Letter 23 - Linkwasha

On the way we stopped at Victoria Falls briefly. Here is a picture of the mists which can be seen from the air plane thirty miles away. It's hard to see the Falls unless you take the helicopter ride. We had been here before, so just looked around a little between planes. The bridge in the background is the one they bungee jump from.

As we drove from the landing strip to Linkwasha we saw a beautiful sable antelope. He wouldn't come out into the sunlight for a good picture though. It looks as though he has no eyes, but he does. The sable's coat is the most beautiful shade of brown.

These lilies were blooming everywhere--they had been waiting for seven years for there to be standing water long enough for them to bloom. There were lavender ones and white ones. Where is Monet when you need him?

Here is our thatch-roofed tent at Linkwasha Camp, which is in the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. I'm glad we went to Zimbabwe again since the country is going so rapidly downhill under the current regime. We had no problems at all in the part we were in, but their tourism is off 75%, their inflation is 60%, their interest rates are 70%, and their unemployment is over 50%. They are running out of fuel and food.

We saw lots of game here, but many of the most interesting things were sort of far away. Like kudu ewes and baboons.

We saw lots of interesting behaviors--especially among baboons. We watched a baboon family dashing about in the trees to escape the wrath of the dominant male--he was furious about something. He was really loud, and the others were all screaming in terror and going out on the end of limbs that were too thin to hold him. Then we saw another family come down a tree and walk away. A very little baby was falling behind, so he jumped on the back of the dominant male (who doesn't walk, by the way, he struts.) Apparently having a baby on one's back is way beneath the dignity of these males. First the big guy reached around his right shoulder to try to bite the baby's arm and pull him off, but the baby leaned way over the other way to avoid him. Then he reached way around to the left to try and get the baby, but still couldn't reach him. Then the big male stood up on his hind legs and began spinning around like a whirling dervish and finally shook the baby off with centrifugal motion. It was hysterical to watch. I'm hoping Ed caught it on video.

Here's the whole troop.

Another thing we watched that was very interesting, but too far away for good pictures was two leopards out in the daytime playing on an ant heap. You don't usually see leopards in daylight. And you almost never see two leopards together except briefly for mating.

Here's the kind of buffalo you want to avoid--the lonely old bull--called a Dagga Boy. This one got out of his mud hole as we approached.