Days 13 & 14 - Table (Mountain) for Four / The Storm of the Century

Day 13 - Cape Town, South Africa

We are no longer on any type of schedule and don’t have anything else official planned.  It is strange to be on our own and not have anyone providing meals for us regularly – time to fend for ourselves!  

Our awesome travel agent (Eyes on Africa) arranged for a rental car to be dropped off at our apartment so we could tool around on our own.  We had also contacted our German friends from the first game reserve (Astrid & Sven) and planned to meet them at a coffee shop before heading to Cape Town's biggest natural landmark, Table Mountain, for a “little hike”.  The four of us crammed into our little Ford Fiesta clown car while Damon took a crash course (almost literally) in driving on the other side of the road. 

We found the main visitor area for Table Mountain where there is a tram that will take you up and down the mountain. 

Hmmm, that path looks straight up...

Our original plan had been to hike up and take the tram down, but due to high winds from a coming storm, the tram was closed so it was going to be a 2-way hike.   We decided to tackle the mountain with water and cameras in hand.  Holy hell was that a hike!

Only half an hour in - still smiling!

Almost 3,600 feet above sea level - it took us nearly 2 hours to get up.  It was not the gradual switchback incline we had anticipated but rather a fairly steep and rocky climb that never freaking ended.

Stopping to catch our breath and enjoy the view 

False Summit :(

Every time we thought we were making progress, we would look up and it just kept going and going and going.  We had the path mostly to ourselves on the way up but the few people who passed us on their way down confirmed the view was worth it.  So we hiked on.

Getting Closer

We finally made it to the top and the view was absolutely worth it – we had full views of all of Cape Town from several different angles. 

Success!

Smoochies

We spent close to an hour on top battling the wind and taking pictures, cooling off and enjoying the view.

Hikers extraordinaire:  Damon, Me, Astrid & Sven

There was a restaurant and gift shop at the top - all closed due to inclement weather (ie. too damn much wind).  And a few critters who had made their home up there - Rock Hyrax, aka "Dassies".

People were starting to intrude on our solitude, so we prepared ourselves for the hike back down.  Not surprisingly, for as steep as the hike up was, it was, well, equally steep going down.  It took us about an hour and a half to get down fully intact with no blown out knees, sprained ankles, etc.  I was feeling pretty good about our level of athleticism until we started seeing locals basically sprinting uphill past us, making it to the top and then lapping us on the way down - jogging down the decline.  When asked, at least one said he runs up and down once a week.  Coming from Illinois, I'm pleased with our time.

We headed back to the Waterfront area for lunch – an eclectic mix of African, Tunisian and Mexican foods that we found at a market area with different stalls.  It was a gorgeous day weather-wise, so we ate outside and then parted ways hoping to catch up with Sven & Astrid before we all fly home in a few days.  Back at our apartment, we just chilled and relaxed before meeting some relatives for dinner. 

My step-mother, Diane, is from Zimbabwe and has many relatives in Cape Town.  We made plans to meet some of her cousins for dinner but unfortunately they had to cancel last minute so instead, we went out with their parents (we've never met any of them before) for a wonderful Italian dinner and great conversation.  Somehow in one day, we went from being the cool old couple to the cool young couple.  Well, at least I think we are cool!   Dinner ended on the early side due to warnings that a HUGE storm was headed our way later in the evening and was likely going to last for a full 36 hours.  We made it home before the storm started, but were woken in the middle of the night by crazy howling winds and the sound of our deck furniture moving around.  Earlier in the day, we received a note under our door warning us that this was going to be one of the worst storms they’ve had in decades and we should probably plan to stay in the following day.  The news was warning businesses to close, all schools were closed, and people were told to stay inside.  Well, let’s see what tomorrow brings.  With only two days left, we are NOT letting some little storm stop us.

