Bayete Guest Lodge and Victoria Falls

Last night to mark that I was on holidays, my friend Karen Brantnall suggested we go to the Nash for drinks and nibbles. I had Prosecco and steak tartare. Absolutely divine!
Started my ‘no more sleeps’ day with breakfast with Dave at Bro’kin Yolk in Mahogany then a last lesson on how to wear my Tilley from Pipestone travel store and home to pack.
What a wacky day getting ready to leave for the airport. I got everything into my suitcase until I realized that I had no underwear, socks, bras, or sleepwear! Dave is a saint for watching me struggle to get everything in and just commented encouragement like ‘come and drink your prosecco’ and making reasonable suggestions when I was about to lose my sense of humour.
I took my first malaria pill and because I am a anal retentive nurse, I counted the pills and realized I was 12 pills short of 1 pill before the trip, a pill a day while away, and one pill a day for 7 days after. One panicked call to London Drugs later and a gracious pharmacist who took care of getting me the pills I needed, then I was back on track. A lovely visit with Candice Harris and Gary Petit who brought Prosecco to send me off. An uneventful trip to the airport only to hear the flight is delayed by 2 hours but I am on holidays and the lady at the check in was so awesome and grateful that I didn’t care if it was delayed since I was on holidays that she upgraded me to a better seat for free. Not first class but between that and steerage which was what I could afford. Pays to be pleasant. So then after walking the entire length of the airport, twice, I settled into the quite comfortable Aspire lounge. Very civilized. Poured myself a glass of wine, spoke to my good friend Peti Webster and after wrote a few details of today down as this is the day of long flights.
I fly 9 hours and wait and fly 11 hours and wait and fly 1.5 hours and arrive. Note to self- never fly British air, they may have conquered the world but they don’t know how to make a comfortable airplane seat. I did have the row of 3 to myself but there was no stuffing left in the seats and the armrests didn’t go all the way up so unless you were a stick man, there was no comfortable lying down. Then the next flight was more of the same but it was 11 hours and I was seated by the window next to this lovely couple who call Johannesburg their home. They told me that I wasn’t missing anything by not going outside the airport in Jo’burg.
My first impression of Africa was while I was on the plane from London to Johannesburg and I looked out the window to a beautiful

sunrise where the sun was a big orange ball scorching the morning. It was stunning.
Johannesburg was a big sprawling city. I’m kinda glad that i won’t spend actual time there. Well except the airport which I see twice. The priority lounge in Johannesburg will likely remain as my favorite as I got to take a shower there. I was so glad to get clean from all the travel dirt. They had a rare roast beef buffet that I pigged out on. That and fresh pineapple. Delicious.
However the airport itself is probably my least favorite so far. It is very long and sprawling with no people movers (moving walkways) or trains like in Heathrow or huge golf cart type vehicles on an inside road called the link like Calgary does- (who knew Calgary)? So after I had showered and relaxed for a couple of hours, I discovered that I was to head to the gate but then found out that the gate was 10 minutes away by walking. They have good signage for that but no moving sidewalks etc. Then the weirdest thing of all. Once we were screened to go on the plane, they loaded us into busses, no first class first or steerage last, just all lumped together on these busses who drove us about 10 minutes to get to our plane. We were dumped on the tarmac and then climbed stairs into the plane. Now that’s not weird as I have done that before but never with an airport that had all

kinds of empty ramps and walkways all around the airport.
So off to Zimbabwe we flew on a flight that reminded me of flying to Kelowna. This was an older plane with comfortable seats but no screens but it was just over an hour and they flew low so we could see land the whole way.
I had read all kinds of negative press about Zimbabwe and the customs people in particular. Well, I found none of that to be true. The customs guy was slow, slower than molasses on a -30 C day, but he didn’t ask me for extra money, talk me into a visa I did not need and he was thorough. I was through quite quickly, found my driver who suggested I wait outside the airport doors while he collected other guests. I walked right into a group of men performing a Zimbabwean welcome. They were singing and dressed in traditional garb. I asked first if I could take a picture of them (my first mistake) to which they seemed delighted. Of course they said I could

and then when I finished they pointed to the hat in front of them. How stupid of me, this was how they made their money! Obviously their ministry of tourism did not pay them to welcome tourists like they did when Dave and I were on our Colours of Canada cruise and docked in Saganay where we were greeted by singers and a sugar shack.

