Eliza at 5

Sweet, wild, energetic, tough little Eliza celebrated her 5th birthday way back in October.

She had an early celebration while Grammy and Grandpa Mike were visiting, then a party on her actual birthday with all the kids from both EC1 classes.

Shortly after her 5th birthday, while Eliza was eating biltong, a tiny tooth fairy, so small and so fast we never saw her, flew into Eliza's mouth and took her very first tooth.

Vic Falls

Eliza's photos:

in lieu of proper fencing, children are deterred from the falling off the cliff's edge by brambles

What Eliza puts up with - boys not cooperating.

self-portrait

Much of the Vic Falls trip of October was documented in my other blog. But here's the rest of the story.

The kids and I had been to Vic Falls the year before at nearly the same time of year, so they knew what was coming and were looking forward to the trip. This time we stayed even longer since we were lucky to crash at Tracy's friend, Brent's place. First evening we crashed a party of Brent's friends in the final hours of a weekend family camping bash. Miles hit it off with Brent's son and they played all week together.

Next morning we went to the falls early as it gets hot fast and there's quite a bit of walking for the kids.

Can you see the people at the top of the falls? There's a natural pool that's safe to hang out in right on the edge.

attitude of exhaustion

We did a day trip to Chobe National Park across the border in Botswana, which we hadn't done before. It was AWESOME. The drive and border crossing were a piece of cake. We were taken to a nice hotel on the Zambezi River in Botswana where we took a boat for a morning safari cruise. Lots of animals were visible from the boat as it was the end of the dry season and they were flocking to the water. 

Legavon / Monitor Lizard

Fish Eagle

hippo pods

excellent photographer...a few of whose are here!

crocodile eating recently deceased elephant 

We had lunch and swimming at the pool at the hotel, then did an afternoon game drive in another area along the Zambezi. Driving down from the ridge, there was a fabulous view I haven't seen before in Zimbabwe where buffalo, elephants, hippos, warthogs, birds, crocodiles, and antelope were all within sight together. We also saw Spotted Wild Dogs for the first time. But it was the sheer number of elephants that was most impressive.

a glimpse of some of the loads of elephants we saw from the vehicle

Next day while I was rafting, Tracy took the kids to the croc farm. 

Zavion not ready to hold the baby crocodile.

Brave Eliza was first to hold the baby croc. See how excite Miles is :)

U. G. L. Y.

 We had dinner with Brent and family at the Vic Falls Safari Lodge that night, which I must say is somewhat less enjoyable with kids. Don't get me wrong: they had a great time. We arrived before sunset in hopes of seeing some animals come to the watering hole. The kids got bored, however, and found their own watering hole, and I had neglected to remember one of my first lessons in this country: never leave home without the kids' bathing suits. Eliza topped the night by vomiting during dinner, but it was one of my better mothering moments as I anticipated it in just enough time to pull her away from the table and catch it in a linen napkin. It was not handled so gracefully as to go unnoticed by the unfortunate onlookers, however.

Next day was the swing, swimming and the other Zambezi cruise covered in the other blog well enough. Brent's surprise detour to see the elephants on the morning we departed was much appreciated by the kids.

More photos of the Vic Falls trip at this link:

Grammy and Grandpa's Visit, Part 2: Spurwing Island

Next on the agenda: Spurwing Island. It was luckily a great trip, though the start was a bit rough. Eliza got carsick and vomited several times in David's car. By the time I saw her in Kariba, she was wearing only one pair of boy's underwear but was still in good spirits. The car...well, you can imagine.

After a long and stressful 5-hour drive, we had another hour and a half of being separated, unable to communicate, and worried about missing our boat to the island. I had wanted to drive more slowly in my mini-van than David in his big Toyota double-cab Hilux, so I went on ahead while he had to keep stopping to clean up Eliza. There was basically one turn to get to the marina, and I passed it and drove all the way to the border - a mistake that cost about 30 minutes. It was very much a lesson in the differences between road travel in Zimbabwe and the US. The whole way from Harare to Kariba, we were on a 2-lane highway with no lines, shoulders, or on/off ramps, and only occasional long flat stretches - so lots of gut-stirring passing or waiting to pass...and hoping some crazed BMW won't top the next hill going 130 km/hr or some cow won't wander across the road at the wrong moment. Nor is there dependable signage or a reliable phone network. And that is why Gayle and Mike and I were standing at that one turn off to the marina - to wave down David since the network was down and we couldn't call him. However, incredibly, neither Tracy nor David saw us, and they whizzed by us, off to the border as we had done. We had to wait for them to find their way back to us... Luckily, the ferry to take us to Spurwing Island was still waiting. Sigh.