The calm before the storm (Table Mountain in distance)

Day 14 – Cape Town, South Africa - The Storm of the Century

We woke up with the big storm still in full force – winds howling and rain coming down.  We refuse to be deterred by a little wind (60mph) and a little rain.  What better way spend a stormy day than to go tour wine country!  We loaded up our little Ford Fiesta with rain gear and water and prayed not to get blown off the road.

Cape Town has two main wine regions – Franschhoek and Stellenbosch.  We decided on Franschhoek since it was closer, and drove to the small town in the middle of a bunch of vineyards.  When we got to town, it seemed eerily deserted and everything appeared to be closed.  We drove the main street a couple times and noticed that a few doors were open, but the stores were dark.  Upon further inspection, we saw that the stores with open doors were actually open for limited business and lit by candles.  In desperate need of coffee, we walked into the lone open bakery and asked what was going on.  We learned that the storm had taken out all of the power for the town, the few stores that decided to open their doors had no electricity. The industrious shop owners offered us coffee or tea (anything that only required boiled water) and cold scones, which we accepted, and dined by candlelight.

We assumed that touring vineyards during a power outage could be risky as the tasting rooms might be closed, so we headed to Stellenbosch to try our luck.  In the town of Stellenbosch, the tourist center was closed – due to the storm – but they had at least left out some vineyard maps.  There are about 100 different vineyards in the area so I asked Damon to pick a number between 1-100 and that was how we chose our first vineyard - Somerbosch.

Go figure - we were the only people in the tasting room, so we had the sommelier all to ourselves.  We talked, we tried some wine, we talked more, we bought some wine, and then we asked for recommendations of other places to try of varying degrees of “fanciness”.  He told us there was a “very low key” place nearby owned by a former professional rugby player that had really good wine, so we headed to that one next. 

Low key was an understatement – an odd assortment of rusted farm equipment as lawn art in the front yard and greetings from a HUGE 6-month old brindle mastiff puppy jumping and slobbering on us. 

Annondale tasting room and our trusty Fiesta

The wind was howling so we went inside to the tasting room/main area, which was a very dark room with two enormous thick wood tables.  Looking around, we saw cobwebs all over the rafters and ceiling, a monster stone fireplace on one end of the room with a 200lb (easy) adult mastiff laying under the hearth.  There was one lone guy with his feet kicked up on the table, a bottle by his side and a glass in his hand.  He said his “mate” would be back in a minute and we should just hang. 

Eventually, the mate returned and as it was just us (a common theme for the day), the sommelier and his friend broke out a bunch of different wines, not all of which were on the official tasting menu, we all just tasted wine & talked for about an hour.  The wine, by the way, was quite delicious.  We learned that this place, Annandale Wines, had made the wine for a recent royal wedding (Monaco’s Albert and Charlene) and we saw one of the bottles (they kept a few for display and bragging rights).  We talked wine, weather, politics, apartheid and dogs (enter the puppy carrying a dead bird into the tasting room to present to us as a gift) before buying a few more bottles, and continuing on our way.

Peek of blue sky between rain and wind

We had lunch at a fancy vineyard and made two more tasting stops at Rust en Vrede & Uva Mira (much more upscale – good wine, but no good stories).  We were still the only people at any of the tasting rooms with one exception of 4 ladies in their 70’s, who also thought it would be a good idea to drive around tasting wine during the storm of the century.  Go ladies!  The sommelier at Uva Mira was so excited to see us as we were their first visitors all day (it was almost 4pm).  Sooo, we bought a few more bottles of wine before moving on.

The scenery was spectacular even with the bad weather.  I can only imagine what it must look like with a blue sky.  With 7 bottles of wine in tow, we headed back to our apartment – Damon in good shape, and me, well, a little drunk.  Given the crazy wind and rains, we did not want to push our luck and opted to stay in and eat leftovers and watch a movie.  Side note - every place that we went referred to the storm as "the storm of the century" or "the worst storm Cape Town has seen in 30 years" and I don't want to make light of it as we later found out that 8 people died, roads were closed, and there was massive flooding in the coastal areas.  Luckily, the vineyards were inland and we never felt in danger.  Just a little wet.

