Last evening’s game drive featured a lot of elephants. Bull elephants are loners, grazing by themselves. But with an estimated 50,000 elephants in this national park, we had no shortage of sightings. As long as we stay in the jeeps, they tend to ignore us.
(Photos will be added when we have better internet connections.)
We stopped near a river gorge to get a good look at the sunset. Our drivers came prepared with wine and snacks for us to enjoy off the tailgate as we watched.
As we returned to camp in pitch dark, we heard an elephant trumpet, which they generally don’t do. Later we learned that the other jeep from our group, behind us, had startled a bull on the road with its headlights, and was charging their jeep. A bit of excitement for them, and an explanation for the sound we had heard.
This morning we left camp early once again to exit the park for the day. We were almost getting bored with bull elephants, so I hadn’t gotten my camera ready. But as it happened, we came upon a herd of elephants — females and their young.
A baby elephant, perhaps a year old, was nursing from its mother. But by the time I was camera ready, the baby had quit nursing and was edging around behind mom to get away from the strange, noisy animal (jeep) that had approached. Mom and the baby’s big sister (probably about 4 or 5) were unperturbed.
Later, we encountered a large troop of baboons. They were not willing to let us get nearly as close, and fled into the bush.
The day’s main event was visiting a village outside the park. Once again we had to navigate through the enormous open-pit mines that are destroying the landscape. We later learned that most of the men in the village work for the Chinese in the mines. Though wages are low and working conditions are very poor, it is the only employment available. And with the unemployment rate in Zimbabwe at nearly 80% (NOT a typo!) they feel fortunate to have the jobs at all.
We stopped at a roadside “shopping mall” much like the one where we had met Clive a couple days ago. Our trip leader gave us shopping lists in the native language along with cash and sent us in groups to shop for the village. Fortunately, the shopkeepers knew the drill and helped us fulfill our orders — corn meal, millet, cooking oil, sugar, soap, etc. With the remaining change we bought candy for the village kids who are off school for Easter holiday.
This village is unique in that the “head man” of the village is actually a woman — quite rare in this culture. She greeted us in perfect English and welcomed us to explore any and all buildings, to take any photos we wished, and to ask questions of anyone we met.
The children were shy, but crowded around when the candy was distributed. Mary discovered that the adults were just as eager for the sweets.
Boys in the village were playing soccer with a homemade ball of plastic bags. They were overjoyed when one man in our group gifted them with a brand new soccer ball — a real one, along with a hand pump and pin to blow it up.
The women prepared tea and a traditional lunch consisting of a millet paste with a side sauce of ocra. The sauce was pretty tasty, but the millet might better have been used as wallpaper paste. It was also very difficult to get the orca sauce to stick to the millet, which we shaped into bite sized balls with our fingers. No silverware available. We ate politely, nevertheless.
Lunch was followed with an open discussion with the village women and just a few men who were either elderly or not working today. The questions from both sides were largely about marriage practices and gender roles.
We learned that the women here walk 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) to the river and carry 3 or 4 gallons another 5km home for drinking and washing. This village is progressive in that some of the men will sometimes cook or even change a diaper if their wife is not feeling well. Otherwise, all domestic chores fall to the women.
When our discussion ended, we unloaded the gifts we had brought from the “shopping mall” and other items that people had brought from home. The villagers showed their appreciation by singing and dancing, many with bags of meal or bottles of oil balanced on their heads. If the gifts were unappreciated, the villagers certainly did not show it.
As we were landing, we got a glimpse of Victoria Falls from the air. We’ll return here near the end of the trip to see the Falls up close, on the ground.
We had one stop at a very primitive roadside area. The people were extremely friendly, and our new best friend “Clive” volunteered to take us on a tour of the place that included the butcher shop, the sports bar, grocery store (where we met his father and uncle, above) and the porridge restaurant. Porridge is a stew of beef or goat, often mixed with or served on top of mashed boabob fruit (think sour mashed potatoes). We declined the taste test, especially since we had just seen the butcher shop where the meat probably had come from.