Bayete Lodge is quaint and beautiful and heavily favoured by Europeans if the number of shameless speedos around the pool are any indication. Yikes! I was barely had time to shower and change and then it was off to a sunset river cruise. I was enjoying my first gin and tonic with my fellow Bayeters who all said they were going on a river cruise so I naturally assumed we were all going together. However my driver came to pick only me up. We gathered a few other guests from various lodges along the way but only me from Bayete. Once we got there, there were all kind of river boats from the double decker booze cruise types (please lord not that one) to party barges (not that one either) to little river boats made from beautiful mahogany and the seats were wicker with little tables in front of them and only seats for 8. Guess which one was reserved for me? Yes the small river boat that looked like it came out of an Agatha Christie

novel: Death on the Nile. They had a trio of appies for us, potatoes chips, olives and these wonderful peanuts, plus all you can drink bar so I continued the G and T theme. Except he made mine a double, whoa! As I sat down behind another lady traveling solo she says hello in a Canadian accent. Yeah. Another Canadian. We got to talking and guess where she’s from? Yup Calgary. Same as me. Hubby didn’t want to do Africa so she came on here own. Seems to be a theme. The river cruise was really wonderful. I loved it. Gentle breeze, no mosquitoes, a hot day but a beautiful evening.
The first animal I saw was velvet monkeys playing in the trees along the river. Then all kinds of birds and then the elephants. A herd of about 9 who had to have swam across the Zambezi to get to the island were they were standing near the shore. Because our boat was small, we practically banked it so we got ridiculously close. I am pleased with the pictures I got of them. Then the wonderful and dangerous pods of hippos. We saw three separate pods of about 8-10 individuals. So awesome. Then a crocodile and some baboons and a warthog. Not bad for only being on the county less than 2 hours. The sunset was breathtaking. As the orange sun set it threw pink rays of colour on the water until the colour of the sun changed to a hot pink itself as it disappeared into the water. It was really something to see.

Day 2 in Victoria Falls consisted of an early breakfast and a surprising development. Enchanting travels booked me a private tour with a guide for Victoria Falls. I was guided by a nice young man who was from the Tonga tribe who was a nice as can be. Part of the money he makes help send his younger brothers and sisters to school. So we had a brilliant walk around the falls, save for the 37 steps down to get a halfway down the falls view, I am trying to protect my knees as much as possible, and he told me I wanna walking too fast. So I let him set the pace. He said in the scorching heat you need to conserve energy. I told him I had lots of energy stores to burn! I thought he would die laughing! Regardless I slowed down and prevented myself from expiring. He had quite the sense of humour as there is the last bit of the falls that I think they call the danger point, as they have no railings (although they really didn’ t have railings in any of the other places either, just spikes that maybe your body would impale itself on as you flew over) and he told me that if I slipped and fell that he would be immediately fired and never aspire to his dream of becoming a river boat captain. So I shouldn’t fall over the falls. I told him that I would do it for him if he would bungee jump for me.

The next activity was the helicopter ride over the falls. Now I must be honest. I was a little bit disappointed. I thought that we would go down in between the walls of the falls. In the gully. I think I must have seen too much TV because I figured that this would be reasonable. The last thing the guy said to me before we lifted off, was no one is to lean on the doors or windows in case they pop open! OMG. Wasn’t there a safety catch to prevent that from happening? Now all I could think about was the door popping open! After a minute or two I decided that even if the door pooed open, and I fell to my death, I have proper insurance to send my body back to Canada with and at least I would die happy.

I really am having a wonderful time.

