After clearing myself out I went to reception to hand my key in and explain the bin situation. They were very unimpressed, and clearly thought I was doing a good job of fulfilling the Brit abroad stereotype! I felt a lot better so I returned to the truck to try some solids for breakfast. After this we boarded the Acacia truck (a huge 24 seat vehicle with enough room for everyone's bags, a fridge, tables, and even a bell we can ring if we want to let the guides in the cabin know we'd like to pull over!) and crossed the Zambia/Zimbabwe boarder. Seeing the Falls from the Zambian side was very impressive, but viewing them from the Zimbabwean side completely re-defined amazing!
If you're thinking of visiting the Falls (and I'd urge you to do so), my advice would be to stay, and do activities, in Zambia - but go to the Zimbabwe side to view them. Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe means everything is crazily expensive compared to prices over the boarder. Zimbabwe has the better ground view of the Falls by far (admission to the park is $30, + visa fee to get into the country), but activities like helicopter and microlight flights are far cheaper in Zambia. Although Zambian aircraft aren't allowed into Zimbabwean airspace you're at a high enough altitude for it to not compromise the view. The monkeys are equally intelligent, though: they're opportunistic in Zambia but resourceful in Zimbabwe. I spotted one who bent a bin over, rummage through it, and drink the last little bit in each bottle/can.
We left the Falls and drove to Hwange National Park, the former home of poor Cecil. We set up camp and then headed out on an open top safari truck. Hwange has no fences to allow the animals to roam freely (but this has the disadvantage of helping poachers do their thing), and we saw a herd of ~200 elephants before we were officially inside the park. Our guide spotted some fresh lion prints and drove us around a good chunk of the park to spot some, but we didn't have any luck. We did get to see lots more elephants, giraffes, antelopes, crocodiles, warthogs, and even some hippos considering getting out of the water. It was a great drive, and we finished it by watching the sun set behind a heard of elephants who were having a wash.
We had an amazing dinner (some kind of vegetable stew) made for us, and then our day got really fun! We were at a bar and saw the Hwange guide we had earlier, who took us for a night drive. We grabbed a couple more beers for the road, and jumped in the truck. He drove us down a track and the engine cut out. We waited for a few minutes, had a look at how clear the stars are in a place with no light pollution, re-started the engine, and drove off again. What could go wrong?
Turns out the routes game drivers take during daylight (when their boss could be watching) and nighttime (when their boss is asleep) are very different. We were definitely off-roading, in an area teeming with wild animals, in the dark, with no lights (they scare the animals), in a less than mechanically sound vehicle, being driven by a man we saw drinking lots of G&Ts less than half an hour before. I see no possible problem there.
Predictably, the engine cut out again. The driver hopped off the truck, fiddled with something underneath, and got back on again. Admittedly that solved the problem, so we carried on. Some of us had finished our first on-truck beers and were standing on the seats for a better view. Our driver wanted to keep things interesting, so he drove us through some trees. We quickly got the hang of ducking each time a low branch was coming, so then he increased the difficulty by varying the speed of the truck. Some people ended up with bruises; I am glad I was wearing glasses. As we approached the end, he said "wanna know a fun fact, guys? I've got no idea who's land that was".
Once we came out of the woods, we arrived at a watering hole with 4 elephants drinking (2 adult female, 2 little ones). We could see perfectly from where we were, but our guide took us to within touching distance of them. He turned the engine off, and we sat there drinking beer in an open top truck, in silence, in the kind of darkness I've never seen in the UK, listening to 4 elephants slurping, less than a meter away. If I had to pick my favourite moment of my trip so far, this would be it.
Before we set off we were specifically told not to use flashes on our cameras, but someone forgot that nugget of information. The flash scared the elephants, and they started making noises to warn us away. These noises got the attention of Daddy elephant, who came out of a bush on the other side of the truck. We had to sit quietly and let them 'haruuuumph' it out before we could risk scaring them again with the headlights or engine noise. They piped down, so the guide started tapping on the side of the vehicle to prepare them for headlights. They didn't like the lights though, and were flapping their ears and trunks (a sign of aggression), and started to encircle the truck. The people at the front of the vehicle were getting pretty scared by this, but at the back we were well into our 2nd beer on the truck and a bit less bothered. Slowly, though, even the tipsiest of the group recognised the very real possibility that our truck was about to get tipped.
At this point I did the mental risk assessment which it might have been sensible to do earlier in the evening. I was a Brit in rural Zimbabwe with no phone or first aid kit, in a temperamental truck being driven by a tipsy bloke, with angry elephants capable of killing us all to our front and sides. We'd riled these elephants up too much to sit and wait, but we'd be exacerbating their anger by starting the engine. And even once the engine was going we had to rely on it to keep going, otherwise we'd just dug our own graves. We heard "right guys, hold tight!" coming from the driver, the engine started, and using his last bit of sobriety (and some kind of mechanical miracle) the truck shot backwards and we got away safely.
"I don't know how you guys stayed so calm", he said, once we got back to camp. "I was fucking petrified".
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