6/8/98: Went on a guided safari walk at sunrise this morning, out in Balla Balla Field and Sibayao Pan just outside the main camp. The morning mist lent an ethereal look to the grazing giraffes, zebras and wildebeests…
NOTE: The photo above is Ruth and a zebra in the mist during our sunrise walk through Balla Balla Field and Sibayao Pan at Hwange Game Reserve, Zimbabwe.
6/8/23: Balla Balla Field and Sibayao Pan were near to the main camp at Hwange Game Reserve, so we followed a guide right out of the compound for a walking tour as the sun was rising. The animals that we saw were trusting because of their familiarity with the camp and the regularity of walkers, so they allowed us to get surprisingly near to them.
I tried to pay the guide the fee for his service, but Ian W. was having none of that! They all treated us like royal guests from beginning to end. After breakfast and coffee back at the cottage, we all packed up and said our goodbyes to the Ian and Flo, and Pete and Jilly. We couldn’t have found better company this past weekend!
Before we actually got on the road, Arthur and Sylvia drove into the park again for one last, short drive, just to see if the lions we spotted yesterday were still around. But none were to be seen. They were nervous about leaving us on the road side to catch a “local” bus even though we had already taken a ride on one from Karanda to Harare several days earlier. They had become protective of us as guests, so they waited with us a while. We felt like we were putting them out, so we adjusted our plans for the cheaper bus and had them drop us off back to Hwange Safari Lodge where we waited for the “Blue Arrow” bus, a higher end bus that we figured would be more like the Greyhound line in the U.S.
We had several hours to wait so we ate lunch in the café, sharing an Ostrich Burger and an Eland Steak, both of which are farmed livestock animals in Zimbabwe, as well as being found in the wild.
While waiting for our bus to Livingstone we sat on the patio of the Lodge. We were nestled just 20 yards or so from a watering pan and that afforded us the opportunity to see more elephants and antelope as they came to drink. It was quite a nice afternoon!
We boarded the bus at around 6:00pm and found that it was considerably more luxurious than anything in the US. A steward served refreshments, much like on a long airplane flight, and there were television monitors suspended from the bus ceiling that showed movies for long rides across the country. We arrived safely in Victoria Falls at about 9:00pm and fortunately the place we were to stay was right across the street from the stop. We settled in to bed and looked forward to seeing Victoria Falls in the morning!
