zimbabwe and botswana 2001

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This was my first, of hopefully many, african overland safaris. I chose this holiday by chance after a planned holiday to Mexico and Guatemala was cancelled, due to flight rescheduling. All I can say is thank you Continental Airlines! Browsing through the brochures for another holiday, with the right dates, I came across this Zimbabwe and Botswana trip with Exodus and took a chance. And what a good choice it was! Probably the best trip I've ever taken.

week 1 zimbabwe to botswana

We were met by our overland trip at Harare airport and having picked up three more people in town, 20 of us (17 tourists, our guide, cook and driver), headed west towards Bulawayo. Our first nights were spent at Antelope Park, a private game reserve near Gweru. Here you get the unique opportunity to walk through the park with young lions and feed lion cubs. I did the walk twice, once with 11 month olds and then with the much bigger, 15 month olds. As you can see, these creatures can get a bit playful and one "had a go" at the oldest member of our group, 73 year old Ron, (see right). She was quickly brought under control, but it probably wasn't a coincidence that she picked Ron, in her eyes the easiest target. The next morning I did the walk again with the older lions, which weighed in at about 85kg, who were much more difficult to control. At one point they pinned one of guides to the ground and later tried to enter their younger cousin's compound.

Fortunately the high fence managed to separate the two sets of big cats or else there would have been trouble. We also got the opportunity to go swimming with the elephants, go on a river cruise and the next morning we all went on a horse ride around the reserve. At the beginning of our ride, Rob, experienced rider and the nutter of the group, broke his arm, as his horse bolted. He discovered it was broken after the holiday and subsequently went bungy jumping, swimming and climbed a 20 foot pole, all with a broken arm! I suppose he must have had strong arms, being a trucker. We also got a chance to feed the younger cubs, awww. We then moved on to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, where we camped centrally, went for a meal in town, walking down some very badly lit city streets. On our return the heavens opened and made a hasty retreat to our tents. Then it was on to Matopos National Park.

Matopos was the first of our many game drives and our time there was spent eyes straining, looking for the Rhinos which have made the park their home. Hours went by and we were approaching end of our day, when Andre, one of the three swiss on our trip, spotted a white rhino, a 100 metres off to our left. Wanting to make the most of this, our park guide got us out of the trucks and we began to track the big male on foot. After 10 minutes our guide suddenly gestured for us to stop, as our Rhino had clearly spotted a female close-by. We followed in a single line, as it approached the second rhino. Our guide suddenly looked very worried and yelled "run!" at the confused group of tourists who had been following his every step. The first rhino then charged the second MALE rhino and they ran at full speed through the bush, in not particular direction. Two of the more intelligent (okay swiss) tourists climbed a near tree and the rest of us ran for our lives, in all directions - okay maybe not our lives but it felt like that! Strangely, Angela and I ended up in front of most our fellow travellers, despite them having a head start (we were right behind the guide when he gave the order to "run!").

Once the coast was clear we quickly returned to the trucks, the adrenalin still surging through our veins. We then made our exit from the park and the next day headed for the Botswana border. We stopped briefly at the border which seemed infested with giant moths - they were the size of houses I tell you! We then commenced on one of the longest drives of the trips, our 21-seater truck trundling through the barren plains of eastern Botswana, before reaching Francestown. You'd be surprised how wealthy Botswana can look, despite many of it people living in abject poverty. Francestown puts many towns in the UK to shame, clean, modern shops and banks line the mains streets, with cafes, ATMs, you name it, it's here. After a brief stop for lunch we, drove to Nata before camping wild in the pans. We woke early in the morning to discover we'd been sharing a tent with a couple of scorpions. Fortunately they were the big black ones, not the small brown type, which apparently are more dangerous - although I'd rather not test that theory. Then on to Maun at the edge of Botswana's famous Okavango Delta.

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