Then I decided to do the colonial thing and go have high tea at The Victoria Falls Hotel. It was lovely and I enjoyed watching the mongoose rolling and playing across the lawn bugging the velvet monkeys. The thing that struck me was that the people enjoying the tea were by far mostly white and all the servers were black and wearing old colonial servants outfits. Now correct me if I am wrong but it seems to me that this wasn’t a proud moment in white man’s history and it was a pretty dismal time to be a slave working for the ‘man’. Why replicate it now? I don’t have the answer, only more questions.
After high tea it was nap time and then I headed off to the Palms restaurant in the Ilala hotel. Nice but $50 US for a bottle of Prosecco? Really. However I did have pork belly for an Appi and I tried the antelope Kudu which are the ones with the thin white stripes around their bodies. It was stuffed with mushrooms and was quite delicious. Reminded me of our venison only not so livery tasting. Tomorrow Chobe National Park.

Up at dawn for a 730 pickup to drive one hour to the Zimbabwe/Botswana/Zambia border. There we walked into Zimbabwe immigration, short line smiling officers, transferred to a different bus owned by our tour companies sister company, drove about 1/2 km to the Botswanian immigration. Very long line up, slow, as I got the pretty girl who was more interested flirting with her male colleagues than she was in a 55 year old Canadian women who body made of butter was melting in the 41 C degrees, windowless, airless little shack called immigration. Whoops I promised to be positive only. So the Botswana immigration was a bit of a process as the building had no air conditioning.
Then about another 30 minutes drive in Botswana through Kisane until we reached a safari center. Here they would run both our morning river cruise and our afternoon Jeep Safari.
There were 12 of us on this party barge with 12 comfortable director chairs here and there. About 8 of the people spoke only Spanish but they had a Spanish speaking tour guide with them. Our river guide really knew his stuff. As we meandered about he told us all kinds on info about the Thebe river which runs from the Zambezi but changes names as it crosses borders. He also told us about the land dispute between Botswana and Namibia. The Thebe river divides into 2 along each of the borders. There is the island that splits the two tributaries which is very large and has grazing grass on it so all the grazers, elephants, hippos, giraffes, all manner or birds and numerous antelope swim to the island to eat. It’s a virtual zoo of animals. Both of the countries wanted to own the island. The two countries took their dispute to the International court in the Hague to settle their dispute. Dignitaries visited the area and measured the depth of the two branches of the river to decide which was the main channel (the deepest) and then that would be the border. Namibia’s channel was deeper therefore the island belonged to Botswana. They are crazy serious about disease and poachers and even had us walk through a chemical with our shoes on to prevent hoof and mouth disease. Our tour vehicle had to drive through a pool of this chemical to make sure they weren’t bringing anything into the country.
On our river cruise we saw several small herds of elephants, including an expired one. The guide said he thought the elephant died of natural causes as he could see no signs of a fight and the only scavengers nearby were three rather large crocodiles who were too busy posturing and trying to claim the elephant when it was clear that there was enough for all three and then some. We also saw one hippo so smeared in mud that of the 4 or 5 different cruise boats ours was the only one who noticed him. We also saw a pod of hippos (3) swimming from the main land to the island.
Our guide gave us lots of info about the animals like this one that had what looked like a toilet seat shaped mark on their bums and they were hairy called the water buck. They were no good for meat as

when they got stressed they secreted a foul smelling hormone that ruined their meat so no predators hunted them. (I later found this not to be true).
We also saw herd upon herd of Cape buffaloes. Our guide must not have liked them as he said very little about them and never positioned our boat in position to take really good pictures.
He told us that at this time of day the hippos would be in the mud or the water and not up on the land because they have sensitive skin and get sun burned easily. That they don’t really have teeth that crunch up the grass, so it takes a great deal of time in the stomach to digest so they spend lots of time doing that like in a food coma after a turkey dinner. Their teeth are for defence and for grabbing the grass. They may be slow and cumbersome on land but man can they move in the water and they can stay down there for about 6 minutes.
In the distance we could see giraffes and elephants on the land but

