Victoria Falls is one of the seven natural wonders of the world - and even now, during the "low waters", it's easy to see why. I'm thinking that this may even be the best time of year to see why - at high water all you can apparently see is the very top of the falls and the mist rising up from below (although that in itself looks a pretty awesome sight if the postcards are anything to go by). At this time of year, there are basically patches of smaller waterfalls (which are impressive in their own right) and long stretches of jagged rock face which you know will be covered in water when the rains start. One of the advantages of this patchiness is that it lets you see just how far the drop is and how narrow the channel is at the bottom - it's a breathtaking sight.
The town of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe was also adrenaline central, so far as our tour was concerned. Although I managed to avoid bungy jumps, gorge swings and rafting on the Zambezi, I did get up close to the animals, going on an elephant back safari and a walk with lions.
The lion walk came about because we visited a programme that's trying to re-build the lion population in Africa (the population's dropped 80-90% in the last 30 years). We got to meet, walk with and (I kid you not) scratch the bellies of 2 lions - Chobe and Chisa. But for the massive paws, super sharp giant teeth and the muscles that ripple across their backs as they walk/stalk along, you could say they're just like domestic cats... sort of. Lions were clearly built with power in mind - it becomes so obvious when you see them strutting beside you, and although they may seem sleepy and subdued during the heat of the day, don't be fooled or lulled into a sense of complacency - as Chobe and Chisa were ambling along with Sarah and Troy, they suddenly spotted something in the trees and sprung away before we even had a clue as to what was going on. They're still babies though - only 18 months old - and the next day they showed that they're still learning the tricks of the trade as they chased a baboon up a tree but then struggled to finish it off.
On super Saturday (November 12), I did the lion walk in the morning and then went on an elephant back safari in the afternoon. Anzac and I rode Coco, the 34 year old matriarch of the orphanage. She was orphaned during the elephant culls in Zimbabwe and has apparently been so traumatised as a result that she can't have babies. That said she does play a big role in helping new orphans adapt to life at the centre. Despite being so high, we didn't really see many animals from Coco's back, but I think that's probably because we were at the back of the group and the earlier elephants had scared the other game away. We did, however, get a very good sense of just how much elephants eat - supposedly up to 150kgs over 16 hours a day, and given that we had to keep pulling Coco back onto the track to stop her snacking I don't find that overly surprising. What was surprising (but maybe shouldn't have been) was how much they also fart/relieve themselves! Andrew and Kirsty were riding Jock, the bull male of the group, just ahead of us and when he had to go, the spray was similar to what you see in the movies when a car crashes into a fire hydrant!
After we finished the safari, we got to feed the elephants. We were told not to be stingy when dishing out the pellets as this was essentially the best way to say thank you - and you don't want to leave an elephant with the impression that you're ungrateful! To feed them you either have to pour the pellets into the tip of their up-ended trunk, or you can say "trunk up" and when the trunk rises you throw the pellets into their open mouth (just make sure you get out of the way before that trunk makes its way back down!).
The icing on the cake for Super Saturday was meeting Sylvester, the cheetah, at the elephant orphanage. Sylvester was orphaned as a cub - they found him when he was just a day old (his eyes still hadn't opened, which is how they knew) and he was lying there with his 4 dead siblings around him. They reckon that a lion must have attacked and his mother ran off to try to distract the lion. Because he's never been in the wild and had noone to teach him how to hunt (how's that for a sob story?!), Sylvester is now a "cheetah ambassador", complete with his own Facebook page. They take him round to schools and stuff, teaching people about cheetahs and raising awareness about conservation in general. One thing that struck me as we watched Sylvester walk onto his stage was that if lions are build for power, cheetahs are most definitely built for speed - he was long, lean and wiry, and looked like he wanted nothing more than to chase the warthogs that were cleaning up the pellets that the elephants had missed. (As an aside, warthogs not only make it into the "Ugly 5", they are also one of the funniest eaters - they go down onto their front knees when they eat and kind of hobble along with their butts and tails high in the air, you can't help but laugh!).
The final thing worth noting about Vic Falls is that it was also where we changed crews and trucks. We had to say goodbye to Nick, Mwai and Mwangi, and the green - sometimes leaky -beast that has taken us around East Africa for the past 5 weeks, suffering just the one minor break down on the way. We also had to wave off a number of people from the Nairobi-Vic Falls leg of the tour. Like me about a third of the group were carrying on to Cape Town and would be joining up with Darlington, Freddie, Zanelli and "Hercules", the orange Gecko truck. Half of the others were heading to Johannesburg via Kruger, and the rest were either heading home or continuing on their travels. Felt like the end of an era saying bye to the likes of Dean and Janelle, Andrew and Kirsty, and Susan and Jacinta (there would be no more renditions of "Black Velvet" over a few drinks round the camp fire, that's for sure!), but there was nothing for it but to continue onwards and upwards (or west and south) and into Botswana.
1 comment:
The lion walk was AWESOME!!
Post a Comment