Africa Journal - Masuwe Lodge

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Wednesday, September 20, 1995

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Out of Harare - Masuwe Lodge
Linda Law meets us at the Sheraton and takes us to the airport. Turns out that she is a very nice person, and was very upset about the mix-up. Apparently there was someone else with the surname Wallach who was on the flight we were supposed to be on, which produced the confusion. Understandable.

I suffer serious "sticker shock" when I see the cost for the phone calls to the US to e-mail the last few entries. Clearly a new strategy is in order. Until I can find a cheaper way to get connected (which may be when I get home), I will be limiting my postings. Probably no more frequent than every three days, and either all text or, at most, one image per day. I can backfill images into the journal after I return. I hope that once Harlan gets this web page on the net, I will get some helpful suggestions.

We are met at the Victoria Falls airport by Dayo from the Masuwe Lodge. Andrea’s description in the itinerary for the Chokamella Lodge (our next stop) accurately describes Masuwe, so I won’t repeat it here. Mark and Bridget manage the lodge and greet us with enthusiastic introductions and an overview of activities. We leave almost immediately on the first of two game drives. The first is on the Masuwe lodge property with Mark who is also a professional guide. The second was in the adjoining Zambezi National park.

This is our first real look at African wildlife. We see sable, water buck, giraffe, baboon, monkey, warthog, zebra, secretary bird as well as other beautiful and interesting birds (whose names I cannot remember but were identified with great enthusiasm by the Brits on the drive).

We also see and video elephant and cape buffalo, giving us a quick start on the Big Five (Elephant, Lion, Buffalo, Leopard, Rhino). Not bad for the first day.

Two sable square off in the Zambezi National Park
That evening we meet other guests from England, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. We are the only Americans. We eat, drink and talk in the lodge overlooking an artificially pumped and well-lit waterhole, where we watch baboon and cape buffalo drink.

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NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: This is a back-post / cross-post from my first on-line journal/blogging effort - a journal of our Southern Africa Tour in 1995. Originally posted to an abandoned domain (NetSnake.com), the term "blog" had not yet entered the parlance. I am migrating the original posts to this blog. Links to the original journal Date Index or Africa Tour Home Page will likely eventually disappear. The images from the original post were graphics and screen caps from video which I am leaving in it's low-rez glory for historical integrity. My intent is to also add some of Sigrid's higher quality scanned photos to these blog back-posts.  The difference in images should be obvious.