by the time we got there, the animals had moved on. One exception was when a heard of about 15 elephants decided to cross from the mainland onto the grassy island. We got to position our boat to watch as these great big elephants appeared to take delight in dunking themselves and splashing around and it looked like they were playing. They didn’t seem to worry too much about us at all.
The day was hot so it was delightful to be on a covered river boat floating up and down the Thebe for about 3 hours.
We had a buffet lunch at the lodge and then it was time for the Jeep safari.
This I liked a little better as they had divided us up into Spanish in one Jeep with the interpreter, and us ‘English’ as the guide called us, in another Jeep. We were joined by another couple. So there were 6 of us in a Jeep for 9. Perfect. Not crowded. The roads were horrid and we bounced around like bouncing balls. Our guide who was also driving spotted a pair of owls that I took a picture of but I think it turned out quite dark. Then we spotted all manner of antelope. As we broke out of the forest onto the beach we could see other jeeps gathered at the base of a tree. It took some manoeuvring but eventually we all got to see a leopard resting high up under the canopy. I’ll admit, all I could see was his tail swinging and his belly rising and falling as he breathed. Still, pretty exciting. Then further down the beach we sighted giraffes, however by the time we got there, they were already gone. We did sight two zebras on the island which I

tried to see with my binoculars but the bouncing of the Jeep really only got me knocked in the eyes as I tried.

Then the big score, another dead elephant (this one too apparently died of natural causes-starting to wonder if they think we are to sensitive to hear that another animal killed them), but this one had a lioness attached to it. Upon closer inspection, a second lioness could be seen in the brush alongside the beach. Then a third. Then a baby lion, then another and another. 4 babies in total with 3 adult females whom the guide said were likely sisters. At some point, one by one they all walked by our jeeps and joined their family either drinking water from the pool or eating from the elephant buffet. They were focused on their meal and didn’t give us any notice at all until one little guy came up to our Jeep and walked alongside it as he headed back into the brush. It was a smoking hot day for sure. Lions! We

were told they hunt early or later in the evening but because the elephants death must have occurred recently, they were given a meal fallen from heaven. A meal with no expended energy to get it.

We drove along farther on the beach and met a sight I won’t soon forget. Hundreds of elephants, in the forest, on the beach, in the water, and on the island. I didn’t know where to look. There were cute little baby elephants and some of them were playing in the water splashing and generally being kids. We watched them for what seemed like an hour but likely only 10 minutes. I could have stayed right there. There was so much going on to watch. Sentries posted to watch for predators, young moms being taught by older females how to parent and we even got to witness a baby getting stuck in the mud and how the older females rushing to it’s aid to get it stood up properly so it could be helped out. They are a big family.

And then 3 giraffes just walked across the beach in front of us as we were headed up to the forest. Man are they tall. We saw a baby and I think it was the Mom and Dad.
All the while I had been planning my trip to Africa I never really got why people were so weird about recording the Big 5 (Elephant, Hippo, Water Buffalo, Leopard, and Rhino). I still thinks it’s weird but just in case you were keeping track, I saw 4 of the 5 by my second day in Africa. Just saying.
We were driven back to the border in the Jeep which provided us a lovely breeze.

Getting back home was the reverse of going in but it appeared faster. Sadly somewhere between leaving the Jeep and going in another van I noticed my Lifestraw water bottle missing from my purse. I usually had it attached to my day bag by a carabiner but I had gotten lazy and had it just in it’s outside pocket. With all the bouncing and vibrating we had been experiencing, it must have slipped out and I never noticed it. Rats that bottle cost me $35. It had been really great having it as occasionally I had been offered water in a glass and I just poured it in my water bottle with absolutely no issue. I have been 100% symptom free from any kind of illness. I had gotten rather attached to it. Now I missed it.
When I got back to Bayete that night, I showered, journaled and then went out to dinner at Makua kuwa, way up in the hills. I had Bantu tenderloin. The Bantu are a people and I guess the spices or the way it was cooked was in the Bantu fashion. I was not eating people.
Then it was home to pack and prepare to leave.
I am glad that I went to Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls first. My first impressions of Africa will always be linked here. Red earth, forest made of scrub, the smell of cooking fires and the sound that soothes me at night was the constant hum of the cicadas clicking or buzzing. That is the Africa that I dreamed of and that is the Africa I found. Nothing to be disappointed by. The people were friendly and generous with their time and I never even once felt afraid or at risk. This is not what I had read. I read it was dangerous and not safe for solo travellers. This is not true. They want our business. They are careful of us. They want us to come back. And I just might.