Storm clouds

Rainbow over vineyards during storm

With every wonderful day we have, there is always some jolt of reality thrown in.  On the drive back to our apartment, I noticed small patches of shanty towns along the side of the highway.  They were built during the apartheid era government to segregate people by color and ethnic origin.  I am again reminded how lucky I am to have been born in the US and hope that I never fail to appreciate what I have been given. 

Stock photo of what we saw from the M2

As we drove, the shanty towns got bigger and bigger and eventually just lined both sides of the road as far as the eye could see for miles.  I later learned that the area we saw is called Khayelitsha Township and is Africa's largest shanty area.

Days 11 & Day 12 - Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe & Cape Town, South Africa - Where's Damon? & The Elephant Killers

Day 11 – Ilala Lodge, Victoria Falls

7:15am pick up for today’s single activity – white water rafting the Zambezi.  I have done my share of rafting in life - West Virginia, Alaska, Costa Rica, Montana, Tennessee, Colorado... Class IV & Class V rapids on multiple occasions; and I have had some pretty good non-voluntary swimming moments.  But rafting the Zambezi has always been the big one - not only because of the reputed Class V rapids, but also because the Zambezi is well known for hippos and crocodiles.  The possibility of getting eaten adds a new layer of motivation for staying in the raft.  All of that being said, I started the day with some trepidation.   

Our rafting group - 9 of us - met at a lookout point to learn safety tips and check out the falls/gorge from yet another amazing viewpoint before driving to the river entry point. 

I’ve been rafting enough to know the general safety tips, but we did have an added section on crocodiles and hippos as I'm guessing I'm not the only one to have concerns.  Nice.  They told us that Zambezi crocodiles are vegetarian, so we would be okay.  Ha Ha  Really, they said the crocs do not hang out in the rapids so we only had to worry about still pools, and to date, no guests have been eaten.  Good to know.  Still did not make me feel much better about swimming.  And as for hippos - they hang out in shallower water and the rafting section was too deep for them.  

When the truck dropped us off, we had been warned that there was a 750ft descent into the canyon to get to the river and we were told that it was “strenuous”, but holy hell – it was not for the faint of heart!  Again, U.S. safety standards definitely do not apply in Africa.  We hiked/climbed down the side of the canyon on a “path” that at best had huge loose rocks and at worst had rickety ladders made of odd-sized tree branches, held together with wire and protruding metal rods, while locals literally ran by us barefoot carrying everything we would need down at the bottom – including rafts, pumps, etc.  This was definitely a one slip and you were taking out everyone below you kind of hike.  There were times we lost sight of our group and had no idea where the “path” even was.  But, so long as we kept going down, we figured we’d be okay.  Interestingly, they had us all put our cameras into a dry bag before the descent, so no proof of this trek is available. 

At the bottom of the canyon, we came across 20-30 people, some kayaks, and a few rafts balancing on one big flat rock waiting to launch into the eddy of a little cove.  We hopped in our rafts – we were with an American dad/daughter duo and an Australian lady, plus our guide and two other porters training to be guides.  I think our guide may have been blind in one eye, but he never mentioned it and I didn't ask.  

Damon is very excited to get going

We did our paddling tutorial, jumped out for some photo ops and learned how to get back in the boat if we fell out (bad sign) and headed for the rapids of the mighty Zambezi. 

Clearly I'm the only one who listened to our
guide when he said "everyone out"

Eventually they all paid attention

All in all, a great day – all class 4 & 5 rapids and since the river was really high, I think we probably had it a little easier than when the river is lower.  We skipped the one class 6 rapid (thank you, as that is not commercially legal) and portaged (walked) around it while our guides took the rafts through the rapids and past the dual whirlpools.  

Hey photog - look how happy we are!

