Day 6 – 16.03.2018
After this amazing day spent with the rhinos we were still trying to get our head around what we had seen. We woke up very early to get up an running as quickly as possible, as you never knew how long the border crossing between Zimbabwe and South Africa would take.
We were lucky and got through well, passed the Zimbabwean border without any trouble and then headed on to the South African border through nomans land. Our lucky streak even continued when we were queueing to have our passports stamped for entry into South Africa. It was a really hot day – the hottest it has been since I started this trip, and I was really sweating. So waiting for hours in a queue, which is where it was heading wasnt really my favourite scenario. We were lucky that our driver noticed that from the two open windows, they were opening another and because we were quick in switching queues we got first place and were therefore done in a matter of 20 minutes.
Not as fashionable stamps, but enough to get me in : ) ...
The border was filled with trash, and most places in Zimbabwe were tidier than the first glimpse of South Africa I got.
We stopped for lunch at a shopping mall. It was weird being back in „civilisation“ but the free wifi was very well received. I bought some much needed after sun (yes the rhino trip did get me in the end), and we bought lunch for the next two days.
I had a burger and a lemonade slushy, but the best part about it was the salad. Its weird how much you start missing greenery...
After lunch and getting out money - It was quicker to get out Rand from the cash mashine than to exchange dollars to Rand we headed towards our next stop, Mapungubwe park, where three countries meet.
It is the site where Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa meet, split up by the rivers that run between them.
After entering the park we went on our own game drive from the luxury of our own vehicle.
Isnt this view amazing? You can see the vastness of this national park!
Our driver spotted our first animal, can you see the clipspringer antilope?
They are very small.
We drove by several baobab trees and as you can see they are used by elephants and other large animals as rubbing trees. Hence why they look so battered. Baobab trees are also a definite sign that there is water nearby since they have such thick stems. In order to find water, their roots spread over several km searching for waterholes or underground water supplies.
We saw a beautiful kudu male.
A Hamerkop or hammerhead if you sort of translate it.
When we reached the look out point we got out of our van and headed towards the view point. Up on a platform we immediately were able to spot an elephant on the South African side. But look at the view!
In the middle of the river there is a little island, and in order to make sure that everybody knew to which country it belonged, Zimbabwe stuck a flag onto it. If you look closely you can see it. The rivers are stilled used as illegal border crossings, and people are not put off by having to cross crocodile and hippo infested waters.
Spot the warthog family! "For he was a young warthooooooooooggg"
We moved on to two more platforms and enjoyed the view a little more.
After we were done with the look out, we headed back out of the park to drive around the park to get to our new campsite. This is apparently where they grow all the tomatoes around the area. These vines had already been harvested but there were tonnes and tonnes of them.
As we were approaching the campsite we passed by this lovely family of wild boars, or pumbas, (in line with all the lion king references throughout this trip....)
We also saw some giraffes :) !
And then we came across a herd of wilderbeast. The first up close ones we had seen during the whole trip! (Part of the ugly 5...)
Our driver spotted a dead cevit in a ditch on the side of the road. Probably dead for only a short time. What a beautiful fur no?
The landscape around the campsite was quite different to what I had seen before. Very green and more like a woodland than anything else.
When we arrived at the campsite we quickly set up our tents and were so hopeful for proper functioning showers. Unfortunately there was only droplets coming out of those showers and we were hoping that the next day the shower situation would have normalized.
There were quite a few people at the campsite and our guides explained that we „overlanders“ are more of a sore sight for the normal South African campsite attendees. The big vans block vital campsite space and they assume that the young people stay up late and just make noise. As a matter of fact we were just to tired, no shower, went to bed really early and were to wake up early, leaving the campsite before any of the others.
