We arrived in Zimbabwe on New Year's Eve. The Matesi Safari Lodge was located right on the Zambia River. This river is the one that provides the water for Victoria Falls. Our "cabin" was an original design. There were two parts, with a kind of breezeway inbetween. The first part was the bath with a huge bathtub and all the modern amenities. The second part was the bedroom with king size bed and lots of windows with screens overlooking the river. The breezeway had a table and chairs and was also screened in with a large door that opened to the back and river view. This was the first lodge we saw that offered a private pool. Not a big size pool, but almost the size of a jaccuzi without the water jets. The pool was clean and looked pretty inviting. They call it a private splash pool. At this lodge we had a game drive in the early morning and during the mid-day, our lunch was delivered to our "cabin" in a multi-tiered picnic type basket and placed on the table. All the plates and utensils were also brought. They left us to eat and came back an hour later to collect the baskets and left overs. We were quite surprised to have this treat....
Since we were right on the Zambia River, we decided to spend the afternoon trying to fish for the world famous Tiger Fish. The lodge had a pontoon boat and captain and we were off to fish! The river was quite pristeen, no buildings or garbage along the banks. There were small bands of monkeys and lots of crocs in the water. The Tiger Fish are found in this river and professional fishermen come here from all over the world to catch them. The boat had all the rods and reels and lures. Richard was quite happy fishing....I tried it for a while but enjoyed looking around and seeing the countryside more. Unfortunately, we did not catch anything, but it was a great way to spend the afternoon! We signed up for the sunset cruise on the river later on.
Since this was New Year's Eve, we really enjoyed our sunset cruise and Richard took some amazing pictures of the purples and reds of the sunset here in this beautiful place. We were stunned by the intense colors.
After the cruise we went to dinner at the main lodge and then headed back to our "cabin" by being escorted by one of the stewards with a good flashlight!
Something was different....When we opened our door, there were candles lighting the floors, lots of signs made out of local shells, seeds and flowers were on the floor. The signs said things like "Richard and Ellen a surprise for you" ...We slowly followed the flowers and candles as they lead us to the bathroom. They said "Customers Forever" and finally it led to the large bathtub that was filled with bubbles! It said, "Enjoy Your Bath!" This was a very special present prepared by our house steward and we really enjoyed the artwork and creativity he showed.
The next morning (New Year's Day) we ate a breakfast and collected box lunches to take with us as we were traveling that day to Victoria Falls. There were some misbehaving monkeys at the main lodge for breakfast. We watched as they spilled a jug of milk all over and lapped it up quickly before workers could shoo them off.
We were off to see Victoria Falls. Once there we realized how large this falls was. The walk from one side to the other was about 2 miles. We had a private guide, his name was Anderson, and he had some rain ponchos for us. It was not raining....It was for the falls! The mist vapors were very strong and they produced a lot of rainbows over the falls. The views were majestic and very noisy. Since it was early morning on New Year's Day there were very few people there besides us. We had the place to ourselves and could take pictures and video where the best views were. This was a great time to visit!
There is a bridge over the white water below the falls that was now a famous bundgy jumping place. We did not see anyone do this because it was a holiday, but it looked very scary!
We enjoyed our box lunches and we made it to the local airport in time to fly out to our next destination, Kruger National Park in South Africa. We were going to a place called Simbabili Lodge.
More to come later.....
Since we were right on the Zambia River, we decided to spend the afternoon trying to fish for the world famous Tiger Fish. The lodge had a pontoon boat and captain and we were off to fish! The river was quite pristeen, no buildings or garbage along the banks. There were small bands of monkeys and lots of crocs in the water. The Tiger Fish are found in this river and professional fishermen come here from all over the world to catch them. The boat had all the rods and reels and lures. Richard was quite happy fishing....I tried it for a while but enjoyed looking around and seeing the countryside more. Unfortunately, we did not catch anything, but it was a great way to spend the afternoon! We signed up for the sunset cruise on the river later on.
Since this was New Year's Eve, we really enjoyed our sunset cruise and Richard took some amazing pictures of the purples and reds of the sunset here in this beautiful place. We were stunned by the intense colors.
After the cruise we went to dinner at the main lodge and then headed back to our "cabin" by being escorted by one of the stewards with a good flashlight!
Something was different....When we opened our door, there were candles lighting the floors, lots of signs made out of local shells, seeds and flowers were on the floor. The signs said things like "Richard and Ellen a surprise for you" ...We slowly followed the flowers and candles as they lead us to the bathroom. They said "Customers Forever" and finally it led to the large bathtub that was filled with bubbles! It said, "Enjoy Your Bath!" This was a very special present prepared by our house steward and we really enjoyed the artwork and creativity he showed.
The next morning (New Year's Day) we ate a breakfast and collected box lunches to take with us as we were traveling that day to Victoria Falls. There were some misbehaving monkeys at the main lodge for breakfast. We watched as they spilled a jug of milk all over and lapped it up quickly before workers could shoo them off.
We were off to see Victoria Falls. Once there we realized how large this falls was. The walk from one side to the other was about 2 miles. We had a private guide, his name was Anderson, and he had some rain ponchos for us. It was not raining....It was for the falls! The mist vapors were very strong and they produced a lot of rainbows over the falls. The views were majestic and very noisy. Since it was early morning on New Year's Day there were very few people there besides us. We had the place to ourselves and could take pictures and video where the best views were. This was a great time to visit!
There is a bridge over the white water below the falls that was now a famous bundgy jumping place. We did not see anyone do this because it was a holiday, but it looked very scary!
We enjoyed our box lunches and we made it to the local airport in time to fly out to our next destination, Kruger National Park in South Africa. We were going to a place called Simbabili Lodge.
More to come later.....
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