From Malawi we endured a couple of long drive days before arriving in the capital of Zimbabwe - Harare. It was like arriving on a different continent, all of a sudden everything was a bit more western, including the prices! As we have said before we are not really fans of the big city and Harare was no exception although we did make the time to taxi into town to check out a local band which was well worth it.
It had been a few days since we had any animal contact so our next stop at Antelope Park gave us more than enough up and close personal contact with the animals. For any avid Animal Planet watchers, this park has a show about it as one of their prime objectives is releasing lions back into the wild from captivity. We decided that we would do a few of the activities including walking with the lions which is exactly how it sounds. You go for a stroll with 3 lions and have a chance to get up close and pat them.
All a bit surreal and scary to be honest, especially when one of our group stood on the male lions tail, not his best move! Also got a chance to see the lion cubs who were a bit sleepy but still super cute.
After being a bit lioned out and not wanting to favourtise we took the time to see the elephants being trained. They are extremely clever animals.
We left Antelope Park a little torn between deciding if it was a commercial gimmick or if they were truly all about the animals as there are still yet to be any successful releases back into the wild...we are still in two minds.
The excitement continued for us over the next leg of the journey as we were fortunate enough to go on a tour to track the rhinos with the most hard out safari dude ever. I have never met a person so into poo examining. Every minute or so he would stop the 4wd to pick up poo, break it apart and give us a 5 min spiel on what animal was pooing, when the animal did the poo and what the animal was eating before it pooed. I watched him closely at lunchtime to make sure his poo hands weren't touching the food we were about to eat! For all his poo obsession however he was very knowledgeable and trekked us straight to a massive white rhino who we ended up being about 30 metres from. Quite frightening to be that close but the poo man had his trusty gun with him and as we had heard his hunting stories on the drive there we knew we were in good hands.
After that adrenalin buzz we spend the rest of the tour driving to some ancient Sans paintings, which were actually impressive considering their age. The detail on the animals was brilliant. There was also a beautiful view back over the valley which topped off our day nicely.
Seeing as we had been up close and personal with the animals quite a lot it was fitting that our next few days were based at the natural wonderland of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe's premier adventure playground. Having done most of the adventure stuff available in NZ we opted to simply take in the impressive sights of the falls on foot, both from the Zimbabwe and the Zambian sides. The falls are simply phenomenal, you get up really close, close enough to get a decent shower! On the Zambian side we opted to try something a little different and hired a local guy to walk us across the falls to a place called Angels Pool which is situated on the edge of the falls. We swam in the pool and Chris jumped off the rocks almost oblivious to the fact that if you made a wrong move you would be falls fodder. It wasn't until we viewed where we were from the other side that we realised the magnitude of what we had done.
We definitely needed a come down after that and what could be more relaxed than a spot of high afternoon tea at the Victoria Falls Hotel (where the royals stayed back in the day after the 2nd world war). We really had to dig deep in our packs to find suitable attire to wear (well make sure it was clean was priority no 1) and then spend a lovely afternoon overlooking the bridge across the falls whilst sipping on tea and eating sammies, scones and cakes.
Amazingly after we had finished Chris thought it would be a good idea to ask the reception what their most expensive room was in the hotel. Answer = USD 840 per night, I thought I was in for a treat but he quickly explained that he didn't want it...curses...however the friendly lady then said we could go and have a look if we wanted as it was the room where the royals had stayed, um why not! Now for 840 USD a night I was expecting great things, and albeit it was lovely the biggest thing I noticed was the size of the bathroom - tiny!! I think the royals were had...To complete our Victoria Falls experience the last night we went to an all you can eat game meat restaurant. Tactics were discussed, the pact was made not to fill up on bread, and off we went. The options were good, kudu and warthogs steaks, eland and impala stews, ostrich kebabs, impala terrine, croc tail and of course good old fashioned steaks, chicken etc. The winner for the night was the warthog steak, it was tender, delicious and one of the tastiest meats I have tried. There was just enough room for dessert, only just. We definitely had the meat sweats going on that night in our tent.
We started to miss the animals after the falls so fortunately we were heading straight to Chobe National Park. This time we were viewing the animals from the water on a sunset cruise. This was the first time we got to see large numbers of elephants as they were all down by the water getting their daily drink and swim in.
Not only were there elephants but loads of crocs, lizards, hippos and bird life too. All of this topped off with a gorgeous sunset it was a day to remember.