A portage in Africa is not a nice well-worn obvious path – it is climbing up, around and over rocks, clinging to the walls of rock ledges, and making your way to some point that you cannot see – all while wearing wet slippery shoes,  a life jacket and helmet and carrying a paddle.  Again, not exactly U.S. safety.  The portage seemed to be about a half a mile of this craziness and then we got back in the rafts and carried on.  

Whew - got by that one safely...

During one especially hairy rapid, I saw Damon fly by me in slow motion, land on the dad in front of me and the two of them went over.  I dove for the middle of the raft – no way was I going in.  We lost 3 people on that rapid but quickly got them back in the raft.  

Uh oh

Going 

Going

Going (those would be Damon's feet)

Still going...

aaaand... Gone.

That was our only carnage the whole day – I’ve certainly been on worse, but for as much fun as “swimming” is, those crocs are out there somewhere!  That being said, we were given the “okay” to jump out for a few tamer rapids while hanging onto the safety rope – so we did.   Crocs be damned.

We finished the rapids and left the rafts, momentarily forgetting the 750ft climb back out of the gorge.  If the way in was bad, the way out was worse.  I kept my helmet and life jacket on.  Better to have some cushion when I went down.  Again, we hand and foot climbed up stumps and rocks and tree branch ladders (while the porters ran by us barefoot carrying the gear back up).  The tour ended with a big lunch – salads, pasta and several kinds of skewered meats and vegetables and then a very long and bumpy ride back to the hotels in an open ex-military Russian truck with no shocks - guests, guides and porters all crammed in shoulder to shoulder.

Most of the way back was on dirt and gravel roads.  I thought it was an access road but eventually realized that it is a “main” road that goes through a number of small villages.  Every few hundred feet, we would see a small cluster of buildings – little round clay buildings with thatch roofs.  Most of them had some sort of garden, field or stable attached.  I’m guessing these are all extended family plots that together make up a village of some size. 

Typical structure for the area, Vic Falls mist in the background

There were no other cars on the road but we saw a number of people walking.  Where they were going, I have no idea as there was nothing that we could see anywhere.  The kids loved waiving at us as we went by.  A few of our porters, who had hitched a ride in the truck, jumped out along the way, so I’m guessing they lived somewhere in the village.

We got back to our hotel around 3pm and basically did nothing the rest of the afternoon/night except nap and go for dinner.

This beer cost $2 but had a label stating a MSRP of $1.
Hmmmm.  

We stopped for desert at a pizza place and ate a nutella pizza.  Use your imagination - it did not suck.  The restaurant also had a cool sign:

Our last night in Vic Falls :( 

We’ve gotten much better at shutting down the vendors who just swarm the second we leave our hotel property.  We tried “no thank you”, we tried ”no Ingles”, we tried ignoring them.  Eventually we just got firm and told them to stop following us and that seemed to work better.  Although one guy offered us a 1 trillion dollar bill for 1 US dollar and I was very tempted…

Day 12 - Travel Day - Zimbabwe to Cape Town, South Africa

No activity and no pictures today; however, some interesting things happened on our flights to Cape Town that give me the opportunity to discuss the topic of big game hunters and how they are viewed by the safari rangers (guides).  Warning: a little bit of soap-box here.

Our entire day was spent traveling from Victoria Falls to Cape Town for the last (sob) leg of our trip.  We had a nice relaxing morning as our airport transfer was not scheduled until 10:30 am for our 12:30 flight.  I would like to say that I slept in, but given how early we tend to rise, we are now on an early routine.  Regardless, we had a leisurely breakfast, packed, sat on our deck and enjoyed the last few minutes of Vic Falls mist and headed out.    

