Off to Antelope Park

Today was a sleep in day where we only had to be ready for breakfast at 7am.  Everyone actually seems to be getting into the groove and we’ve got the routine figured out pretty well.  Packed and fed we stopped at a sculptor’s market on the side of the road to pick up any souvenirs we wanted.  It was nice to get them right from the source and support the local people.  We bought a chess board and a few other carvings leaving $5 for Jenna’s elephant carving she had picked out.  I felt bad as we had no more money but some South African rand so I pulled that out and asked if that was okay.  Her reply was, “do you have socks?” which I guess would seal the deal!  We didn’t have any socks out but Alyssa had a pair of shorts that were too small and that was enough for the transaction.  We also dug out a dress of Alyssa’s to give her as we wanted it to go to a needed home and we figured we found one.  I think Alyssa felt pretty good knowing it was going to someone in need.

The wealth in Zimbabwe, or lack of it, is very noticeable as soon as you cross the border.  All the houses are small round huts with thatch and the odd time there is a square, more finished house.  It appears to be most people here are subsistent farming with long walks to a common well for water.  Very different from South Africa. 

It sounds like Zimbabwe was one of the wealthiest countries in Africa until the white farmers lands were taken back and things were redistributed to all.  Many of the large farms employed many people and there was a thriving export market that brought money and jobs to the country.  It sounds like by dividing things up, people focused on more subsistence farming and there are fewer jobs and less export than there once was.  This is just what I’ve gleaned from numerous conversations.  We continued on our way to our final destination of Antelope Park which will be our home for the next two nights.

Antelope Park is pretty interesting as it’s a small private game reserve where they are trying to reintroduce lions back into a number of national parks where they’ve been removed in the past.  The concept is to get lions raised in captivity from cubs and raise them slowly getting them to hunt on their own.  The groups are raised together by their age and the yearlings (up to 16 months) do the walk with people and their handlers where they are raised as the subordinate members with the handlers being the dominant.  The second years are fed and have prey in their enclosure.  The prey animals  are slowly picked off as the lions learn to hunt and work together.  The third years are taken out into the park at night to hunt with a vehicle as the lead and once prey is found the lions will stalk and kill at times. 

Once these animals are 36 months, they will be put into a no human interaction pen with a male introduced after the lionesses have established the pecking order in their new enclosure.  They tried it the other way around with the male in first but he killed a number of lionesses so they’re trying it the other way this time.  The idea is that the offspring of these lions will be released into the wild where they have been taught to hunt by their parents but have never had human interaction as obviously that’s the tricky part of this scenario.  Of course all this costs a pile of money so the way they pay for it is through volunteers working and all the interactive activities they have here.  It’s also marketed as you can help the lions by paying for the interactive activities and get to see the animals at the same time.

They also have four elephants, five giraffes, a bunch of zebra, wilder beasts and antelope, the later three providing food for the lions.  As we got the tour of the camp, the elephants were on their daily walk around the lake.  It was really cool to see them grazing as well as a few going for a swim and almost fully submerging themselves with just their trunks above the water.  After we were invited up for Lion Day which is a fundraiser for lions that the park runs where they were playing volleyball and had a bucking bronco.  We ended up playing soccer with our crew in a game that got a bit more competitive than planned.  We had one injured shoulder, Jenna got tackled by one of the younger guys on the tour and possibly bruised her ribs as well as a number of bumps, cuts and bruises.  It was pretty fun but we decided it was time to call it after a few overzealous bumps on some of the kids. 

Back at camp we had to decide what activities we wanted to do as this is all extras from our safari.  We figured we’d do the Elephant Interaction, Horseback game drive and I’m going to do the Night Encounter with the lions!  Should be a pretty interesting day tomorrow!