Zimbabwe day 3

Most of today has been spent on the road, driving from Gweru in Zimbabwe, through the infamous Zimbabwe/South Africa boarder point, crossing the Limpopo river, and arriving in Tshipise. We managed to cross the boarder in under 2 hours which is apparently a result!

Antelope Park, where we had been camping, is the centre for a lot of research into rehabilitating captive bred lions into the wild. We had the opportunity to do a nighttime game drive to see the results of this in action. This sounded incredibly exciting, and we all got on the truck (driven by a sober bloke, this time) to watch these lions catch and eat their prey. There were 2 key problems with this which seem very obvious now, but didn't before we set off. Firstly, it was dark and secondly, these lions were crap at hunting. The guide was explaining to us that they tried only feeding the lions every third day and chucking a zebra in there to see if their hunger could help trigger the 'kill the zebra' instinct in them, but ultimately the lions just lost weight and played with zebras. The more questions we asked the clearer it became that these lions were never going to make it into the wild, but the Park had to continue making this seem like a plausible objective so researchers would keep chucking research funding at the place because hey, everyone loves lions. 

The campsite we arrived at today was nestled between several koppies, which was a stunning place to sleep. The drive through Limpopo province to get here was also amazing, made even better by knocking back the beers, playing cards, and Red Hot Chilli Peppers. The campsite also had thermal springs. I gave this a go, but I knew after putting one foot in that my lesion wouldn't be happy about it - it felt like an uncomfortably hot bath. I joined some others in a heated outdoor pool (at the perfect temperature for my legs), and got cracking on the drinking again. We went back to the tents to rustle up a dinner, and I was taught the rules of Flip Cup (much of the description is in the name). For the 2nd time in about as many months I impressed a bunch of blokes (who think they're boozers) with my ability to take my drink, and successfully anchor a boat race team. Stringer blood.

Tomorrow I'll be travelling through the mountainous area of north SA to get to Hazyview, and ultimately Kruger National Park.

Love Emily x

P.s. The cracks on my iPad screen have been growing since my first day in Ghana when I dropped it. I've been trying to keep it together with micropore, but bits of glass are starting to fall out now, and I think it's only going to take a couple more pieces to go and it'll be completely unusable. If communication suddenly stops, that's why!