Our route took us through a series of huge open-pit coal mines that are disrupting thousands of acres of countryside. These are being operated by Chinese and Russian companies that bypass environmental regulations by bribing the inspectors. Bribes are common here for nearly everything. We are told that a U.S. 5 dollar bill can get a person out of almost any traffic ticket or hassle with a border guard.
The mines extend right up to the border of the national park. But the elephants don’t read the signs, so we passed a small family of elephants grazing in the midst of the mines.
These roads made the highway I described earlier look like an interstate. Imagine the worst-maintained rural gravel road in Iowa.
Nevertheless, our game drive driver, Garry, has very sharp eyes, and we were able to see impalas (larger deer), hydrax (rodent-like creatures), cliff springers (small deer), and warthogs, as well as many species of birds. 
At a lake, we observed hippos and crocodiles
On the way back to camp for lunch, a large bull elephant greeted us just outside the camp, and he was kind enough to pose politely for our photos before moving on.
Unfortunately, Good Friday is a major holiday here and all of the museums and historical sites were closed. Nevertheless, we got to see Mandela Square, and to get a very good look at the sharp contrast between the “haves” and the “have nots” here.
A high wall kept us from seeing Mandela’s house, but we could read some of the hundreds of messages written on rocks that people have left outside.
Soweto (the SOuthWEstern TOwnship) is famous as the locus of the fight for racial equality in this country. We were surprised to learn of contrasts even here, where there are modern new homes next to squatter slums.
We were also a little shocked to see goats feeding on garbage and the sidewalk restaurants serving “gentlemen’s menus,” which are parts of a cow one generally would hesitate to eat.
We also got a glimpse of Desmond Tutu’s modest home (somewhat obscured by foliage), and some outdoor monuments to the anti-apartheid struggle. But the tour ended early due to the many closures. Just as well, as we join the OAT group and head to the airport very early tomorrow for our flight to Zimbabwe.
We attended church on Sunday, February 8, then went to a casual brunch with friends, and then made our way to the airport for our afternoon flight, arriving in Palm Springs about dusk. A rental car “upgrade” is not always a good thing. The midsize sedan we reserved was not available, so we were stuck with a too big SUV. It got us to our motel in Palm Desert — not a fancy place, but comfortable enough.
Monday morning we were up early — two hour time change — so after breakfast at the motel, we headed to Indian Canyons. The tribe charges senior citizens like us a $7 entry fee, and we got our money’s worth by hiking a couple different trails. After driving right in on our morning arrival, on the way out we were surprised to see a long line of cars, eager to pay their entry fee and lined up for over a block to get in.
A lunch hour stop at a recommended restaurant refreshed us with cold beer. Then we made our way to the Palm Springs Visitors Center to get the low-down on locations and events. We had purchased tickets online for the late afternoon “Ride and Dine” at the Palm Springs Arial Tramway. The ride was fun, there was more hiking at the top of the mountain, and the meal was better than we anticipated. The ride down after dark gave us a panoramic view of the city lights. 
Tuesday was spent primarily in “old” Palm Springs. The city became popular with the rich and famous in the 1950s and -60s, and is filled with examples of “mid-century modern” architecture. These include the Twin Palms neighborhood, the “Ship of the Desert,” and a home supposedly occupied by Marilyn Monroe where she secretly “entertained” John F. Kennedy. The downtown area also features a number of historically registered buildings, now all filled with trendy shops.
The art museum is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but we visited the outdoor sculpture garden there (including a massive Marilyn Monroe statue), as well as another sculpture garden a half hour away in Palm Desert, nearer our hotel. We also wasted a great deal of time trying to find a brew pub. There aren’t any here!
Wednesday was devoted to visiting Joshua Tree National Park, It was an hour’s drive and a climbs to 4,000+ feet elevation. The visitors centers (there are four of them, and we visited two) are the worst we’ve seen in any national park. Maybe consolidate to just one good one? But we had some nice hikes, and at the first one, “Hidden Valley,” it felt like we had the place to ourselves. Things got more crowded mid-day.
