Day 15 Transfer to Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe- Kashawe
Camp
Another long day of travel ahead of us. We waved goodbye to Lydia and the rest of the
staff and began the journey to Zim Zim as Mandela calls his home. This required the light aircraft again (with
the same seating arrangements, though now, Carol was a veteran of tiny planes
and took it in stride) from the dirt landing strip near the camp to Livingstone,
then an hour bus to the bridge across Victoria Falls, a walk across the
bridge, another 2 hour bus ride to the
entrance to Hwange National Park, and finally 45 minutes in land rovers to
the to Kashawe Camp in the park. All told with a couple of stops, about 8
hours of travel!
The flight to Livingstone was uneventful and very smooth
under beautiful blue skies. From the
airport, we drove to Livigstone, stopping on the way to get a view of the falls
from a distance. The ancients called the
falls smoke and thunder because of the ever-present mist that looks like smoke
at a distance, and the loud, thunderous noise that the falls creates.
On the way out of Zambia, we sat in the bus at passport
control while Mandela took our passports to get stamped. Outside of the customs house, people sat
eating their lunches on the front lawn along with an occasional stray
baboons. Women carrying wares on their
heads left customs (presumably with passports stamped) and began walking into
Zimbabwe. We later saw them on the other
side. Our driver, Angel, dropped us off
at the beginning of the bridge to allow us to walk to Zim Zim. Other than having to run the gauntlet of
souvenir salesmen, the stroll was beautiful.
We were able to see the falls, feel the falls, hear the falls. At the halfway point, there are signs for
entering Zim Zim and leaving Botswana, and we crossed to the other side where
there was a bungee jumping station. Lee Ann
was kind enough to show us how it was done. Just over 300 feet to the bottom.
Hopefulluy, the cord is some number shy of 300 ft. (don’t worry, none of us actually jumped,
including Lee Ann).
Crossing into ZimZim was the most difficult border crossing
we’ve had. We all had to be stamped
individually, then our bags were x-rayed put back in the trailer behind the bus
and awy we went. Victoria, Zimbabwe, is
a good sized city, and we had to stop to get John some medical attention (he
had been sick with a bad cough). While
he was at the doctor (visit cost $30) we stopped at the Rainbow Hotel (where we
will be staying in a few days) and used their
bathrooms (clean) and internet(s-l-o-w).
We had all been internetless for what seemed to be an eternity, and all
feverishly tried to get email, news, and as for me, the blog out.
After another 2 hours we reached Hwange National Park. Close to the park entrance coal is mined in
open pits. Visions of what Trump will do
.
At the entrance, we boarded 2 land rovers for the bumpy trip
to the camp. The terrain here is
extremely different from all that we’ve seen to date. It reminded all of us of similar terrain that
we have back at home. Being fall here,
we are beginning to see leaf changes, yellow, not as spectacular as NH, but
pretty, just the same.
The big news of the day involved tent assignment. Much to everyone’s surprise, Jeri and I got
tent #3. We were the odds on favorite
for the outlier tent #9, yet again, with the bookies having us at even odds,
but that went to Ken and Lee Ann. They are pretty close to our dubious honor of
having the furthest tent at each camp. Since we had so much experience with the
far tents, I advised them to take a
sandwich with them, just in case they got hungry on the way.
After settling in, we had high tea, then a short game drive to
reach a spot to drink and watch the sun go down. Yet another beautiful African sunset!
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