Sunrise Mist

Sun up Mist

It only took us a few minutes to get to the new Zimbabwe airport where we realized our flight was at 1:30 and not 12:30 – we had a lot of time to kill and not much going on in the airport.  We found the lone power outlet by our gate, near a reclined teenager, and settled in.  I went to wander the empty airport (brand new terminal, only 6 flights per day) and immediately bumped into Jon and Sydney from our rafting trip yesterday – ironically, the teenager we had settled in with at the gate was the other daughter.  We chatted until it was time to board our plane and bid a fond farewell to Victoria Falls.  The flight was rather uneventful until we landed and were walking through the airport, and I realized Damon was all agitated about something.

He explained that during our flight to Johannesburg, he had been reading email messages over the shoulder of the couple in front of us (we did not like them because one of them reclined in economy - total flying faux pas).  Having one seat back and one seat forward gave Damon a perfect view of the man's cell phone.  We knew the couple had just gotten married as we watched the woman wad her wedding dress into the overhead bin.  

Damon finally got out that he had read that the couple was on an elephant hunting safari with the two of them and both sets of parents.  The husband was writing to the safari company complaining that he had just spent over $30,000 on their elephant murdering, sorry, "hunting" safari and they had never killed an elephant and he was very disappointed.  He went on to rant about the quality of the food and vehicles they had and reminded the company that he had already spent over $100,000 with them in the past successfully murdering, sorry "hunting" other big game.  Now we understand that there are people who get a thrill from hunting, and to a certain extent, I can understand when the meat is used for food, but to me, hunting elephants or lions or any of the big game out here is just appalling - basically you hunt it, kill it, take a picture with it, and leave it to rot.  There is no viable use for elephant IF one could even figure out how to haul a 6,000 lb animal out of the bush.  And before you mention it, yes, it is illegal to take the tusks.

So how do the safari rangers/guides feel about big game hunting?  Well, while we were on our safari, I had brought the topic up to Dawie to get his take on it.  Given our experiences with big game, I said that I didn’t think hunting was all that sporting since the animals are often hanging out or sleeping near the roads.  Doesn't seem exciting to shoot a sleeping lion on the side of the road.  Dawie said that it was different where hunting takes place since the animals are not used to vehicles and generally are much harder to find.  Okay, so at least they have some fighting chance...

I assumed Dawie would be completely opposed to the concept of hunting but was somewhat surprised to hear what he had to say and it may have moved my opinion a miniscule notch.  So here goes - every year, animal conservationists measure animal populations, food and water supplies, etc. and can predict the number of animals that are acceptable losses.  To a certain extent, they determine acceptable losses based on predictions of the natural predation that is likely to take place given populations.  For example, if there are too many lions and not enough territory, male lions will kill each other to take over territories and then they will kill all of the losing lion's offspring.  The theory goes that since those animals will likely be killed naturally, a license to hunt them does not significantly alter nature.

The government will determine acceptable losses by species and then auction off hunting licenses for upwards of $10,000 each.  That money is all used for keeping the remaining animals safe with the fencing, anti-poaching teams, etc.  So while big game hunting is generally abhorrent to me, Dawie at least helped us to understand that there is some benefit to the greater good.  That being said, he did tell us that there are still a number of unscrupulous game hunters who will breed animals just for the purpose of hunting to avoid the rules &/or they will re-sell the licenses for 10x profit to people like those on our flight.

Back to the would-be elephant killers... we spent a few hours in the Johannesburg airport before heading to our gate, and wouldn’t you know it, they were on our flight to Cape Town.  But it gets better.  Damon and I both took aisle seats, so on a flight with several hundred people,  I had the couple sitting in the two seats next to me.  They chatted with me for a few minutes before settling in and I tried to be pleasant.  The man took out his phone and I could not resist the urge to continue reading their story - I mean the phone was huge and the font was huge - and I was able to see a message that came in from a friend of his bragging that he had taken down “2 elly” with “shots to the brain”.  No matter what Dawie thinks, I still have a hard time understanding how people can shoot an elephant and then just leave it there to rot or be eaten.  I’ll get off my moral high horse now.

