How a day can be so good and so bad…
First the good… we got up at oh-dark-thirty to go out to the Lion Encounter. The tour company was supposed to pick us up at 5:30 — they actually got there early. Drove out to the game reserve about five miles from Victoria Falls, where they run an operation that is part of conservation effort principally with cubs from lions that have to be relocated away from areas where their territory is encroaching on people (or vice versa). We met up with the only other two participants — a young German woman now living in South Africa and an Australian woman. (Neither of whom, incidentally, had known about the no-credit-cards rule — we ended up loaning the German woman some cash so she could have dinner!)
You get there when it’s just light out, get a stick and a safety briefing (“just say no no to the cub and point the stick at him!”) and then walk out into the bush. Here, unlike all the time we spent in Botswana, one of the guides carried a rifle; there were also three trainers with the group. Fred spotted something big and dark off to the side and it turned out to be a black rhino. He and the guide (with the gun!) walked over for a closer look. I kept telling the guide I’d appreciate getting my brother back in one piece. When they came back, we walked a little further, the guide asked if we were ready to walk with lions, and when we said we were, he told us to look to our left — and there they came, full tilt, straight for us!
Zimbabwean cubs
Now we’d been told there were three cubs, 14 months old. What they do NOT tell you is how big a 14-month-old lion cub is. Their heads are easily up to or past waist-high. Ulp! And all we have are sticks! But they acted exactly like big kittens — playing with each other and with the trainers. They let themselves be petted, they generally came to a trainer when called (try that with your tabby at home!), they even let people walk with them holding their tails… There were two males (Loza and Stitch) and one female (Stancy). Their fur is very rough, their ruffs are bristly.
Cub on alert
At one point, I was looking at one of the lions and felt a weight against my leg. I looked down, and there was the sole female cub leaning up against me as if to say that she wanted to be petted. The whole thing was just enchanting, and it was very hard to remember that these are wild animals and will, eventually, be trained for and released to the wild. Extras were watching the cubs go on alert when they heard wild lions in the distance, and a kudu herd not far from the entrance. You get a full cooked breakfast when the walk is over (and it’s over too soon, even if it was an hour or more!). It was just wonderful. Couldn’t recommend it more.
Then the bad… we were back at the guest house by about 9:30 and the weather was simply gorgeous, so we were so so looking forward to the helicopter ride. The tour company picked us up and took us out to the helipad just in time to find out that the helicopter had developed problems on the ride just before ours and had been grounded. We waited just long enough to find out that they’d cancelled all flights for today and tomorrow and asked if they could book us on the Zambian side. The company didn’t seem much to understand (or care) that we’d come 8000 miles and would probably not be back, and did nothing more than offer us a refund and a provisional booking for the next day (after telling us that all the Zambian flights the next day were fully booked). Since we have a 1:30 flight out back to Johannesburg tomorrow, this did not look promising. We rode back to the guest house discussing options — some of them wild and some even wilder (trying to hire a plane from Zambia to come get us is not very realistic!).
In any event, we put the whole thing into the hands of Hartmut and Miriam Giering, the owners of the guest house, and in about 45 minutes they felt reasonably confident they had the whole thing under control. But the plans are contingent on the weather being as good tomorrow as it is today and on a series of transfers from one tour operator to another going without a hitch. Ulp… we shall see. And I will be verrrrrrrry disappointed if I end up having come 8000 miles and don’t get to fly over Victoria Falls.
Sunset over Zambezi River
The sunset cruise was okay but filled with loud Americans and we didn’t see nearly as many animals as we did on the Chobe cruise. The area of the Zambezi river where the cruise boats operate is astoundingly close to the falls (it’s the Zambezi that tumbles into the gorge at the falls). And I think we’re both a bit concerned about the arrangements for tomorrow. Spent some time sharing a couple of bottles of wine with the owners and one of the two Swiss women (the other went off to try to see moonlight over the falls after having exchanged some Botswanan pula for my American dollars so she could pay the entrance fee to the park!) and will head off to bed early since we need to be up for breakfast, packing, etc., before heading out sometime before 9 a.m.