Walking with Lions ... Lots of Sick people
Trip Start
Dec 17, 2007
1
5
26
Trip End
Jan 19, 2008
Victoria Falls,
Zimbabwe
Sunday, December 23, 2007
The latest problem is with internet connections ... I tried to upload a few images yesterday and nothing ... the up link is practically no existant ... so until I find a better internet connection I'll have to make do with no picture blogs ... I suspect this may be a few more weeks ... as it gets worse from here maybe Swapkomund in Namibia ... we do take a lot for granted in the west ...
I have had one of what can on be described as the best days of the trip so far ... we did a full day in Zimbabwe starting with "Walking with Lions" (shame there is no picture upload as I suspect it would say a lot more than I can write) ... basically you get to play with lions ... not in cages ... but you actually get to walk along with them and pet them as you go ... this is at a lion sanctury in Zimbabwe ... which is helping orhpan and outcast lions to fend for themselves ... apparently our walk is part of the process as it is teaching them to hunt ...
We started at a cage where two nearly grown male cubs ... I nearly had cubs myself when I saw the size of them!! ... They are enormous ... and very playful ... you get a real feel for their instinct too ... as soon as my travel companion Christina separated from the rest of us to go around the other side of their cage, both lions were straight over to her ... this is their instinct for finding the weakest of the herd ... much to the horror of Christina ... then one of the males marked his territory by pissing all over James ... another of my travel companions ... how many people do you know that have been peed on by a Lion ???
... much to our collective relief these were not the lions we were to walk ... which is good because apparently they smell fear ... I can tell you now they'd have smelled a lot of it from me ...
We were take to two younger cubs ... a female and a male ... still pretty big, but much more manageable ... it is a truely awesome experience walking with lions ... but do listen to your guide ... especially when he says turn around ... as soon as you turn you back on them they start to practice their stalking skills ... and forget running away ... you'll never win the race ... they gave us a twig each to fend 'em off ... glad I never got to use it!!
When they say lions are playful they are not kidding ... but one good swipe from their huge paws and it is all over ... so you need to remember who is the boss ... interestingly enough our guide was disciplining them by giving them a good hard clout in the gob ... fair balls to him ... I'd not be doing anything like this!!
It was a pretty sweltering day (most of time it has rained here so it was nice for a change) ... we went into the Zimbabwe side of the falls ... they are a pretty awesome sight ... and the spray looks like smoke from a distance ... they are known locally as the "Smoke that thunders" ... you get a good feel for why when you stand looking at them ... I'll leave the descriptive work to my photos however ...
After the falls we took a walk in Victoria Falls town ... compared to Livingstone it is far nicer and prettier ... but you get a much greater sense of poverty there ... thanks, I understand, to the effort of Mr Mugabe to screw up the country... everyone is afraid to mention why things have gotten so bad ... they use the term "for political reasons" a lot here ...
There are however a few vestiges of the old colonial days ... and we go for lunch at the Ilala Lodge Hotel ... the food is a little on the expensive side by local standards but good ... and they take US dollars allowing us to spend an entire day in Zim without buying a single Zim ... which is good because by the time you walk out of the bank you currency has halved in value the inflation is so bad ... and in the heat I down 3 G&T's in rapid sucession like lemonade ... well you have to do the Raj thing in the colonies don't you ?
Off we go for the next part of the day ... Elephant trekking ... I've done this before in Asia ... but nothing compares to the sheer size of an African Elephant ... they are absolutely enormous ... your legs get a good stretch as you sit across their back too ... these boys are wide ... it was another amazing experience ... hard to put into words ... so I'll let my photos do the talking as soon as I get a chance to blog them ...
Back we went to the camp site at the end of the day ... for the evening ritual of Deet, Mud, Amazing Dinner from our cook Joe, and being eaten by the mossies ...
Having fixed our sick truck we now have a few sick puppies ... our cook Joe and our tour leader Jaques have both come down with a dose of malaria ... they have been to the hospital and will recover in a few days (in fact as I write this Jaques is sitting at a nearby machine looking back in full form) ... Then Hiska eats a mussel and spends the night in hospital ... yep shellfish not a good idea 1000KM from the sea in darkest Africa ... but she too has recovered and as I met her this morning (26th Dec) she's taking advantage of our delayed departure due to a flat battery to do a microlight flight ...
So evberyone is well and we are off to Botswana today ...
