Ninety lions (90) and a couple of barred owls.

[Bush dog]

Here are the last images from the first part of this report.

 

Grey heron at Mandavu.

 

 

Grey crowned crane at Shumba.

 

 

Elephants at Mandavu.

 

 

 

Yellow-billed stork at Mandavu.

 

 

Elephants and lions at Masuma.

 

 

 

 

 

When we had our sundowners on the last day at Mandavu, we had a visit from this bull.

 

 

 

End of the day at Mandavu.

 

 

The next day, Sibs drove me to Robins airstrip to fly to Matusadona.

[John M.]

The lone lioness looks like she needs a feed, Mike.

[Bush dog]

@John M.

 

That lioness was not very comfortable with us.  As for a feed, it had it the next day with the young elephant.

[Bush dog]

After a flight of less than two hours, I landed at Kanjedza, a new airstrip located about half an hour from the camp.  I was greeted there by Crispin who, before heading towards Changa, took a detour to show me the lions he had spotted during the morning game drive.  They were all inactive, lying in the shade of a large bush.  It was lunch time.  So, we didn't dwell on it.

 

Changa is a very pleasant camp with 8 rooms all connected to the central unit by a network of raised duckboards.  The rooms, which overlook Lake Kariba, are spacious, all built in length with a bathtub and a second shower outside.  The camp is built in the shade of mopane trees.  A daily watering system allows, in the dry season, their foliage to remain green, which attracts many birds and especially one elephant.  The latter regularly visited the camp, day and night.  For safety, the staff often had to spook it.  I myself had to do it once to gain access to my room. 

 

Arrow marked babbler

 

 

The visitor (taken with my cellphone)

 

 

The staff and management are very professional and available with a special mention for the bartender, and the food is excellent.  Among the camp residents there were a few locals, mainly from Harare, some even with young children.  Lake Kariba is a weekend or vacation destination for them.  As soon as night falls, you can see dozens of lights on the lake.  These are small boats whose occupants catch, by lantern, small fish which would be the basis of the locals' diet.  Seen from the camp, one wonders if it is the lighting of a village.

 

The level of guiding, without reaching that of Julian or Sibs, is very good, at least as far as two of the three guides, I dealt with, are concerned.  Twice I went on excursions on the lake accompanied by Crispin.  The game drives were almost all led by a Zim pro guide, Richard Mukoki.  I come to the third one which, in my opinion, was a real disaster.  He is a learner guide with four years of experience.  After having expressed my dissatisfaction to the camp management, I was transferred to Richard's vehicle.

 

This was my first trip to Matusadona.  Not seeing the northern edge of Lake Kariba, my first impression was that I was by the sea.  The vast open space between the tree line and the lake is actually the lake bottom.  Over the past three years, due to poor rainy seasons, the lake level has dropped dramatically.  There is a lot of rubbish there such as plastic bottles, buckets and even three large pieces of a pontoon.  All of this was thrown from boats, not vehicles.  In fact, during game drives, I saw more boats (house boats, cruise ships, etc.) than vehicles.

 

As for wildlife, first of all there are no cheetahs or wild dogs nor giraffes.  For lions, you have to be there at the right time as was the case for me.  If I had this chance it’s because the buffaloes were also present.  For leopards, I had less luck, I had to settle for hearing one, at night, on the "beach" behind my room.  Apart from buffaloes, other species can only be seen in small groups or alone.  These are mainly elephants, zebras, impalas, kudus and waterbucks.  There are obviously hippos, quite large crocodiles and many African fish eagles.  Why don't we find large concentrations of animals?  Is it because poaching was practiced there on a regular basis?  I do not really know.  What is certain is that Matusadona is landlocked between Lake Kariba to the north, the Matusadona hills to the south and and the perennial rivers Sanyati to the east and Ume to the west and therefore difficult to access.  There is no doubt that African Parks will soon reintroduce many animals, as they have already done in 2021 with more than 200 zebras, to once again make this park a popular tourist destination.  It seems that in 2024 they will already reintroduce rhinos.

 

 

We can see in this photo the plastic bottles mentioned in the text.

 

 

The Matusadona super pride, 21 lions, of which I will see 20.  A lioness is missing which would have temporarily isolated itself in order to give birth.

 

 

 

African fish eagle

 

 

I would not actually recommend Matusadona to first timers, nor those whose sole concern is seeing cats and the interactions they may have with each other or with other species.  This is more suitable for those, like me, who consider being there a rare privilege and a great happiness regardless of the species seen.  But what is true to-day might not be the next day.  But to get a better idea of Matusadona now, it would take at least two more visits to the western part of the park.

