had to actually leave Zimbabwe, and walk into Zambia on the railway bridge connecting the two countries. We needed our passports, but as it was just for a tourist attraction, the formalities were not too terrible. But we went into Zambia!

Entering Zambia…..

Rosi getting suited up…..

Carine getting suited up….

Only a few more moments, and we are off.

Sorry guys, I couldn’t take pictures while gliding of a 800ft canyon, hope you forgive me!

Later on in the afternoon, after we recovered a bit from our morning adventures, we drove to the falls to explore them on foot. Along the way we saw our very first baobab tree. In german it’s called “Affenbrot Baum”.

When you walk along the trail by the falls, you feel the spray and it is beautifully cooling.

We were walking like zombies anyhow, the temps reached 43deg.Celcius, I have no idea how I actually managed. At night, it does cool off, but without a fan (which we went and bought!!!!) and AC in the RV, we would fry.

Here are some pictures of the falls when walking along the opposite edge of the canyon:

If you look hard, you can see a crazy local, fishing on the very edge of the main falls, just meters back from the edge. We could not believe our eyes!

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

From Chobe it’s a short drive to the Zimbabwian border. Our guides have prepared all the paper work we need, they are with us at the border and help us through the endless formalities. We are bringing our RV’s into Zimbabwe, so the paper work needed to “import” the cars is complicated. But again, all went well and pretty smoothly. There is lot’s of noise in the building from locals talking very loudly, to the echo from the many stampings of passports, gate passes, and other essential papers. Of interest is, that we, as Canadian Citizens, had to pay a $75.00 entry visa, where the Swiss and Germans only had to fork up $30.00. I guess Mr. Mugabe doesn’t particularly like the US and I guess Canada is just an extension of the US!!!

Zambia is a very poor country. 80% unemployment!!

The poverty is more apparent than in Botswana, and locals keep pursuing us with their “goods”.

Along the way we see much smoke. Grass fires are everywhere in Africa. Sometimes they are caused by lightning, sometimes they are done on purpose to regenerate the underbrush. Sometimes the locals start fires to make a barrier between them and the wild life, out of protections so to speak. This is not only done in Zimbabwe, but also common in other African countries.

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We end up in Victoria Falls, where we will visit the falls the next day.

Chobe National Park

A very long drive from Francistown to Kasane, will bring us to Chobe National Park. Along the way we see a few typical African Villages, Botswana is very lightly populated, we see very few villages or small towns.

We do see animals along the highway, here we have an ostrich crossing the road in front of us. Isn’t he big?!

We are also warned about elephants crossing, we keep our eyes peeled all day long.

After a very long day driving, we arrive at our campsite, and are treated to a wonderful sunset. We go to bed early, as the next day is jam packed with activities.

We get up early, as our morning safari leaves at 5.45am. Early morning usually is a good time to view the animals, and we have a higher chance of seeing the ever elusive leopard and hard to spot lions.

Our guide stops and points into the sand. There are tracks in the sand. Ecole Robert Browning, do you know from which animal?

The jeep safari takes a good 3 hours over very, very rough roods, be are being shook around like crazy. Here we stop for a well deserved cup of tea.

Chobe National Park has around 110,000.00 Elephants. We do see many of them.

Unfortunatly, no Rhynos remain in the park. The reason for that I do not have to write about, too sad. 

Here we have to wait to let a group of elephants by. They are walking very fast, where are they headed?

Ahhh, to the Sambesi River, to drink and cool off!

Once back in camp, we take a couple of hours to relax and enjoy the beautiful setting of our camp site. There is a lodge, restaurant and a swimming pool.

Later on in the afternoon, we go on a boat safari, again on the Sambesi River. The Sambesi River is the same river we will go and visit in Zimbabe to see Victoria Falls, but more on that later.

From our vantage point on the boat, we see much wild life. The river’s edge is full of crocodiles, they love to soak in the heat.

There are also many, many hyppos in the water, most of the time they stay together in family groups. They can stay under water for up to 6 minutes. Here we got pretty close …

And of course, to end this report, a beautiful picture of a large group of elephants on the rivers edge, drinking and cooling off. I love elephants!

Into Botswana

Today was another big day. We drove for many hours, not much actual sightseeing, just getting from A to B. This meant driving from South Africa into Botswana. And crossing the border into Botswana. Every evening we have our daily "briefing" with our tour guide, it takes about 30 minutes and he goes over the next day and what we can expect. Yesterday we got lot's of info on crossing the border, and we all were a bit nervous. As it turned out, it was a piece of cake. But, rules and regulations in Africa change often, and one can never be sure that what was the rule 6 months ago is still applicable today.

Botswana, we are told, is the riches country in Africa, due to it's large diamond reserves. It is a very thinly populated country, and we drove for many hours and saw very few towns or people along the way. 

There is also very little traffic, and people drive very considerate and mostly careful. It is really not hard to drive here. But don't speed, tickets are costly! 

People and animals seek the shade unter the few trees that are actually green. We are here still during the dry season. Today the temperature went to 34 celcius. 

Not much going on along the road, this is in Botswana already. We are told that tomorrow's drive is going to be mostly dull and monotonous. We are working our way up towards Chobe National Park and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. But more on that another time.

At night we always end up at a very nice campground, we park our RV's, chat with our new friends, and enjoy a few cold ones.

Most campgrounds also offer rondavels for rent. These are the ones at today's campground.

Here we are getting ready for our nightly briefing. 

Not sure when I can post again, heading to Chobe National Park and then Zimbabwe the next couple of days. Thanks for reading!

Krueger National Park

Krueger National Park

Several days of no Internet, but we did not miss it. Except for not being able to update the Blog, we were happy to spend many hours searching out animals. And animals we did see, lots of them. Our eyes are tired from looking and looking, hour after hour, into the African landscape. We tried very hard to see a leopard, but were not lucky. But we did see one lion, six, yes six rhinos, and many of the other big ones like elephants, giraffes, hyppos and buffalos.

It is sad to report, that poaching (German= Wilderer) is still going on. We did come across a scary sight, with several poachers lying on the ground along the highway, police guarding them with guns. None of the poachers moved, but we don’t think they were dead. But we were told by a local, that the police will shot them if need be. Since January of this year alone, 371 Rhinos have been poached in Krueger Park, well over 500 in all of South Africa.