atravelynn

Wild dog success in abundance with great photos! Was getting out of the vehicle to see the dogs commonly done? It's nice that cheetah are now found in Mana Pools. How fortunate you saw them. The fighting hippo sequence is amazing. I've never seen an upside down hippo like that. The roan must not have been very skittish. The solo warthog is a real classic shot.

I recall a lot a fires enroute to Kafue when I went and see you had some too.

Did the helicopter interfere with your game drives? Was it distracting or did it scare the animals? Was it used for transport or sightseeing?

You stayed a nice long time at each location.

canadian_robin

Thanks for your input. Most helpful! I cringed at your mention of the tsetse flies in Kafue - I have unhappy memories of them from the Serengeti, where I was eaten alive. Robin

jjmb

Atravelynn, glad you enjoyed the pics.

Zimbabwe is famous (apparently) for its walking safaris that get you up close and personal. But with strict guide licensing, if you don't have a guide certified to walk, you can't get out of the jeep and approach. And they carry rifles even if you are going only 20 ft. And, as we were told, the wild dogs don't seem to mind humans on foot. Reading their body language when we were with them, they were sleeping soundly and never blinked at us, and when the puppies approached us, none of the adults seemed the least bit interested. They just acted like we weren't there.

In fact, the way we found out the dogs were in the concession was that the morning guided walk had found them, and had been able to sit with them.

The incident with the rolling hippo cracked us up! Our guide was as shocked as we were. I don't know what the hippo was thinking, or what his buddy underneath was thinking!

The helicopter was mostly for transport, a 6 min buzz from the airstrip to camp. But you could rent it for something like $600 for a half hour, and have a spin over the area. The herd animals seem to run when they hear/see it as it is quite low to the ground at times. We didn't bother to rent it because we didn't think that we would any great pictures, and we didn't want to freak out the animals any more than necessary. The trip to and from the airstrip was enough for us.

atravelynn

Thanks for the responses. It's always interesting to get your guides' perspective on unusual occurrences like the rolling hippo.

I'd be ticked if other folks were doing helicopter buzzing over the herds if I were out for some peaceful vieiwng.

Fascinating account of your personal connection with the dogs. You can imagine that's how man and dog first became friends, with interactions like yours over the centuries.

canadian_robin

I meant to ask if it rained while you were in Zambia or Zimbabwe. I gather the rains have been coming a bit earlier in recent years - no longer waiting until November. Also, what sort of temperatures did you endure? I gather the month of October is considered "suicide month" because of the high temperatures. How hot/humid was it when you were there? Robin

jjmb

Hi Cdn Robin,

No rain. Only 1 day at Ruckomechi was cloudy enough to make you think it might be possible for rain. Our guide had heard from his mother in the highlands of Zim that it was raining, though.

It was hot at Shumba. In the middle of the day, if you weren't somewhere where you could catch a breeze it was a bit sticky. But luckily, the camp does get breezes so that helped. In fact the wind would start blowing up around 2 or 3 pm each day. Not a chance of rain, though, as there were no clouds in the sky.

Ruckomechi was also hot, but not as much as Shumba. Maybe it was the cooling effect of being right on the river, or the fact that there was more tree canopy.

Both camps had the canvas tops on the jeeps. It would have been uncomfortable by the end of the morning or the start of the afternoon drive without them.

christabir

I've been following this thread since first posted. Beautiful pics, great info. Thank you all. I have the Kafue Rivers and Plains tour plus Zim on my bucket list. Your experiences sound exactly how I imagine it.

LAleslie

Oh, I am so jealous. Like atravelynn, I've never heard of being able to get our of the vehicle and sit with dogs. Those puppies are adorable--those ears!--and the chase sequence is thrilling. Also loved the skirmishing hippos. But the dog pictures are very rare indeed. Zim has always been on my list. It just moved up.

atravelynn

That Martial Eagle peaking out of the tree is also a cool shot.

