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Wow, what can I say. Zimbabwe was a version of heaven. Pure air, beautiful animals... In fact, I kind of blame the air for the giddiness we all seemed to experience our entire trip there. We stayed at this amazing place called the Matetsi Game Lodge, extremely posh. And considering my South AFrican friends are the ones who helped plan the trip and make reservations, we had some great SA prices for a package deal that included flights to/from zim from Johannesburg, 2 nights at this super posh lodge, transportation to and from everywhere including the airport and the falls, game drives, canoe rides down the zambezi, amazing food prepared outdoors by an incredible chef, bush walks. Never have I been so spoiled or blissful. :)
Yes, the poverty is around which is blatant so to experience this luxury while those nearby are starving is guilt-inducing. However, if we weren't there, there would be that much less money going into their desperate economy, so it's a strange situation. It was a great opportunity to get to know some of the locals though. When we arrived, we were given our own guide and tracker for the duration of our stay, Richard and Vincent. They went with us everywhere. When it was time to leave, Richard rode back towards town with us. It was funny because we got to know these people on a certain level, kind of in a more ordinary light as they spent those 3 days with us. It wasn't until this trip that we discovered that in his tribe, the men can marry as many women as they can afford. He only wants one wife, and his girlfriend is going to cost him 10 cows and $5,000 US dollars! That's a fortune there! It was interesting learning how very different we live. Many of the people there think the white people are devils, and as they're so sheltered as far as media, etc. it's hard to even have the chance to try to change their minds. As far as Aids, they were really passionate about why get tested as they can't get treatment anyway. It's easy to see why it's such a big epidemic there.
There were hundreds and hundreds of elephants all around us in Zim. The area the lodge is on is connected to the Chobe park and when you look across the Zambezi, there's lush and green Zambia. They're very serious about keep the Elephants from getting to their site and eating their lush trees, it's been a problem in the past. At night while we were eating or sitting on our decks, you could hear the huge hippo's getting out of the water and stuff. One night, one of the guards was walking me back to my cabin and I asked if anything was going on. He said that some elephants were crossing through camp and asked if I wanted to see. We took like 3 steps and he put his flashlight up and there were like 5 huge elephants just munching on the trees around us. Did I mention that it was blissful? :)
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Comments (8)
That must have been a great experience. You have some wonderful pictures on this page.
Great page with interesting background information about Zimbabwe. So nice that you walked into those elephants late at night, but a bit dangerous thou. Thanks for sharing.
Zimbabwe is just great and you pointed it out well
very nice pics, greetings Alphons...
A beautiful experience that I hope to try myself someday.... :-)
nice pics. cool elephants! belated happy b-day.
Excellent waterfall picture - what a rainbow !
Beautiful pictures and wonderful stories.
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