The Adventures of Miles & Eliza: 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.