OUR LAST SAFARI IN ZIMBABWE

This is a story in pictures of our last safari trip while in Zimbabwe.  On October 11th 2012, just a few days before our return home, we took a 3 day excursion to GONAREZHOU NATIONAL PARK.  This is the tribe that had the honor of traveling with Elder and Sister Heck.  We had to talk like crazy to get the Mission President to go with us, but after a few hours, he loosened up and enjoyed the entire outing.

We were so excited to go on this trip for several reasons, but a few of those reason are:  Our mission was almost complete, We were able to go with the people that we enjoyed the most, We were going to find the last animal that we had not seen yet in Africa, "THE PAINTED DOG!!!!

On our way there, we took this picture of the good people of Zimbabwe doing their laundry in a dirty river, some how they always managed to get their whites cleaner than white.

This was our guide while we were at the Park, his name was Thomas, and was especially nice and interesting to Elder and Sister Heck.  Just full of all kinds of knowledge. 

Sister Heck was enjoying a snack under a native tree!

Just to give you an idea of how large these Baobab Trees are, you can see Elder Heck trying to get to the cavern in the middle of the tree.  The info that we got from Thomas was that the natives would climb the tree and spend the night in the center of the tree to avoid the wild painted dogs and lions that would attack them!

We saw this Ostrich traveling down the same road that we were on, he was huge!

Who need to go to the Grand Canyon when you have cliffs like this in Zimbabwe.  The colors were spectacular.

This is the group at The Cliffs mulling over all the fossils that were on the ground.

Another special moment with Sister Heck.  Notice how slim we are.  I couldn't hold my breath long enough.

Thomas provided a wonderful lunch for the group on the banks of the river.  The colors were unbelievable.  We could watch the elephants in the background as we were eating.

This was our view as we ate our lunch.  In the spring time the water level goes up by as much as 40'.

This guy was kind of mad because he had lost one of his tusks, and was looking to us to help him find it.

The Group at another beautiful baobab tree.

This is a photo of our cabin, #7.  After we told Thomas that we slept with the door wide open the previous night, he told us that while they were remodeling the lodge, they would often go down to cabin #7 and there would be a leopard sleeping on the bed.  That night we closed our doors!

This was our first and last night that we ever slept with a mosquito net around our bed.  Very nice cabin, all the comforts of home.

This was the view from the main lodge.  Hippos across the river.

Seems like every time we went on a Safari, we had the best of accommodations.

This was the dining facilities.

We had 1 day left and we reminded Thomas about his promise that we would see a wild painted dog before we left the lodge.  He took Sister Heck into a facility and showed her this painting of the wild dogs, and then made this statement.  "See the wild dogs."  Just like he promised.

As we were getting ready to cross the river after lunch, Sister Heck mentioned to Thomas once again, that we had seen every animal except the painted dog, and just as she said that someone in the group ask what that was on the other side of the river!!

You guessed it, it was a pack of Wild Painted Dogs.  12 in all.  They were not there very long, but we did manage to take some good pictures and here they are.

Sister Heck was going crazy at this moment, because this had completed her list of animals to see.  Thomas said that we were the luckiest group yet, because this is one animal that you do not see.

On our way home we traveled on a trail that took us back to the main road, and this is what we found.  This was a very special tribe of people that had made their home in this valley for centuries.  Their style of building huts was completely different from anything that we had seed before.

Most of the people ran and hid from us because they did not trust the white man.

Everything was very neat and orderly.

A little further down the road we ran into these young people that were headed to the nearest market.
Note the candy in their hands and the smiles on their faces.