ZİMBABWE, ZAMBİA AND BOTSWANA - SWİMMİNG ELEPHANTS AND THUNDERİNG WATERS.

Two years before my first trip to ''Peoples' Africa'' (definition in my blog on Mali), I had gone to ''Animals' Africa'' , i.e. a safari in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana. That was 2004. This was not my first safari since I had already done a one day safari in South Africa's Kruger National Park. The latter was so organised it did not feel real. You had asphalt roads, rangers with talkie-walkies who were informing each other when they spotted an interesting/important  animal and the result was one animal surrounded by 30 jeeps with what looked like hundreds of tourists taking pictures from one million cameras. I found that spoiled the whole experience. My hope was that a safari in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana would be more real. And it was. No asphalt road, no talkie-walkie and real rangers trying to spot an animal from its paw print or excrement. And on top of animals, those three countries offered other things as well. 

We flew ( for very long hours)  via London to Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a former British colony. It was Ndebele and Shona country in the 1830s when European gold seekers and ivory hunters from the Cape started moving in, the best known of them being the heavy-handed Cecil John Rhodes. By 1895, the new country was being referred to as Rhodesia and a white legislature was set up in 1911 since there were some 24.000 settlers and their families in the country. Conflicts between black and white started as of the beginning but came into sharp focus in the 1920s and 1930s when black Rhodesians were excluded from ownership of the best farmlands and from skilled trades and professions. The effect was to force black Africans to work on white farms, mines and factories. Poor wages and working conditions led to rebellion. Ian Smith became president in 1964 and began pressing for independence, refused by the British. The African parties opted for guerrilla warfare and whites began abandoning their homes and farms. Finally Smith handed the leadership to a black man. An election took place in March 1980, Robert Mugabe prevailed , the country became independent and took the name of Zimbabwe. But that was not the end of the inhabitants plight, since Mugabe, who is still in power today, ruined the country but became rich himself  and Zimbabwe today is a pariah among other African countries and one of the poorest. 

Harare is a city like any other but with quite a few nice buildings remaining form the British, asphalt roads and parks. After seeing India, Mali, Burkina Faso, I decided the British were ''better!!!'' colonialists than the French. 
The most interesting thing I saw in Harare was a church wedding . Between 40% to 50% of Zimbabweans belong to Christian churches but their belief is a hybrid of Christian and traditional beliefs as the ladies were singing very rhythmic African songs that have nothing to do with Christianity. 

SİNGİNG GUESTS

SERİOUS GUESTS

THE BRİDE HAS ARRİVED AND WİLL SOON BE WALKİNG DOWN THE AİSLE. 

An interesting feature of this church were the stained-glass decorations relating the life of Christ. Such an African way of painting and so different from what I have seen till today. Even Christ himself seems to be black. 

PUSHED BY ROMAN SOLDİERS

DESCENT FROM THE CROSS WİTH THE VİRGİN AND MARİA MAGDALENA. 

The next day we left Harare for Bulawayo  to visit the  remains of Great Zimbabwe, the greatest medieval city in sub-Saharan Africa dating from the 13th-14th centuries, way before any European ever set foot on this continent. As a religious and secular capital, this city of between 10.000 - 20.000 people dominated an area which stretched across what is now Eastern Zimbabwe into present-day Botswana, Mozambique and South Africa. Due to the perfection of its construction, the fact that stones were piled without using any mortar and those walls could remain standing for centuries, successive colonial governments did their utmost to ascribe the origins of Great Zimbabwe to someone else - anyone else- than those tribal Africans they were considering second class people. 
I have to admit I was surprised by what I saw since I must have been influenced by the negative propaganda. After seeing Great Zimbabwe, one wonders how anyone could call Africans ''savages''. 

THE OUTER WALL

PAY ATTENTİON TO THE WORKMANSHIP ON TOP

MORTARLESS WALLS

THİS İS THOUGHT TO BE A TEMPLE

FOR PROTECTİON PURPOSES, YOU ENTER
THE GREAT ENCLOSURE THROUGH THOSE
TWO ELLİPTİCAL WALLS

Our next stop was also very interesting for me since I was to see my very first cave paintings. The ones we see here are 100.000 years old. That is old my friends. 

SOMEONE CARRYİNG GOODS. İNTERESTİNG THAT SİNCE THOSE DAYS,
AFRİCANS STİLL CARRY GOODS ON THEİR HEADS. 

What I found very interesting in those cave paintings is that animals are drawn very close to reality whereas men are drawn as stick-man. One wonders why ? 

