Baby Antimalarials

I woke up as the sun rose at 520 am despite my last couple of late nights and looking forward to sleeping in with no immediate plans.  I was wide wide wide awake. Breakfast began at 630 so I decided to go ahead and get up.  The magic of where I was staying had not lessened overnight. 

Breakfast was in the upstairs restaurant overlooking the park and the watering hole. There were maribou storks, warthogs, impalas and a crocodile. Breakfast was a continental for starters (breads, jams, cereals, fruits, meats, cheeses, yogurt bar, crepes, and even a Bloody Mary bar) then a main course of three specials or a make your own eggs thing. It was all very tasty. It was also tempting to sit there watching the watering hole all day. 

I booked a helicopter flight for the morning and the driver picked me up at 1015 sharp. We went to pick up the other passengers at their hotel and they were nowhere to be found. We waited at their hotel for 30 minutes then we went to the falls to try and track them down. The driver left me at the restaurant called the rainforest cafe and I got a celery cucumber drink. I milled around and read the history of the falls, then wandered through the gift shop, and then back to the restaurant. At this point it had been 45 minutes. I finally sat down at the raised chairs around a pole and wrote for a while. 90 minutes. I noticed a couple with a baby and started talking to them. They were from London and their baby Esme was only 4 months old. They crush her anti-malarial medication and put it in her milk. They were staying in Botswana and just at the falls for the day. I told them I was going on a helicopter ride over the falls and they said they would like to do that. At this point it had been over 2 hours. My driver arrived sometime after that saying he had fought with the Spanish couple in the parking lot and they had refused to come so my flight was cancelled. 

Luckily for me, I had found 2 other paying passengers plus a baby to go in the 2+ hours he had let me sit in the restaurant. We started to head to the van and then there was a major ordeal about letting them back into the park to see the falls. Never mind the fact they had had no qualms about letting me in to sit in the restaurant indefinitely and that is one and the same thing.  Finally we were headed towards the helicopter place. After some safety instructions we boarded the helicopter and where flying towards the falls. 

The view was worth it. We circled several times as the pilot talked to us about the falls and the surrounding areas.

During the high season apparently the mist comes up to the helicopter.

On the way back we circled over a family of elephants.

As we arrived back to the falls it began to be overcast. I decided to walk around the shops which reinforced the current state of Zimbabwe's economy, dire. Almost everything was imported from South Africa and double the price. One woman explained that the prices were so high because the rent was very high (the driver of the shuttle would later confirm this).

I decided to stop at the grocery store for the same reason I always stop at grocery stores. I heart them. I did my mandatory perusing through the snacks and treat aisles and then bought 3 large bottles of water for 61 cents (my hotel charges $4).

It was time to catch the shuttle. As soon as I got on it started to sprinkle. As we arrived at the lodge it started to really rain and thunder.  I took this break from the 100+ degree heat as an opportunity to work out in the rain.

After that I found myself in the gift shop where I happened to witness an older American gentleman pitching a fit and demanding a refund because his wife didn't like the bug spray they had purchased. She calmly explained it was Sunday and she did not know if they could refund his card because she had never done that before. She said she would be happy to give him store credit. He refused this and continued yelling at her. He then started insulting her and the hotel. At this point I walked up to him and gave him 12 dollars (the price of the bug spray) and asked him to please be nicer to people on the rest of his travels. I also asked him if twelve dollars really mattered that much to look like a jerk in front of everyone in the lobby? Adding especially since everyone in attendance knew what he was paying per night for his room and people like me could guess how much he had paid for his flight. He looked at me thanked me and left. The woman then gave me 12 of store credit (that equaled: Earrings actually made in Zimbabwe which is almost an impossibility.). 

I showered and then returned to happy hour on the deck and the elephants had arrived at the watering hole. I met a group of women traveling mostly from Canada.

When I returned to my room my phone was ringing and the driver from the helicopter trip was on the phone to apologize for leaving me so long at the falls. It was really nice but he sounded panicked and insisted on coming in person. I was off to dinner so I told him if he really wanted he could come the next day, but that it was not necessary.

At dinner I had the impala steak which was served with vegetables and an cabbage couscous creation. I was unable to see the super moon because of the cloud cover and apparently was acting odd enough staring at the sky that I attracted the attention of the hotel staff. I explained what I am doing and the one lady said that she didn't understand why they didn't know that here in Zimbabwe that that had never been included on their news. I had no response to this. The super moon is cool but not important when you have a brutally corrupt dictator and a failing economy.