After that, it was a breeze. Spurwing is really nice. They have nice boats and vehicles for game drives in the Matusadonha National Park which is the biggest, wildest park we've been to here. It was just the right time to get up to that area - at the end of the dry season, all the animals flock to the lake to find the only fresh water around. A pride of lions, a rare sight, had been spotted that morning. There was only room for two more on the game drive that afternoon, so Gayle and Mike went and were able to see the lions that were following a herd of buffalo. The rest of us just chilled out - the kids played in the pool and enjoyed setting up their tent-huts and throwing things into the lake. Kariba is the largest man-made lake in the world (by volume and fourth in size by surface area), and we were along the southeastern shore.

These are the four tent-huts we stayed in - complete with en suite bathrooms, hot water showers and a view of the sunrise on the water.

At end of the dry season, the water was very low. Miles, Eliza and Vaughn looking for hippos.

Hippos would pop-up in these waters, near and far. Also, we spotted a huge monitor lizard crawling up the retainer wall just in front of our tents. It's like a colorful green-yellow-brown, yard-long snake with with 4 big legs.

Much deserved chill out time by the pool.

Silliness ensued.

The boys wanted their own tent for the night, but I ended up joining them at some point. The wind off the lake really picked up, and the sounds of nature were deafening...at least to my half-awake, half-anxious-to-be-on-the-edge-of-the-wild mom. Miles was a little anxious, too. The next night David joined the boys tent, and Eliza and I were on our own. Luckily, the guests staying in the tent-hut next to ours didn't show us the photo they'd taken of the snake on their roof until the morning we were leaving, or I'm certain I wouldn't have slept well on the second night...or felt very comfortable with the kids running around free and barefoot the whole time!

Ah, sunrise.

Drawing: what he must do at some point every day. I love it!

Gula (our nickname for E) watching for hippos in the morning sunlight.

Ah, retirement. This was Mike's first time to Africa and first time to visit us abroad. We were so pleased in had a good experience.

Zavion and Tracy at their tent-hut.

Day 2: David and I took the boys fishing while Grammy, Mike, Tracy and the 4-year-olds went on a boat safari. Although the little ones did get a little tired of being on the boat, they did get to see a lot of wildlife. The fishing was hot as hell, but it was a total success. Just drop in a line and within a minute, you had a bite. Miles caught the first fish of the day and the first in his life. Vaughn caught the first keeper. They were small bream, so most were thrown back, but we still ended up taking home around a dozen which we ate for dinner the following night back in Harare.

While fishing, we saw hippos, crocodiles, antelope, and elephants on the beach. Awesome.

Vaughn getting a bite. (I was happy to see that Miles never got upset when Vaughn was having a streak of good luck.)

Vaughn's picture.

David tiger fishing...we were just a little early for the season, so no catches this time. Best to go late Oct - late Nov.

We got back for lunch, a dip in the pool and nap before the game drive. Since Gayle and Mike had done the game drive the day before, they went on a cruise to a river gorge (not as great as the game drive but still nice). The rest of us took a boat to the national park where our guide picked up a vehicle and a park ranger. It was the best vehicle for safari that I've been in, but with the kids, more than once I was feeling a little too exposed. So I wasn't too disappointed that we didn't see the hungry lions.

Touching the big teeth and tusks of rhino remains.

We saw more wild elephants than I'd ever seen at once, at least 50. Often we'd come around a corner and be face to face with a bull or three. They were using their big feet to dig up this clover-like grass, that they'd scoop into a pile with their trunk to eat it. Young males came at us a few times - not charging but flapping their ears and blowing their trunks. An elephant can run very fast...and these are wild ones, not those we usually see that have been raised in private game parks and are used to humans. So it was pretty exciting to be just sitting on top of the truck so close by.

Bulls flapping their ears and showing their stuff.

Eliza placing her hand in a lion tracks.

Sundowners at a large termite mound. Eles all around.

Tired Gula ready to go home.

Thanks for coming Grammy and Grandpa!