We were then told we were going to see the animals and I found myself in a park that looked more like a zoo than a game park since all the animals were caged. What a disappointment! Is it going to be like this all the way? 

BABY CROCODİLES

CROCODİLE FEEDİNG TİME. 

I DEFİNİTELY WOULD NOT LİKE TO BE İN THE SAME WATERS AS THEM.
YOU SHOULD HEAR THE NOİSE OF THOSE JAWS CLENCHİNG !

LUNCH TİME FOR THE LİON. 

Finally, I am on my first safari of the trip in Hwange National Park. By the way, here I also learned the meaning of the word ''safari''. It means ''let's go'' in the San language used by Kalahari desert people. So let's go. 

SOME STRİPED HORSES - THE ZEBRAS. 

THREE RHİNOCEROS ARE APPROACHİNG. 

I leaned interesting things about giraffes. It is the tallest mammal in the world and can reach easily 5,2 meters. Despite its height, it only has  seven vertebrae in its neck like us humans. Its advantage is that it can eat the leaves all other browsers cannot reach and usually aims for the top of trees .

 But there are disadvantages to being a giraffe. Due to its long neck it cannot reach the water easily and has to spread its front legs (look at the giraffe on the left in the picture below) to drink. And it is at that moment that this animal is the most defenseless. 
 A giraffe drinks for quite some time. When it gets up, normally its head should spin, the blood having rushed to its brain - like when we feel dizzy if we go out of bed too quickly. Well, it does not. The two little horns it carries on its head serve to collect the blood rushing to the brain and let it go back very slowly when the giraffe rises its head again so that the giraffe does not feel dizzy. You cannot do anything but marvel at the way nature takes care of everything.

Wow!!! An elephant comes to drink. Great !!!! And it is ironic because of the 65.000 elephants living in Zimbabwe, this one is the only one we managed to see. Should I be demoralized ? 

AFRİCAN SUNSET AND RETURN TO OUR LODGE.
ANOTHER DAY İS OVER. 

We are staying at the Hwange Safari Lodge in the middle of the game park and there are funny (!) signs on the premises which say ''Do not go out of the premises of the hotel at night. There might be animals. We do not accept any responsibility for your death''. Good,. no? 

The next day we reach the place I was very curious to see : Victoria Falls, one of the seven naturals wonders of the world.  We are staying at the Victoria Falls Hotel, a British colonial hotel which is over 100 years old and has kept all its charm, reeking of the grand old times. The garden is beautiful and there is a continuous roaring noise there which is the sound of the fall. In the outdoor café, ''High Tea'' (five-o'clock tea) is served with pastries and little sandwiches from a silver platter by waiters in white smocking, just like in colonial England. The surroundings are great; only the tourists are a bit tired and sweaty. 

HİGH TEA TİME

THİS İS NOT SMOKE BUT WATER FUMES AT THE BACK.
WE ARE SO NEAR THE FALLS.  

THE FUMES AND THE BRİDGE

THE BRİDGE İS JOİNİNG ZİMBABWE AND ZAMBİA OVER THE ZAMBEZİ RİVER.
WE ARE ACTUALLY ON THE LEFT SİDE AND WİLL CROSS THE BRİDGE
 TOMORROW TO PASS TO ZAMBİA ON THE RİGHT.

İNTERİOR OF THE HOTEL

İNSİDE MY ROOM - THE ENTRANCE HALL 

AND THE BEDROOM. 

When you go out of the hotel by crossing the garden, you directly reach the fall. How convenient. And what greets you first is a statue of David Livingstone who was the first person to have been shown the falls by the local people in 1855. David Livingstone was a British explorer who traveled up the Zambezi in the 1850s searching for a route into the interior of Southern Africa, hoping to introduce Christianity and European civilisation to combat the horrors of the slave trade. The locals called the falls ''Mosi Oa Tunya'', or the ''Smoke that Thunders''; a beautiful name as far as I am concerned. Livingstone changed the name at once, of course, and named the falls after his queen, hence Victoria Falls.  

You then  follow a path that leads you all along the falls being careful not to get too wet and especially to protect your camera. 

And you reach the falls. The falls are created by the Zambezi river (2574 km long) falling 90m to 107m over a length of 1,7 kilometers into a precipice. Every minute 550.000 cubic meters of water drop, this reaching 5 million cubic meters after the rains (time at which it is often impossible to walk on the path). This is really a breathtaking view which does not require much comment. You just walk, watch and listen to the thunder. 

