South Africa – A World in One Country
Day Seventeen – 8 October 2013 – Day of Everything
Weather: I’m melting!
Holy cow, it’s hot here. I get to sleep in this morning since the falls tour doesn’t start till 8:15 but I’m up and wide awake at 6. I do the breakfast buffet and get the transfer to the falls. It’s a group of about 16 of us and the trails along the falls make it easy to keep from getting lost.
Unless you’re Italian.
Yeah, poor fella kept wanting to go in the other direction.
The falls are now at the end of the dry season which means only the falls at the south end are active. The rest is a fairly dry gorge. It still roars pretty good.
To tell you the truth, this is the time to see them for one big reason.
The spray.
Even in dry season, the spray around the active falls drenched us and I was constantly cleaning the lens on my cameras, but the spray is nothing compared to what it is after the rains come.
Our guide said you can’t even see the other side of the falls then. Granted, nothing is nicer than a spray on a 30+ degree day, but the dry gorge is very impressive. So we got a taste of both and well worth it.
On the other side, there’s a pool of water on the edge of the falls that you can safely swim in and there was a group there having a swim as we walked by on the opposite side. One guy even looked like he was planking, with part of his body hanging over the edge.
I waited till he was done to see if I’d get a video I could submit to the Darwin Awards.
At the far end of the trail there’s a gorge leading away from the falls and on the other side is Zambia and you can see the bridge from that area. There’s a bungie jump under the bridge as well.
From there, it’s a one kilometer walk back to the park entrance where I do some power shopping and meet up with the guide for the drive back to the lodge. It’s 11:30 and I go to the bar for lunch and watch the baboons play on the water’s edge below.
My next activity is the helicopter flight that got confused yesterday and you guessed it…no transfer showed up. One of the porters was nice enough to call them and they were there in 5 minutes (the pad is just across the road from the lodge…but since the lodge’s driveway is a ½ km long through the open parkland, there’s no walking it).
I get there and have to pay an extra $12 park fee since the copter will enter the park. I get weighed along with a mother and son and it seems they keep the number to 3 per helicopter to give everyone the best view. The mother suggests I take the front seat so that she can sit with her son and I think, who am I to argue? Actually, any seat is good for this type as they will fly in both directions.
I hop in and realize that the window next to me is open. Great for photos!
As you can see.
The ride is about 13 minutes long and does two circuits of the falls then goes up the Zambezi a short distance, turning back to the pad as we cross over the island we had circumnavigated the night before. At the right angle, you can catch a rainbow over the falls.
The cost for the flight was $140 and worth every penny, and given the pics I’ve seen with the falls in full flow, I think I prefer this time.
The company puts together a video and shows it to us and offers to sell it to us for $30, but they also offer a photo CD for $15 and we both go for that. The pics were pretty good (of us getting on and off the helicopter and one of me chasing my hat under the helicopter). I took my own video of the first couple of minutes here.
I also got a great pic of my hotel from the air.
From here, it’s a two minute ride back to the lodge and I have 15 minutes to change for my next adventure – the Walk with the Lions.
Is it no wonder I’m exhausted!
But I still have time to drop in on the activities guy, named Zulu, and he hands me a ticket for a game drive for the next morning from 6 to 10:30. My transfer for the airport is at 11.
I’m exhausted and cutting things close!
My transfer for the lion walk shows up and we pick up about 8 more people en route. The walk takes place in a lion rescue reserve that has a second park in Zambia and a larger park where the animals are relocated in central Zimbabwe called Antelope Park. So, while the lions grow up around humans, they are released into a large reserve where their interaction with humans will be limited.
The park has four young lions at the moment. They had released two that morning and were in the process of ridding their pen of their scent (by digging up the perimeter).
The pen has an electric fence around it not to keep the lions in but to keep other animals away from them.
We sit down with the guides for a few minutes and sign a waiver.
Yeah, just cause, well, we’re walking with wild animals that have teeth the size of my thumb.
After a briefing on how to approach the lions (from behind), we are each given a stick and meet up with the rest of the guides which include a group of four European volunteers who come at their own expense to help with the lions.
They tell us about the lions’ day which includes a walk in the morning and evening and the rest of the time sleeping.
Kinda like my cats.
Except mine don’t get ten pounds of red meat a day.
Granted, these guys would deter home invaders better than mine.
The lions are eleven months old and still playful with each other. The guide tells us their names and one person asks if they answer to their names. The guide calls out to the lions by their name and neither one even flicks an ear in his direction.
Gee, just like my cats.
We’re all given a chance to sit behind them and the guides take our cameras to take photos and like all the locals who have done this for us, they really know how to take a pic with just about any camera.
When we’re done, we embark on a ½ km walk with again each of us taking a chance to walk with the pair of lions while the guides take our pics.
One lion loves to wander into the bush and has to be coaxed back.
Just like when I try to herd my cats to the bedroom at night for their pill. They go ahead of me then one goes into the bathroom and the other into the second bedroom.
Herding cats. Not just a problem for….well….cats.
At the end of the walk, we get another opportunity to sit behind the lions while they take more pics and video (which they offer up for the special price of $30…but then again, this is money that goes to care for the lions, so they sell four).
When they’re done, the lions go one way and we go another. We sit down back at the entrance and they offer us drinks and snacks while Speedy puts together a video in record speed. They show us the intro video about the park and what they do and shows how the number of African lions have decreased by 80 to 90% just in the last three decades.
Think about that.
Then they follow up with our video set to music. It shows all of us as we took turns sitting and walking with the lions.
Boy, the camera doesn’t put on ten pounds. More like twenty-five.
Malva pudding. Tsk tsk.
Yup. The treadmill awaits.
I have another good chat with a Dutch guy who works in South Africa in the wind turbine industry and commutes home to Amsterdam to see his girlfriend every Friday night, only to return to South Africa on Sunday.
Holy cow. That’s a 12 hour flight twice over a weekend.
We finish up just as the sun is setting and I get back to my room by 6:30. Thompsons had given me a voucher to the Boma – the Place of Eating but I was too wasted to go.
And I needed to pack, cause I signed up for the early morning game drive.
Go to Day Eighteen
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