Wednesday 16th September

Today is going to be a long travel day. We stopped at Bulawayo for supplies.

Bulawayo is the second largest city in Zimbabwe. The economy was very poor with people begging for food everywhere. The shops had little or no food on the shelves and had guards at the entrances. The doors and windows had metal security barriers on them. I did not feel safe here. We stayed in a group, got our bits and pieces and locked ourselves back in the truck.

We stayed on a property quite a distance from town and camped in tents. Jenny and I upgraded into a small room.....

17th September 2009

Up early for breakfast and going on safari to Matabo National Park in search of the Black Rhino. The Matobo National Park forms the core of the Matobo or Matopos Hills, an area of granite kopjes and wooded valleys. Our Guides name was Andy and what a character he was. Equipped with binoculars, gun over his shoulder ready to kill any animal that came within two meters of us, hat, lots of hand signals and animal whistles. We drove into the National Park and then headed off on foot to find the Rhinos................. We had a heart racing experience tracking wild animals. Firstly we came across some Giraffe. Then we found white rhinos. It was amazing out in the wild and getting up and close to these animals. We continued on in the truck and found hippos, baboons, crocodiles and lots of birds. But no Black Rhino or Leopards. As we left the park we went to the Bambata caves looking for cave drawings or bushmans art. A staggering 50,000 paintings have been identified with whole new sites still being discovered. Interestingly, in addition to the stereotypical hunting scenes depicting stick-men and animals, the paintings also record ox wagons and men in pith-helmets. It was getting late and we started back to camp and the truck broke down. Eventually we got back to camp with the others waiting to have tea. It was an awesome day...................