The next morning we are in Zambia (former Northern Rhodesia - independent in 1963), crossing the border (the bridge) on foot and reaching Livingstone, a small  and pretty uninteresting town in Zambia. Why did we come here ? To see the Victoria Falls from the Zambian side as well, of course. 

CROSSİNG THE BORDER

VİCTORİA FALLS FROM THE ZAMBİAN SİDE

AFTER THE PRECİPİCE, THE ZAMBEZİ
BECOMES AGAİN A CALM RİVER THAT CONTİNUES
İTS ROUTE TOWARDS THE SEA. 

On the Zambian side , there is a  walkway, that passes almost under the fall to reach Knife Edge Point. You are given special raincoats to walk there and there is no way to take any pictures since you cannot take your camera out. I could only take a picture of this walkway while crossing the border but I later walked on it and it was great. You are literally under the fall and you cannot even hear yourself think. Very impressive. 

For lunch, we check in our hotel and are met with music. Nice music too. You instantly feel like dancing. 

We are in Zambia and it would not be fair if we did not go for a safari in this country too. So we head for the Mosi Oa Tunya Game Park anxious to see which animals we will meet. 

It seems there are three rhinoceros in this park and they even have a name : George, Mori and X. It seems in the 1960's there were 6.000 rhinos here but they were depleted due to poaching. In 1994, the Republic of South Africa, offered those three rhinos with the hope they would breed. But to no avail. They became very good friends and refused to breed. 

Here the rangers allowed us to get out of our jeeps and approach the animals. We were supposed to pose with Mori , but unfortunately Mori can hardly be seen. Around us, there are three rangers with riffles. I did not really understand. İf Mori decided to attack us (she did not even look at us) , would the rangers kill her ?

Then a huge elephant came, chose a tree, shook it several times and almost made it fall to the ground, ate the leaves and left. That is why you see lots of what looks like  ravaged forests where there are elephants since those huge animals eat around 250 kg of grass/leaves each, every day.   

THE FAMİLY WAS FOLLOWİNG A LİTTLE BEHİND. 

A HERD OF BUFFALOES

We then met a single giraffe on the road. The poor thing got so scared it did not know what to do. It could not flee with the river behind and the jeeps in front. It stood there paralyzed.  Sorry, poor giraffe, for the scare we gave you. We meant no harm. 

We have to rest a bit. What better way than a boat trip on the Zambezi to watch the sunset. And all of that with drinks. Am I in paradise ? 

That evening, some friends and I decided we had missed something at the Victoria Falls. Why didn't we see the rainbows created by the falling water ? We then learned  we could only see those at sunrise. So the next morning, wake up at four o'clock and at around five o'clock we are at the falls again waiting for the sun to rise. And once it does, we see the rainbows.  Unbelievably beautiful. It was worth the effort of getting up so early. 

Now let's go to the third country on our list : Botswana. Another strange way to cross a border: on small boats of five people each. You get on the boat in Zambia, travel for 15 minutes, and get down in Botswana. 

WAİTİNG TO BOARD OUR LİTTLE BOAT

Beyond the narrow eastern corridor where the majority of the population is concentrated, Botsawana is a largely roadless wilderness of savannas, deserts ( the Kalahari) and wetlands. Those lands have been inhabited for at least 30.000 years by local tribes (Tsawana and Bantu mostly)  but by 1800 Europeans had  settled in the Cape and were expanding North.  As scattered Tsawana villages became very vulnerable, they were regrouped and each Tsawana nation was ruled by a hereditary king whose subjects lived in centralized towns and satellite villages.The structure of the town-based Batswana society impressed the Christian missionaries who had begun arriving. 
Meanwhile, the Boers began crossing into Botswana attempting to impose white rule on the inhabitants. By 1877, the animosity between the Boer and the Batswana had reached such a level that the British stepped in to annex the Transvaal, thereby launching the first Boer War. The Boers seemed to leave, but  moved back in 1882, prompting the Batswana to ask again for English protection. The British stepped in but did not dance to the Batswana tune: Tsawana land was divided into two, the south becoming the British Crown Colony of Bechuanaland, while the north became the British Protectorate of Bechuanaland and the latter is now Botswana, a country independent since 1966. 
Botswana is an African success story since immediately after independence, simply by chance, three of the world's richest diamond mines were discovered. This provided the country with foreign currency as well as wealth and stability. The government is regarded as pro-Western, giving importance to health, education and economic standards. 

