Thursday 1st September 2016:  How much can you fit into one day? Well we have done a pretty good job so far. We leave at 8 and go to the Falls first for a 2 ½ km walk - most of the Falls are in Zambia, but Zimbabwe has the views of them. It is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. There is a statue of David Livingstone who discovered the Falls in 1855 overlooking the first part of the Falls which is called Devil's Cataract. Each section between each fall is named eg. Livingstone Island. The highest fall is 108m. It is pretty spectacular with mist rising high and gently falling over us - we are seeing this in drought conditions, but there is still an enormous amount of water. We walk the length of the falls about a km. The cruise we did was north of here. 

Next we go to an elephant park for rescued or orphaned elephants and a pretty good commercial venture as well I would say. The elephants are brought in around the rail where we can touch and have photos with them. Next station is where we get to feed them - the commands are "trunk up[" to put food in the mouth and "trunk down" to put it in the trunk - and they never misunderstand a command. They have 18 elephants here, the oldest is 38 and the youngest 1½ - they live for approx 65-70 years. Four have been released back into the park which is 5000 acres, but still come back at times.
 Nibbles and drinks and then for Steve's surprise. A 6 yr old Cheetah on a lead is brought in - he was the only surviving member when his mother was shot and his five just born siblings died. He was found and taken in by a family, at only 4-5 days old and and when he opened his eyes the first thing he saw was humans and the family cat, growing up with the family cat as his pseudo sibling until he became too big and rough and was brought here. They take him into the bush twice a day, he will chase things, but has no idea what to do with them when he catches them, so he can never be retuned to the wild - he eats 3 kg of beef a day - they use him as an educational ambassador and his name is Sylvester. He is large for a Cheetah at 58 kg, but this is because of the pampered life he has led.
No wonder we have seen lots of elephants, Zim National Park has 55,000 and for its size should have 20,000.
For lunch we visit a typical Zimbabwean Village, including a home hosted lunch. We are split up into small groups, 6 in ours and our host is Raymond with his daughter Samantha doing the serving, his wife is at school doing a Bachelor of Education for special needs. Raymond is a switchboard operator and will be going back to work after he has hosted us. Samantha is doing her A levels, and hopes to continue into Law.
Seated at the table, Samantha brings a jug and bowl for the washing of hands - all the men first and she kneels as a sign of respect when she places our food on the table. First we have raw peanuts handed around, then tree worm or caterpillar - terrible - but we don't say that. We have a small piece of chicken and beef, Satza made from maize, tasteless, looked a bit like potato, but that's where the similarity ended, plus different vegies. We then had to eat with our hands, he showed us how - interesting. All this and the stories on how they marry etc were all the traditional ways and he agreed that things are definitely changing slowly. He was born 68km away in the tribal village and has this house in town so he can work - he still goes back to the village, where other family members live. Raymond is so interesting, tells us so much - we were amazed at the house inside, leather lounge, good furniture, plasma TV. Takes us outside to see the small vegie garden and my aren't the neighbours close - this has been a real insight into their lives, but I'm sure they don't all live this well.
Back to the hotel for a quick stop and then 31 of the 33 do the helicopter rides over the Falls - it is amazing to see the river formation as it comes into the falls - I will let the photos do this story.
We were a bit late getting back - I was going to do 'High Afternoon Tea' at the hotel, so gave that a miss and I don't really need any more calories. Tonight is going to be Farewell Dinner to all those that aren't going to Kenya - about half. Fabulous 5 course dinner, we tried Ostrich Carpaccio (raw fine slices) for entree and it was good.