After lunch we have some time to spare before our 3 pm game drive, so we repack as we leave for Lake Kariba and three nights on a cruise. We are told there is no internet connection.
At 3 pm we head off with Vincent our driver/guide. For the first 30 minutes we drive through a different area and find nothing, so we head back to the reliable carcass. Sure enough there are two lions there and the carcass remains have been dragged closer to our track so the male lion can keep a closer eye on it to prevent the ever present vultures from feasting on it.
We stay there for a few minutes and move on. About 200 metres further on Karen sees a lion resting on the edge of another water hole. Well spotted Karen. It is the big lion from the first day!
We then move on to the area we explored yesterday and come across a herd of elephants. Vincent manoeuvres us so they will have to go around us. We get great views but a couple of elephants are not happy with our presence and make threatening gestures towards us. Vincent is calm and starts the engine when he is convinced the elephants have moved on sufficiently. We then circle back to the area we saw the zebras and there is another herd of elephants as well as Zebra and Giraffe hanging around the waterhole. Vincent tells us the soil is salty in this area and the animals are ingesting salt from the dirt. A couple of elephants look threatening but no movement towards us occurs. We then head for home and on the way come across another herd where two other vehicles are watching. A big female is quite agitated and making very threatening gestures. Vincent reverses and the other vehicles move on. Turns out the mother had just given birth and was being very protective of the new born.
Once we get away we head back to the camp and it is just past 5.30, but we head down to the grassed area where there is a table with drinks and nibbles and chairs arranged in a semi circle around a log fire. We have a farewell drink and then a performance by a local cultural group. They did a welcome to country - fantastic compared to some others and then did a number of dances and songs, including the lion sleeps tonight. They also do impersonations of animals, ostrich, rhino, elephant, giraffe and baboons. They are very funny. We also had a beautiful sunset.
We have an early night after dinner because tomorrow we are off to Lake Kariba, a four drive and then a 2 hour tender cruise to the houseboat because of the amount of water in the Zambezi river.
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