I have a Kodak Gallery question for you. When I view your album, I have an option in the upper right of mosaic or carousel. I like being able to offer viewers of my albums a mosaic option so all the photos appear at once. When I choose mosaic in your album, all of your photos appear as thumbnails in two columns along the right side. In my Kodak albums I do not have a mosaic option to offer viewers. It immediately goes to slide show. Now it is true that all of my photos in the album appear as thumbnails along the top of the page. But the inactive ones are dark and clicking on different thumbnails works slowly. Did you do something special to get the mosaic option to work?

Even if you cannot answer that question, your account and photos have sold several trips to Zim and Zam I'm sure.

jjmb

Thanks, atravelynn. I'm glad you liked the pics, and hopefully others enjoyed them as well. It's fun for me to share them with this group, because very few people I know have been on safari and don't understand the experience behind what is captured in the photo.

I didn't do anything special on Kodak gallery to set it up that I can think of. The only difference perhaps is that I am using kodakgallery.ca and maybe you are using kodakgallery.com? I would have thought it would be the same, but maybe not.

atravelynn

I noticed the .ca too. Bet that's it. Thanks.

Any plans for a return?

jjmb

I would happily return to either of those regions, but as much as we might enjoy a particular camp, we are trying not to repeat any yet. There are still some other areas that we want to explore before we start repeating. Haven't been to Hwange yet, nor Tanzania, and we really love Botswana, so no idea where we'll go the next time.

Fortunately or unfortunately our list of places we want to visit is long, and we only have enough vacation time for 1 major trip a year, so we try to mix it up by exploring other countries and our own. Next year we're aiming for Arizona/Utah and all the canyons. An Arctic or Antarctic cruise may be the next year, then maybe back to Africa.

I do go through withdrawal between Africa trips, and I think about it everyday. It's in my blood....

Where is your next trip going to be?

Too many places, too little time.

LAleslie

A very well traveled friend of mine went on an Antartica cruise and said it was the most boring trip of her life. FWIW. She's very active. I had always wanted to go but her report made me strike it off my list. But I still want to go to Scandinavia and friends say the same thing about that.

atravelynn

My next trip is a Thanksgiving Train to Toledo! I'll look for mud hens.

Though it is hard to equal the active excitement of a Zim/Zam trip, I would think an Antarctic cruise would be visually exciting.

Kavey, who just got back from Kenya has done 2 Antarctica cruises. One might have been just close by and not Antarctica Proper, I forget. She obviously liked it well enough to go back and she understands the special excitement Africa offers.

Kavey

Hi Lynn

Yes, Antarctica is a wonderful wonderful destination for wildlife lovers and also offers some amazing scenery and photographic opportunities.

Our first visit was in Nov/Dec 2004 - we did a 3 week trip including a few short stops in the Falklands, 5 or 6 days at South Georgia and then down to the Antarctic peninsula.

We loved it so much we were immediately thinking of when we could return and went back for a similar trip in Nov/Dec 2008.

The first trip was aboard the Akademik Ioffe with Peregrine and the second aboard the Sergei Vavilov with Quark - sister ships. I would give the first trip the edge because of staff choice. Quark had a lot more short term staff with less experience than Peregrine's expedition crew. But both trips superb.

South Georgia is an absolute highlight and should not be missed. Shorter itineraries miss it.

Then in Jan/ Feb this year we went to the Falkland Islands for 4 weeks, staying on a few different islands there, sometimes in hosted accommodation with the island owners/ managers (full board) and sometimes in self-catering. Depending on what was available. We were there for penguins and birding and again, wonderful scenery. Fantastic experience. Not at all expensive once there, just costly on flights from UK.

Can thoroughly recommend it.

And yes, we still love Africa, we went to Kenya again this September!

LAleslie

OK Lynn, we want a trip report on the Toledo mud hens. Make sure you get a private vehicle.

Re Antarctica, well, to each his own I guess. Not my friends cuppa tea clearly, and she loves wildlife. As for the Falklands, Kavey, I can't imagine staring at sheep and penguins and British shell casings for four weeks!

Kavey

Oh it's magical! There are several species of penguins, endlessly fascinating to watch their various behaviours. The black browed albatross colonies are one of my top wildlife experiences ever, just incredible. You have the handsome and cheeky striated caracara and a whole list of other birds. There are occasional seals and dolphin sightings too.
I didn't really watch any sheep though!