Ah, Zimbabwe! We entered Zimbabwe at Kariba Dam, a quite fantatstic way of entering a country, only spoilt by the worry of being run over by a big yellow truck - Yvette drove Pumba across the dam!! We arrived at the House Boats and spent some time grabbing the food (oh the cheese!!!!) beer, and cameras and sticking on the opensided boat, and by mid afternoon, we were heading out into the expanse of the artificialness of Lake Kariba.
After transporting our lovely food supplies and essentials on to the boat, and arranging our selves in the open sided bedrooms, it was time to kick back, watch Kariba disappear and wait for the beer to chill. In the middle of the lake we stopped to collect water for the spa, and give the boys chance to jump from the roof of the boat, and its amazing how far up the roof of a house boat is. As evening grew close, we tested the beer for temperature and headed out in small boats for a safari, lots of hippos and fish eagles. We returned to find a beautifully prepared dinner waiting for us, which was washed down with some beer. The evening descended in to a big old fashioned cocktail party, with good music.
After a fantastic sleep under silk liners, it was time for cooked breakfast, and it always tastes better when its not you cooking! As we had an action packed day of relaxing ahead I took full advantage of the bar and washed bacon down with a cold beer. The day passed lazily in and out of the spa pool, after we put ashore for the evenings cruises, a few of us tried our luck at fishing, and I caught the biggest, 
which I think the cooks enjoyed it for their dinner, and also the smallest.
The rest of the evening was passed with more beer, more music, and beer, and quickly descended in to drunken ramblings and Hailey’s vain attempts to get everyone involved in drinking games, something to do with chickens.
The last day on the house boats passed to quickly, and we arrived back at Kariba and unpacked, the only problem being we’d lost shepherd the driver 
After the luxury of the house boats, it was not so nice pitching the tent and cooling dinner, but handily close to the camp site was a yacht club, which some of us adopted for the evening, talking To the south African owner, and using his pool, best of all was barbecued fish prepared by his staff, yummy! That evening passed looking over the lake at sunset, eating fish and talking almost like adults.
Next morning we quickly on the way to Gweru to pick up beer supplies for the next couple of days at Antelope Park, and our chance to play with some big cats. The campsite was excellent, with green grass, shade and a fantastic wood frames Eating area with cheap food for lunches. Our first day started early, with a trip out to take the 10 month old Lions for a walk, we were all given a small stick, and told if we get ‘the look’ then hit the lion on the nose with it… So off we went, very pleasant walk, with the added fun of watching several lions pad by at close quarters. I even had a lion stand behind me on a rock and place its paw on my chest, just in play though. Later we went to feed the lions, and I can safely say I never want to be between a lion and food, even the little ones, you can see the concentration and determination to get to the meat.
In the heat of the afternoon we had the chance to spend some time with some younger lions, and thanks to the heat they were so placid, you could have them lieing on you lap, I can not tell you what that feels like, they have the biggest feet ever!
The second day was elephant swimming day, that is, we sat on the elephants and they swam, in fact they completely submerged us, with only the trunk sticking out, I was also lucky enough to have another elephant first roll in fro me, then roll over and kick my leg, a unique experience I think!.
That evening Rusty and I built a good fire and cooked the most delicious chips I’ve ever had.
Next stop in Zimbabwe was Bulawayo and the city centre, municipal campsite, handy for the internet cafes and apparently good for getting mugged, and excellent for visiting the near by Matopos National Park. So another early morning, sitting on the back of an open top land rover heading out in to the wilderness, guided by a fantastic guy who was a real live white hunter and expert tracker and bushman, first stop was some old caves occupied by bushman many, many years ago, situated about 500m up a hill, the view over the plains was amazing, and the detail of the cave paintings something else, fantastic place. We had lunch at the base of the hill, and it was beautiful, I bought a wooden hippo from the locals, then it was of track a rhino on foot… During this journey we also had a close encounter with a black mamba, and a croc much to the surprise of the American tourists sitting 50m from it.
Eventually we set off on foot following 5 hour old dung trails, but came to nothing, so hit the road, only to get a flat. Eventually we set off again, on foot and came within 60m of a female rhino and 2 year old offspring, quite amazing, as we approached, it allowed it young to lead a path away from us. 
When we returned to the 4×4 a number of mini vans had arrived, and tourists everywhere, with a agitated male rhino banging about in the scrub, our guide proceeded to throw stone at the tourists to get them back in to the vans, which is lucky, as the rhino then charged across the road and off in to the distance.
After the vans had dispersed we set of on foot tracking the male, and found it resting in scrub, we approached down wind and got great photos, quite a wonderful experience.The drive back to camp was helped by a couple of beers and windproof jackets.
Next morning we had a quick drive north to the edge of Hwange National Park and in to fantastic raised safari accommodation overlooking a watering hole. Within 100m of the enterance we came across our first unique find a month old giraffe carcass, very interesting,
with hundreds of elephants giraffes and antelope, tracks of leopard but after following them several miles, no leopards, but we did mange to see a giraffe drinking.
From Hwange it was another short drive north to the border with Zambia at Victoria Falls, and 4 days of bars, shopping and activities. Its amazing what you can trade at the markets in Vic Falls, a traded a FHM insert for an elephants tail bracelet and a surf shirt and a couple of $ for I wooden animals, was a fun way of passing the time.
The first night was spent at a very nice restaurant called The Boma http://www.vfsl.com/html/Boma/boma-facts.htm , open to the African sky, and packed full of meat from virtually all African animals, and a range of delightful Zimbabwean specialty foods, including Mopani worms, in fact I got a certificate to prove I’d eaten some. During the meal I visited a witch doctor, who told me I was going to have 5 kids, amongst other things, amusingly; Lizzie is also going to have 5…. After the meal we were treated to a display of dancing, and handed drums to play, fantastic evening.
We spent one day rafting down the Zambia, fantastic, there was only 2 guys in my raft, so we were placed at the front taking the brunt of the waves, unfortunately we capsized on the first rapid, resulting in a long swim for me, and a trip in the rescue raft, that was to the first capsize of several, in fact on one rapid we gave up with the raft and swam down 
What we hadn’t been told is the climb out of the valley to the truck home was a 30 minutes vertical climb, at least cold beer and food was waiting for us.
Next night was the 30USD all you can drink river cruise, disguised as a safari so obviously I attended, and unbelievably we saw quite a bit of game! At the end we smuggled some free beer on to the 4×4 back, and I managed started an inter truck beer war. Thanks to the exchange rate, and lack of coins, after a nights drinking in Zim, you feel rich, cause your pockets are full of scrumpled notes, the picture has an equivelent of 3USDs!
Vic falls its self is an amazing site, it was quite dry when we visited, I can’t imagine what it looks like with high water. The rest of the town is a bit of tourist trap, with expensive tourist shops, a big casino and shipping companies, but for the few days we were there we made full use of the facilities, and enjoyed that hot water, reasonable supermarkets, western style food (Oh the toasted sandwiches were amazing!!!) and the african sun made the whole thing even more enjoyable
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