In Botswana we will only be visiting the Chobe Game Park for another round of ''let's go'' and we directly head to our lodge in Kasane, the Mowana Safari Lodge.

OUR SAFARİ LODGE JUST NEXT TO THE RİVER
(I DİD NOT TAKE THİS PİCTURE, OF COURSE).

The lodge was beautiful, especially the upper veranda from which you can watch the animals in the river. It seems the decoration had won awards and I could have brought each piece of furniture and each object of decoration home so much I liked it.  

MY BEDROOM- PERFECTLY DECORATED AS WELL. 

THAT İS A LAMP

In Chobe, the best safari is the one done by boat. Due to the wetlands ,the animal population is pretty dense here.  So I settled on top of the boat with my gin and tonic and enjoyed watching the animals.  

The elephant population in Chobe is pretty impressive and here we had our share of elephants. 

THİRSTY ELEPHANTS

BABY ELEPHANTS ARE SO CUTE

ELEPHANTS GRAZİNG İN THE REEDS.

 SWİMMİNG ELEPHANTS - AND THEİR HOSE SERVE AS  SNORKEL
TO BREATHE.

AN ELEPHANT COMİNG ASHORE. 

AND EVEN PEEİNG ELEPHANTS. 

Suddenly there is commotion in the water. Great I am looking at a group of hippopotamus. But our captain refuses to approach too much even though we are on a big boat. It seems the greatest number of deaths caused by animals in Africa are caused by hippos. If you block its way, a hippo attacks, we are told. And even in a boat you are considered to have blocked it way. This 2 tonnes animal would dive, come under the boat, hit it with all its might and the boat would capsize, you yourself being in the water among them. Good luck !

İt is funny that this huge semi-aquatic mammal spends the day in the water because its skin is soft and gets burned by the sun. In cooler periods and during the night they come out to graze. 

THESE HİPPOS DO NOT YAWN. THEY COME OUT OF THE WATER
TO GET OXYGEN İN THEİR LUNGS BEFORE DİVİNG AGAİN. 

GRAZİNG HİPPOS

İF ONLY I COULD GO NEAR...... I FİND THEM  SO CUTE
WİTH THEİR SHORT FAT LEGS AND HUGE BUTTS. 

I DO NOT KNOW WHİCH İS WORSE İN THE WATER.
 THE HİPPO OR THİS HUGE CROCODİLE ?

The sun is setting thus back to our lodge. We will continue tomorrow very early in the morning by jeep to try to see the king of them all, i.e. the lion. 

Surprise !!! Tonight we have the honor of watching dancers during dinner. 

NEXT MORNİNG ''LET'S GO''.
EVERY JEEP HAS A RANGER AND WE SEPARATE
WİTHİN THE PARK TRYİNG TO FİND THE LİON. 

WE FİRST MEET A BUFFALO HERD. 

THİS ONE LOOKS AT US SO ANGRİLY THAT OUR DRİVER
BACKS OFF AT ONCE. 

THİS BUFFALO HAS ALREADY MET THE LİON. 

The gazelle-antelope family can be seen everywhere. There are very many of them. 

WİTH THREE WHİTE STRİPES ON THEİR BACK, THESE ARE CALLED ''KUDU''.

 

ONLY MALE KUDUS HAVE HORNS. 

AND THİS İS A ''GNU''.

THİS İS A ''TOİLET SEAT ANTELOPE'' OR ''WATERBUCK'',
WİTH A VERY DİSTİNCTİVE WHİTE RİNG ENCİRCLİNG THEİR RUMP. 

HERE İS A WİLD BOAR. 

AND HERE İS THE KİNG - THE LİON.
WE FOUND HİM. 

We returned to our lodge for breakfast and learned that of the five jeeps that went looking for the lion, only we had managed to see it. Hurray !!!!!

A free morning is not for us. So four ladies rented a small boat to go on the water again. 

SWİMMİNG ELEPHANTS

AND MY FAVORİTE: THE HYPPO. 

JUST LOOK AT THE RUMP. HOW CUTE CAN İT BE ?
BUT AGAİN NO PERMİSSİON TO APPROACH ESPECİALLY
THAT NOW WE ARE ON A VERY SMALL BOAT. 

After my trip to Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana,  I became totally convinced that even though I have nothing against animals, I love people more. I love to see how they live, to speak with them, or sign if we do not understand each other. I love the communication. I love the colors.  A safari was a very interesting experience for me, but one I will not repeat.