Frank was there, at the Victoria Falls Rest Camp, bright and early at 7am to pick us up for our day-trip to Hwange. The only problem with that was we’d been told by the tour company that pick-up was at 7:30, leaving Frank standing around in the cold for half an hour.

Not to worry, Frank waved off our apologies, welcomed us warmly, and we were off for the more than an hour drive to Hwange National Park. Frank said we had to hurry, though, as we were behind, and we definitely were hurrying with the speeds we were going.

Erika and I spent a while trying to figure out how to do safaris while we were in Africa. We didn’t want to splurge on any of the super expensive, highly touristy multi-day trips that people usually do when they take purposeful safari-based vacations; we didn’t have the budget for that. We’d looked at driving ourselves through Zimbabwe and Zambia, but that didn’t work out (more on that in a future post). We ended up settling on taking a couple day-trips out of the Victoria Falls area, and found a local company that booked both the trips we wanted to do. It provided transportation to and from the park, the game drive in the park, and lunch as well. Hwange was the first.

To The Park

After the easy drive south, we arrived at the park, and turned off the main road to enter. We’d barely passed the welcome sign, hadn’t even arrived at the admissions office, when Frank slammed on the brakes and we watched as a series of elephants paraded across the road.

Erika was thrilled already. Day made! Safari success! We can go home now! We’d had no idea just how many elephants we’d see on these trips, each of which made seeing the elephant in the brewery parking lot the day before less and less surprising.

We drove to the Hwange Safari Lodge hotel, where we’d wait for our safari vehicle for the day. We had some time, so Frank took us to the restaurant there, where we had coffee and toast, while watching the beautiful watering hole the hotel is positioned near. While we were there, we only saw birds and impala, but there was a large whiteboard with tallies for all the animals that had been spotted at the watering hole–including warthogs, buffalo, zebra, even a leopard, apparently.

After coffee, we met our safari driver for the day out front, and it was time to get going. It looked like it was going to be just Erika and me–a private safari! We climbed up into the open-air seating on the back of the truck, and our driver handed us a few blankets, because… reader, it was cold.

This day was almost certainly the coldest we’ve been the entire trip. Erika and I had long pants and hiking shoes on, our warmest tops, our coats as well, gloves and toboggans, and then these blankets as well. And we were still cold. We’d always envisioned African safaris as hot, sweaty, baking in the sun affairs–not today! It was bone chilling.

It’s a testament to how fun a day it was, I think, that the cold isn’t the first thing I think of, that the memory of it isn’t what dominates.

The Hunt — Not Literally — Was On!

Huddling for warmth, we set off into the park in the search for animals. That’s one thing that stands out to me about this safari–it felt more like we were actively searching for animals. Our guide would stop, look, get out his binoculars, before deciding it was nothing and we’d move on.

That is not at all to say it was hard to find animals–they were everywhere. We saw plenty more elephants throughout the morning–elephants in the woods, elephants in the grass. We saw giraffe, zebra, impala, kudu, and numerous birds (our guide was great at spotting birds). It was so much fun to be cruising along, kilometers at a time without stopping, when suddenly our driver’s hand would dart out the window pointing this way or that, as he quickly brought the truck to a halt and yelled “giraffe!”–or whatever animal he’d spotted–back at us.

It was nearly lunchtime, and we were very close to our lunch stop, when our driver came to a stop near a lake. There were some birds and such next to the lake, but our driver was looking further, to the other side. He stared, stared longer, got out his binoculars, then declared, “it’s a lion.” No. A lion? He let us use the binoculars and I saw what he was referring to. A fucking lion! I zoomed in with my camera’s telephoto lens to see if I could get anything, and grabbed a couple pictures.

This was great, I was thrilled! I’d never really expected to see any of the big cats; just a bunch of giraffes and elephants and zebras and I’d have called it a great day. A lion was just bonus! Alright, I’m good, I guess it’s time to head to lunch now and–

…wait, where are we going?

Our driver had taken a left off the road, following an unmarked path a couple other safari vehicles had just taken. Frank later explained our driver could be fined by the park for this–vehicles aren’t supposed to leave the main paths. But, apparently, our driver just wanted to give us an up close view of the lion. Really, really up close.

Alright, my picture is zoomed in a little bit, but we’re really close. Uncomfortably close. It turns out, there were two lions. One had a fresh kill he was lying with, and the one above was slinking through the grass apparently intending to steal it. Frank and our driver looked at the kill the lion had, and surmised it was an injured ostrich they had seen earlier in the week. Gross.

These lions obviously were wrapped up in their own business and couldn’t care less about us. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a little shaky and nervous, so I was more than ready to get going when our guide started to drive away.

Holy shit, lions!

Lunch Break

Our lunch stop was just another couple hundred meters up the road, close enough you could still see the activity of safari vehicles going back and forth from the lions. Our guide had a whole lunch put together for us that he unloaded from the truck and set up, consisting of chicken, rice, bread, vegetables, and soda. It was really good!

The picnic area we were at is lightly fenced in, with a single open entrance coming in from the road. While we were having lunch, we noticed a group of tourists, outside of the picnic area, walking down the road. Walking down the road. What the hell are you doing! There are lions over there!

It turned out, they were walking to the picnic area, because just outside of it the wheel had come off their safari vehicle. No, I am not shitting you. What if the wheel came off while they were over just a couple meters from the lions?! Yeah, they’d had the same thought.

What this meant for us is that our private safari was over, as we picked up the displaced tourists to give them a ride back up to the front of the park. They kept thanking Erika and me, but for one, I don’t think I was given a choice, and for two… what are we gonna do just leave them there? There are lions over there!

The Afternoon Drive

After the excitement of the lions, there was almost no way for the afternoon to measure up. But it was still a wonderful ride through the park. Shortly after lunch, we found a wide open plain full of giraffes and zebras. Obviously, of course, there were plenty more elephants.

Unfortunately, the afternoon also included a bit of rain, which was oh so wonderful since we were already freezing our asses off on the back of the truck. Fortunately, it was very brief, mostly during the last stretch of the drive leaving the park, to get back to where Frank had left the van.

We got back to the van, thanked our safari guide, and Frank drove us back to Victoria Falls. We were racing the sunset, and the sunset won: the last 15 or 20 minutes of the drive were in the dark. Frank seemed unfazed, but Erika and I were terrified. Zimbabwe has an abundance of animals, and drivers without headlights, which make night driving exceptionally dangerous.

Frank dropped us off and we thanked him for a great day. We told him we had another safari booked in two days, and wondered if he’d be our driver for that day too. He wasn’t sure, but said he’d let us know. We traded Instagram handles and said goodbye, thrilled from a wonderful first safari, and excited about our next one.

What’s Next?

Our short time in Zimbabwe had come to an end, and the next day we were making the walk–yes, walk–to our next country, Zambia. We had more views of Victoria Falls to take in and more safaris to experience!