Days 45-46 1st & 2nd November
Having
successfully crossed the Rukomechi riverbed and thankfully found our plane
still intact, we headed off on the short flight over the Zambezi valley to Mana
Pools, to the Zambezi Lifestyles mobile tented camp on the banks of the mighty
Zambezi River.
This
was a true bushcamping experience, with afternoons spent reading in the shade
of a tree whilst elephants constantly wandering past our tent on their way to
cross the river, and the sound of lions and hyenas close by during the night. Flocks of Lillian’s Lovebirds came to drink
in the puddles left after the rain.
With
some trepidation on Sherry’s part, we agreed to go on a canoe trip in the
afternoon, and rather bizarrely had our sundowners on a shallow bank in the
middle of the river, watching the sunset with hippos honking either side of us
and a large croc sitting on the far bank!
The
following day we had a couple of very enjoyable bush drives/walks, looking for
lions and other game/birds, and learning all sorts of useful facts from our
knowledgeable Zimbabwean guide, like how to identify the jaw of a buffalo and
things to do with elephant dung. Did you
know that if you soak elephant dung in water for a few hours and then drain and
drink it, it can cure an upset stomach and is also used by women to ease giving
birth? An elephant’s diet consists of
many different leaves, bark, fruit and roots which have medicinal properties of
which only about 45% is ingested, leaving plenty of goodies expelled.
Also, inhaling smoke from burning dung is apparently good
for asthma and when you also burn a porcupine quill it can stop a nose bleed… As for using it as manure for your roses, it’s
apparently the best!
We also spent a while watching a fabulous kudu ram chewing
a pod from a sausage tree, swilling it back and forth like an old man with a
wad of tobacco, coating it with saliva before eventually swallowing it.
As in previous camps, we met some great folk and have been
inspired by their stories of life in Zim over the past few years, and so full
of admiration at their fortitude and their attitude to life. Most have lost their pensions and all their
savings not just once, but three times as banks have folded, and of course many
have lost their beautiful productive farms and their livelihoods.
Zim now appears to be the world’s first cashless society –
there is no cash in the economy so everything is done by plastic, but even that
is restricted and all forms of bank transfers, etc are becoming more and more
impossible. People are amazingly
positive though, and tell us they are used to living with much less, taking
life one day at a time, and they spend what they have as there is no point in
trying to save.
What we have seen of the country itself so far is
stunningly beautiful, and we have been incredibly fortunate in our timing as we
have been able to witness for ourselves ‘the greening’. After the big rain storm the countryside
blossomed almost overnight. The Baobab
trees suddenly sprouted new leaves and the tiny shoots on the mopani opened up,
wild jasmine bloomed overnight, and the green creepers added up to a meter a
day to their length as they wound they way up tree trunks.
Mana Pools is famous for the amazing evening light for
photography, with the sun filtering through the dust and the elephant standing
on his hind legs to reach the tasty top shoots, and the packs of wild dogs –
sadly we didn’t get to see any of that as the brown became green, the dust
settled and the game all dispersed inland!
We will just have to return another day.
Our final evening was spent watching yet another gorgeous
sunset beside the Zambezi, G&T in hand!
On our way to the airstrip next morning we met two young
elephants sparring in the middle of the road and had to wait until the wandered
off.
Next stop: Lake Kariba
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