We landed, got through immigration and made our way to our latest accommodations at the Waterfront Village apartments in Cape Town.  Our apartment, in a vacation resort, was a full 2 bedroom, 3 bathroom spread with a den, living-room, full kitchen and a glorious washing machine and dryer.  It also had a deck that wrapped around giving us views in three directions including the very majestic Table Mountain.  We found out later that our deck even had a small pool on it! 

We walked to the Waterfront area which is loaded with restaurants and a big indoor shopping mall plus a giant Ferris wheel.  We had a quick bite and headed home to sleep.

Day 10 Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe - Sunny Rain, Flying High & Bongos

Day 10 – Ilala Lodge, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe/Zambia

Today's activities include a guided walking tour of Victoria Falls and a Microlight flight over the falls.  We were picked up at 8:30am (aahhh, the luxury of sleeping in) for our walk.  We are officially the closest hotel to the falls, so the drive was only about 3 minutes.  This particular walking tour is a pretty big tourist draw, so when we arrived, of course the “vendors” were everywhere.  We had a group of about 8 people, we were all given big black hooded raincoats as we were expecting a gentle mist off the falls, and off we went.  

We started on one end of the falls and walked the length with various viewpoints. 

Note bright blue sky and sunglasses

"Devil's Cataract" - where girls were sacrificed

Video: Falls

It is currently high water season, so there is a lot of water and it is moving fast.  The water off the falls is crashing down and there is a LOT of "mist".  We had a few good views early on, but the closer we got to the main falls, the less we could see anything of the falls, and the more we were basically just walking in a torrential downpour of water.

Still wearing sunglasses - mainly to keep the water out

Blue sky, sunglasses, rainbow, torrential downpour

Video: Rain in the sunshine

Now I understand the hooded raincoats.  There was one point, called “Danger Point” that was an outcropping of rocks off the main path.  Our guide said not to go or to be very careful because of how slippery it was.  Of course, there is Damon, standing on danger point with another thrill-seeker  over the edge!

Ha ha - I asked him to sit for a picture and he did

Safety precautions in Africa are not quite American standards.  There was a fence/railing on the main path, supposedly to keep wild animals away and so people don’t wander over the edge into the falls.  The fence was basically an occasional bush or wooden post that may or may not have had any horizontal railings on it. 

The "safety" fence.  In better repair here than most other areas

I’d say not too effective for keeping wild life out or tourists in.  It would be an understatement to say that I was drenched from head to toe when we finished – my raincoat was definitely broken since I was able to squeeze water out of my t-shirt when we finished.  That aside, we did learn some interesting things about the falls.

Video: Rainbow over the river

Back in the day, they used to toss young girls off the devil's cataract (picture above) falls in sacrifice.  Then when the much revered Dr. Livingstone (I presume) discovered the area, he convinced the natives that maybe that was not such a great practice.  Now, from what we hear, the only sacrifices are the occasional elephant, croc or hippo that wander too close to the edge of the falls when the water is running lower, and fall off.  In dry season, it is possible to walk almost all the way across the top of the falls on dry land – definitely not something that can be done now.  If you’ve ever been to Niagara Falls, size wise, it just pales in comparison to Victoria Falls, which stretches across two countries (Zambia & Zimbabwe) and runs about 1.4 miles across.  It is impressive, but honestly, with the amount of mist that generates, it is difficult to get a really good view or picture when standing there.  The falls drop into a gorge that narrows really fast, so immediately past the falls is a zig zag of river gorges.  It was explained to us that each zig and zag is where the falls used to be before they receded back because of an earthquake.  The mist can be seen for miles!

On our way back to the lodge, we stopped at the famous “Big Tree”.  It is, well, a really big, ancient tree. 

Our guide explained a bunch of stuff about the tree – I think it was about 1000-1500 years old.  But what was more interesting about the big tree is that when we stopped, next to some dense bush land, within seconds, a line of men came out of the bush trying to sell us stuff. 

Still a little wet from the "mist"

We weren’t even off the shuttle before they had lined up wooden trinkets and other things for sale right at our feet. 

