My husband (Mark) and I took our kids, Abby and Mikey, on a Zimbabwe family vacation several years ago and they had an absolute blast! Mark and I are originally from Zimbabwe, so it was a real treat to share our homeland with our kids.
Abby wrote in her journal during the trip and took lots of wonderful pictures! I’d like to share with you her journal entries and photographs (see part 1 of this blog post here.)
This post picks up where Abby left off in her first blog post – we are at Somalisa Camp in Zimbabwe . . .
June 17
Well, I woke up at 5:30am today and I got dressed really fast so I could sit by the fire. The warm fire felt so good against my cold self. I was the second one at the fire. The first was the really nice worker that showed us the elephants. The third was our driver. His name was Doug. After that, everyone came to sit by the fire.
We all had breakfast. I had a hard-boiled egg and a bowl of oatmeal.
We were off on our early morning game drive. We did not see much in the beginning, but as the sun began to rise we saw many, many animals.
When we were done at 9am we wanted to see some elephants, so we went to our pool where there was one large bull male. And mommy scared it away!
The elephants were going to the main pool at Somalisa Camp, so we went to sit by that pool and there was a gigantic watering hole. We saw about 20 elephants drinking and a tiny baby fell in the watering hole! Ahhhhh, so cute!
The baby couldn’t get up out of the watering hole. All of the mommy elephants had to help it up. The funny thing is that a big bull buffalo came to drink and the baby stood up to it. Then, a mum came to defend the baby. I have got lots of pictures.
Afterwards, we had a tea party with carrot cake!
Later, we went on another drive. It was the night game drive and we saw lots of amazing animals. We also saw the tiniest little mouse and he was scuttling across the road.
June 18
Today we went on an early morning game drive for an hour or two. Then, we came back to Somalisa Camp and got all packed so we could go to The Hide Safari Camp. The night that we got to The Hide there was a toast to welcome us. We all went to bed straight after dinner – we were pooped!
June 19 – June 25
Today we went on a drive to an airport and we got on a six-person plane and flew to Lake Kariba. When we arrived we got on our houseboat in the lake and that night we slept under the stars on the deck. It was so magical!
We’ve been fishing every day. And I caught the fish of the day and my fish was about as long as one of my arms. It was a barbel! Then, dad came along and caught a vundu catfish as big as Mikey! So unfair…
June 25 – July 4
Today we stayed with our family who lives on a farm in Zimbabwe. We did all sorts of fun stuff, like making jewelry like necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. We also went horseback riding. And I got to pet a little bird while we were there. We saw bunnies, hamsters, birds, and tortoises.
We even went to the flea market twice and I bought lots of beaded animals and presents. When we left we were so sad because we had so much fun.