To close this introduction, I would be remiss if I did not mention what gives this park its specificity.  Following the construction of the Kariba Dam in the late 1950s, a large area of land on both sides of the Zambezi was flooded creating Lake Kariba and this fantastic backdrop of thousands of dead trees, mainly mopane and leadwood which, seeming to defy time, are still there for another 150 years before completely rotting.  At the end of the day, a mist warmer than the ambient air and very humid rises from the surface of the water giving these trees the impression of standing like an army of ghosts.  This may be due to a temperature inversion.

 

 

[Zim Girl]

Lovely pictures from Matusadona, @Bush dog.

I remember our first trip there back in 2011 when it was still possible to track Black Rhino on foot.

[Bush dog]

@Zim Girl

 

Thanks!   Tracking rhino on foot will perhaps be possible again in a near future. 

For now, it is possible in Hwange.  When I was there the previous week, Adam Jones and his guests managed to find a black rhino after tracking it on foot for less than two hours.

 

[Atravelynn]

20/21 is a good score for lion viewing.  Trees in water look like reeds--fascinating perspective.

[John M.]

13 hours ago, Bush dog said:

@Zim Girl

 

Thanks!   Tracking rhino on foot will perhaps be possible again in a near future. 

For now, it is possible in Hwange.  When I was there the previous week, Adam Jones and his guests managed to find a black rhino after tracking it on foot for less than two hours.

 

   That's so pleasing. The few surviving rhinos were moved to Hwange in the 90s because they couldn't be protected in Chizarira. In '98, we tracked a rhino in Hwange and got to 10-15 metres of it. I regret not having a photo of the encounter, but felt at the time it would not be wise/safe to make camera noise so close to it.

   It's good to know that 25 years on, the move to Hwange has been successful.

[Bush dog]

@Atravelynn

 

It's been a while since I've seen such large prides of lions, here as in Hwange the previous week.  This dates back 20 to 25 years, to the good old days of Selinda and Savuti when the Selinda Spillway, Savuti Channel and Marsh were still dry.  I remember in 2000 a pride of 25 individuals in Selinda.  I think that was the year John (@John M.) and I crossed paths.  And a year or two later in Savuti, one of more than 25, maybe more than 30 individuals scattered on the road and in the surrounding bushes.

[John M.]

4 hours ago, Bush dog said:

@Atravelynn

 

It's been a while since I've seen such large prides of lions, here as in Hwange the previous week.  This dates back 20 to 25 years, to the good old days of Selinda and Savuti when the Selinda Spillway, Savuti Channel and Marsh were still dry.  I remember in 2000 a pride of 25 individuals in Selinda.  I think that was the year John (@John M.) and I crossed paths.  And a year or two later in Savuti, one of more than 25, maybe more than 30 individuals scattered on the road and in the surrounding bushes.

   Yes, that was the year. It's a little amusing that we saw you only because we had lost the lions for a day or so. Yvonne was so anxious to see them again that guide Mompati searched hard in rough country, punctured 3 tyres and had to radio for help. Your vehicle brought a spare tyre to rescue us 😂

[Atravelynn]

6 hours ago, John M. said:

   Yes, that was the year. It's a little amusing that we saw you only because we had lost the lions for a day or so. Yvonne was so anxious to see them again that guide Mompati searched hard in rough country, punctured 3 tyres and had to radio for help. Your vehicle brought a spare tyre to rescue us 😂

Reunions now and way back then.

[Bush dog]

@John M.That day, if I remember quite well, you were searching for a leopard that you did not find?

[John M.]

6 minutes ago, Bush dog said:

@John M.That day, if I remember quite well, you were searching for a leopard that you did not find?

   I'm pretty sure it was the pride we were looking for, Mike.  Yvonne had fallen for the lionesses and their cubs, and urged Mompati to keep searching. She had little interest in anything else on the last day or two of our safari.

[Bush dog]

The day I arrived at Changa as the previous week I had spent all my time in game drives, I asked to do my first outing on the water.  I was with a couple from Harare and guided by Crispin.

 

My first interesting sighting was a few African fish eagles (juvenile) fighting over the remains of a catch from probably one of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bush dog]

The army of the deads.

 

 

 

 

The usual suspects when you are on the water.

 

 

 

Grey-headed gulls

 

 

Elephant on the lake shore.

 

 

 

 

 

[Bush dog]

The following morning, back to game drives.  This time, still with Crispin, I am alone with him.  We are on the road that runs along the tree line with the vast open space and the lake to our right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bush dog]

Still following the tree line, we spotted the male of the super pride.  It was in the shade of a bush at a slightly elevated location allowing it to scan the surroundings at more than 180°.  It is a superb lion in the prime of life whose face is still free of significant scars, probably barely 5 years old if not a little less.