Vendors

They are very aggressive and make viewing things uncomfortable because they are really up in your face and won’t leave, so we took our pictures and got back on the shuttle.  Sitting on the shuttle, the bus was surrounded – you couldn’t look out the window because there was a man in every window trying to get your attention.  There is nothing dangerous about it, just a little annoying because it is hard to calmly enjoy things when you are in a public space.  As soon as we were all packed back on the shuttle, they picked up their things and disappeared back into the bush waiting for the next group to arrive.

We had a relaxing early/mid-afternoon.  We hung all of our soaking wet clothes out on the balcony to dry, and wandered to a café next door – you really can’t go too far because of the onslaught of vendors.  Damon tried the trio of sliders – Kudu, Crocodile and Beef. 

When in Africa... Of all of the game meats we have tried to date, we have determined that ostrich and wart hog are surprisingly tasty! 

We were picked up around 2pm for our Microlight flight, which was back in Zambia.  In between the Zambia and Zimbabwe immigration points, there is a bridge that is considered “no man’s land” – people can walk across it without worrying too much about immigration issues, and it is also where people bungee jump (side note:  hell no to bungee jumping in Zimbabwe – did not look very safe.  Been there, done that in New Zealand and once was enough.) 

No man's land - Welcome to Zambia!

Driving near the immigration area

Video: Driving near Zimbabwe immigration

 Our transfer went smoothly as we basically got dropped off in no man’s land by our Zimbabwe driver and picked up by a Zambia driver there – we asked if it would be okay if we walked across the bridge and meet him at the other side, which was no problem.  The view of the falls and the gorge are amazing from the bridge so we took our time and got some beautiful pictures. 

We got to Zambia, met our driver, went into a little building for some sort of Ebola screening (they pointed some infrared thing at us to check temperature), got our immigration stamps and carried on.  I definitely feel safer knowing how thorough the Ebola check procedure was (said no one ever from the Zambia immigration check-point).

Ebola screening building

A microlight flight is basically a hang glider with a motor and a chair for the pilot and one passenger sitting directly behind.  In our 15-minute flight, we soared over and around the falls, spotted hippo pods, elephants and crocs from the air, and at one point, my pilot said “hold your arms out and pretend you are flying” as he took a nose dive straight down.  That lasted about 2 seconds before I was like, uh, no thanks. 

Damon, being 1 test away from getting his own pilots license, was given the okay to steer/fly his microlight.  He was in heaven.

Video: Damon's full flight (he takes controls at 11:58)

Then the drive back to Zimbabwe, another border crossing, another spectacular 20 minutes in the immigration building with a stench that curls your nose hairs, another stamp in our passports I think we have more stamps in our passports flying around Africa than from all other international travels combined. 

At the border crossing, there are a bunch of baboons running around - mostly digging through garbage, but we did see one jump into the open trunk of a car while searching for unattended food.  They are like annoying squirrels only I think they could probably kill us pretty easily, so we stay away and carry no food.  I still think it is crazy to see what people are transporting across the border on bicycles – piles and piles of sweet potatoes!

Baboon in the garbage behind the fence

Baboons in the street

Dinner was at the Boma restaurant with a “traditional drum show” – yes, it was totally cheesy, but there was a huge buffet of everything imaginable, including a “meat bar/grill” where you could pick any of about 10 different game meats and they would grill it for you, plus a whole pig roasting on a spit, not to mention table after table of sides, salads, soups, & desserts.  For entertainment, we watched a group of drummers/dancers and about halfway through the show, they gave us bongos (a hundred or more people).

Video: Donna on the bongos (aka, don't quit your day job) - BTW - my hands hurt after an hour of bongo-ing, ergo, the lackluster performance.

It is not possible to not have fun when you have your own bongos with African music playing in the background.  They formed a big African dance circle and of course Damon got picked (again) to dance in the middle of the circle, so that was entertaining for me.  Then home and to sleep.