Vic Falls, Lake Kariba, Hippos

Old posts from my very first travel website and my first backpacking trip (a year in 2000-2001)!

Nov 23, Thanksgiving

We didn’t even know it was Thanksgiving today until just now. Whoops! We’ve been enjoying Zimbabwe much more than Tanzania. Greener and more laid back aiside from the farms being taken over and other political problems. We’ve been saving money here by not doing too many touristy things.

Our Thanksgiving meal. LOL

The train to Vic Falls.

We went to a lion park where we stayed in a big tent and got to play with big lions and feed the little cubs. Wow!

Wow, I mean these lions are semi tame but still. It was a bit scary having them walk right next to me.

The cubs are so cute.

Then we stayed with a rural family for 4 days and got to experience true African culture. We cooked over a fire they built in the middle of the kitchen floor and visited the local school.

This is the woman we stayed with, and her kitchen. It was not easy cooking over a fire!

Our room at our homestay.

The son of the woman we stayed with insisted we visit the school.

Now we’re taking the night train to Victoria Falls to take in the sights like a true tourist.

Dec 3

Victoria Falls was a horribly touristy overpriced town with lots of people trying to take money from you, but the falls themselves were breathtaking. Tons of water, tropical birds, rainforest, rainbows, etc. Then we walked along a path where we saw elephants, mongooses, and an hippo.

Victoria Falls, This was a bit of the dry season but it was still massive.

We looked up from our path by the falls to see this blue-balled monkey!

Took the local cargo ferry up Lake Kariba for 3 days where we had to sleep on the hard benches on deck and eat cold spaghetti out of a can. Stopped at local fishing villages, saw wild elephants and hippos, and had to watch out for lions and crocodiles while on shore.

Our ferry. Pretty snazzy, eh?

This is our spot on the ferry. We have to keep it staked out so we have a place to sleep. Yep, we sleep on that hard bench.

One of our stops along the way on our 3 day Lake Kariba ferry.

We were walking to a restaurant at night in the dark and heard rustling in the bushes. A truck came by and gave us a lift and their headlights revealed 2 HUGE hippos with a baby right on the side of the road! Lucky for us that the truck came because hippos kill more humans than any other animal in Africa.

We arrived back in Harare at our fav backpacker’s lodge just in time for the owner’s engagement party, so today we recover and relax.

Lot’s of interesting info on the farm situation. The owner’s dad had squatters on his farm but says they are reasonably friendly and they chat it up occasionally. Not quite as violent as the news makes it out to be, but surely a lot of political problems here.

Wild elephants are the best thing ever. These were right outside our tent in the morning!

These kids were also waiting for a bus to come. I gave them my nail polish and loved it. Even the boy wanted his nails painted!

Big ole' baobab tree