 

 

 

 

 

Further on, we left the road to head towards the shores of the lake.  This is where we saw them, the buffaloes, a very relaxed herd that we were able to approach very closely as shown in the images.  We can also see some rubbish littering the plain, notably on the third picture, in the far distance, the three large pieces of the pontoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bush dog]

More pictures of the herd of buffaloes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seen along the road.

 

[Bush dog]

For the afternoon game drive, I found myself, with a charming Irish family, on the vehicle of the young apprentice guide, already mentioned in the introduction, who did not, in my opinion, honour the excellent reputation of Zimbabwean guides.  This young man, who, according to him, already had four years of experience, seemed to me to be very overcome by his ego.  As if to convince himself of what he was saying, he repeated the words he said twice which in itself is not serious but can prove quite irritating in the long run.  In order to constantly stand out, he never stopped displaying the bookish knowledge he had like jam on toast.  Only, sometimes in this constant quest for self-affirmation, he talked nonsense going so far as to place the Serengeti in Botswana.

 

Shortly after leaving the camp, he stops, gets out of the vehicle and begins to give a presentation, very scientific in fact, on mopane and the interactions it has with other plant and animal species.  No one had asked him about it.  He had therefore, of his own free will, decided to display his knowledge.  I must admit that this presentation was not uninteresting and everyone except me listened to it religiously.  Under other circumstances this wouldn't have irritated me at all but in this case, it was completely inappropriate.  Indeed, he and I were the only ones who knew where we were going.  He hadn't said it but I was the only one who understood it clearly, which wasn't very difficult anyway.  The day before, the day of my arrival, Crispin and I had seen the pride and that same morning, the male and the buffaloes.  On this subject, Crispin had informed him.  So, there was a good chance that we would witness interactions between them.  What I criticize him for is not having had a sense of priorities and having prioritized not the interests of his guests but rather giving in to his own impulses.  No self-respecting professional guide, that I know, would have done this.  He would have immediately gone to where we had seen the buffaloes in the morning.

 

Once his speech was finished, we left after a good ten minutes and finally spotted a few lions on the vast plain, eight of them in fact.  This is where I, once again, had to complain about his behavior.  Arguing that the other occupants of the vehicle, who had not asked him anything, must have had a good angle of view in order to photograph the plain with the lake in the background, he placed the vehicle in such a way that the lions were on his side and not mine.  I point out that I was sitting next to him.  Once again, I did not find his attitude very professional.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were a few solitary elephants around.

 

 

 

Then we left the lions and headed to a place locally called Buffalo Point.  This is an advance of land in the lake appreciated by the buffalo and indeed they were there.  However, there were also, at a certain distance, on an area overlooking Buffalo Point, five other lions stalking them.  There was no doubt that the night was going to be fatal for one or more of them.

 

 

Back at the camp, I did not fail to express my dissatisfaction to the camp management with the result that the next day, I found myself, to my great satisfaction, alone with the Zim Pro guide, Richard Mukoki.  As @Zim Pro Girl said in her last report ( a kenyan trio) “you can’t compromise on the guiding”.

 

[Atravelynn]

Good for you that you expressed your dissatisfaction to the manager about your guide.  Still, nice shots from that outing.  "There was no doubt that the night was going to be fatal for one or more of them."  Very ominous!

 

[Bush dog]

The next day, we followed the tree line until we saw the lions coming, it seemed to us, from the direction of Buffalo Point.  There were 17 of them.  They had therefore, in the evening or night, been joined by four new individuals.

 

 

 

 

 

They stopped to drink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kitsafari]

woah what a big pile of cats! i like the wide angle shot of the walking lions against that backdrop of the dead tree skeletons - it just shows how expansive the area was. 

[Bush dog]

 

After having quenched their thirst, they, one after the other, headed towards the tree line to find a well-shaded place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To confirm the possible kill they had made during the night, we then went to Buffalo Point.  The night had indeed been fatal to one of the buffaloes.  This is what 17 lions had left of it.

 

[JayRon]

Great report from Zimbabwe, it is an amazing place. I hope to do a selfdrive tour next october. And it must have been very special seeing such a big pride. The biggest pride I have seen was 11 (and that was in Kgalagadi of all places  ) . I never get bored of seeing lions. 

 

[Atravelynn]

That's lots of lions on your way to 90!  I like the zebra and hornbill encounter.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Atravelynn