Somehow a month has passed since I last posted. There was rarely an opportunity to pull out a laptop and catch up on blogging while camping in the bush the past month. And while I have spent a fair amount of time in cities in the last few weeks, I have yet to get here until now. I wrote last from Zimbabwe and will pick up from there now…
Antelope Park | Gweru, Zimbabwe
I was incredibly skeptical about the thought of ‘walking with the lions’ – and to be honest, a bit confused by the concept. I mean, how does one go out and walk with lions? How does that even work?
I had seen a poster promoting this particular tourist attraction inside the border control office when I first crossed into Zimbabwe. I remember silently scoffing to myself at the blonde tourist in the photograph. She was crouched down beside a lion, with a stick in her hand and was wearing a ridiculous grin on her face. The whole thing seemed quite bogus to me. Lions are wild. Why the hell should we be domesticating and taming these majestic animals so that we can take silly photographs of ourselves to post on Instagram?! #lion #walkingwithlions #lionselfie … it just seemed wrong.
And yet, here are a sampling of photos of me doing that very thing, walking with the lions. When we arrived at Antelope Park (AP), just outside of Gweru, we set up our tents and got settled into camp before being given a run down of the place we were staying at. A lion conversationalist spoke with us (with great enthusiasm!) for about an hour on the conservation program they were executing at AP in partnership with ALERT (Africa Lion & Environmental Research Trust), how unique it was, and informing how nothing like it had ever been tried before. Africa’s wild lion population is in really bad shape. The population is 25% of what it was only 50 years ago. It goes undisputed that Africa’s lions are on their way to extinction, and if the decline continues at the current pace, it's not all that far down the road. This is what ALERT is trying to presvebt.
The program being run at AP is a conservation initiative that is self-funded by tourist money that is brought in by people who want to take those ridiculous photos of themselves with lions (myself now included *shudder*). The concept is a four-stage rewilding program that attempts to rehabilitate, and breed, wild lions from captive bred lions. It’s a bit complicated…and still controversial. The intent of the program is fantastic. As are the educational initiatives that are part of the programs overarching vision. However on principle, something still feels quite strange about domesticating these animals with the end goal to increase those in the wild. If you’re at all interested, you can read more here. http://www.lionalert.org/alert/project-detail/african-lion-rehabilitation--release-into-the-wild-program They have also been showcased on BBC programming and National Geographic.
All that said, I caved and spent the $75 to walk two cub lions, Kindiso and Kaya, whose names respectively mean 'we have conquered' and 'home', in the local Shauna language. Their names may have been my favourite part; quite ferocious titles, I think. In reflection, I don’t feel doing the walk was the best decision. As amazing as it was to walk alongside these animals, the fact that we could safely do so eroded the wildness and mystery inherent in their nature. I felt we had taken something from them by conditioning them to be at ease in our presence. Don't get me wrong,I think what ALERT is attempting to do is good work, I’m just not certain that the ends justifies the means. But hey, at least I got to post these to Facebook (says she, feeling like a compleeeete hypocrite!)
Victoria Falls | Zimbabwe
A few days after Gweru we arrived in Victoria Falls. Our campsite was located in town, just a twenty minute walk to the entry of the site. We arrived in the late afternoon and sadly weren’t able to visit until the following day due to time constraints, but in some way, I felt I had a sense of them; by the mist that rested above the horizon and the constant hum of water plunging over the rock, I felt we had been briefly introduced. I went to sleep that night with the gracious, yet powerful, song of the falls playing in my tent. I could hardly wait to wake and properly meet her the next day.
In reading about the falls I had learned it was one and a half times wider than Niagara and twice the height, making it the largest curtain falls in the world. Roughly 625 million litres of water from the Zambezi River pass over the edge every minute! It’s hard to wrap ones head around such a quantity, but the annual water consumption of New York City falls over these rocks in just three days. The spray reaches some 1650m above the height of the falls and can be seen from 20km away, giving it the name ‘The Cloud That Thunders’. The geological display of basalt and limestone gorges is remarkable! It’s no wonder Vic Falls is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the world.
Getting a good picture however, is a bit of a challenge. There are only a few look out points along the entirety of the rim where you are free of getting completely showered in water. I laughed at the people I saw renting full-body ponchos at the gate, thinking they looked like fools with their backpacks and other belongings tucked inside a giant garbage bag. Soon I would discover, I was the fool. I did manage to snap a few photos, and was even graced with a spectacular rainbow when we first arrived. It was also a full moon that eve and we stayed long enough to see the moon hanging in the sky just above the falls at dusk. Quite magic. The experience was less about capturing great photos though, and more about allowing this wonder of creation to spill all over you, with water, with beauty, with awe.
After long debate, and Tabitha’s helpful convincing, I decided to spend the money to see the falls from above the following day. I’m budget traveling and was slow to fork out the $140, but Tabs had done it before and told me I would not regret the decision. She was absolutely right. Once we were up in the air I considered paying it a second time to do it all over again. It really was just that remarkable to see from above. Particularly to see the geological patterns from that perspective, the cutting and movement of the rock was spectacular. It made me appreciate all those times as a kid when my parents (who were MAJOR geology geeks!) would talk and read on end about various minerals, rock formations, and the wonders of geological history. *yawn* How boring I used to think such things were - but now I can't get enough. And wish I could share such an experience with them, knowing how they'd appreciate it. I’ll certainly be thumbing through the 'rock' books when I return home in August.
It's humbling to stand before something as grand as Vic Falls. The force of the water. The magnitude of beauty. The roar that silences everything else. It stops you. Not just physically, but your insides seem to slow down also. Great measures of beauty do that to us, I suppose. For me, it feels like I've been emptied, like I'm buoyant and light, and resting in worship.