Day 9 & 10 - Off to Victoria Falls

Yesterday was so exhausting that I have had to combine the blog!  We left Stellenbosch at 4.15 am and headed to the airport.  We flew up to Johannesburg and then caught a flight to Victoria Falls!  Entering Zimbabwe was an experience in itself.  We landed at 1.00 pm on the dot and then queued up for an hour and a half to pay for our visas and go through customs.  The airport was very third world, and the two officials on the desk took about 10 minutes to process each visitor, with them managing to stick my visa into Vron’s passport, which then took them about another 10 minutes to peel it off her passport and put it into mine; it would have been quite amusing if it hadn’t been so hot!  No aircon in the airport and also no baggage carousels, we just picked our cases up next to the runway!

We drove out to our lodge, which is very rustic!  Bit of a shock after our Garden Route accommodation, however, just right for where we are.  We have like a canvas wall which we can roll up and bring the outside into our lodge.  Ricky and Vron were sitting there this morning with wart hogs munching the grass at their feet.  Dean and I went on our lion walk this morning, getting up early again to be out for 6.15 am.  This was an incredible experience, walking next to young lions, touching them and interacting with them.  There used to be 200,000 lions in Africa, up until the 1970’s, now there are about 36,000!  Shocking!  The lion conservation programme is trying to build up numbers so that we may continue to see these magnificent animals in the future.

We decided to stay at our complex and chill out this afternoon and had yet another amazing experience; every day at one o’clock they feed the vultures here at the complex, and we must have seen over a hundred vultures, along with marabou storks and black kites, awesome!  We have had such a plethora of nature experiences here, with so many more to come once we set off on safari to Chobe National Park in Botswana tomorrow.  Sitting now in the bar with a cocktail in hand, overlooking a watering hole, where we have seen a herd of elephants, impala and some wart hogs!  Life doesn't get much better!