Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, Africa

In their haunting 1965 song, Simon & Garfunkel sang soulfully of “The Sounds of Silence.” These were only poetic words to me until my trip to Zimbabwe, when I felt the full weight of those words as we drove along a rutted dirt road in Hwange National Park.

It was early morning and bitter cold in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter month of June. The silence was an almost physical presence as we peered into the darkness searching for the animals we had traveled so far to see.

Hwange has one of the largest elephant populations in Africa – known as the Presidential Herd – and we were hoping to catch a sighting. Finally at first light, we spied an individual bull elephant crossing the road. Then out of nowhere, we were surrounded by the herd skirting our vehicle. From huge matriarchs to babies, they passed close by us, hardly giving us a second look.

Elephants do seem to have a sense of humor as well as long memories since they indicated their disdain at the obstacle in their path by dumping their load on the road in front of us. We were then forced to drive through it after they passed.

Laughing, we proceeded, and as we turned a corner, our driver slowed as just up ahead, we spotted first one little head, then two and then five lion cubs playing by the side of the road. We stopped so as not to frighten them and watched as they, with the natural curiosity of babies, came to us.

A few hung back, but one especially brave male headed straight for our vehicle. Knowing that the mother would be close by her cubs and concerned that she would not take kindly to this fraternization, we slowly backed away. As we circled around, we found not only the mother but also her mate, Jericho, as they were taking their morning constitutional.

It’s unusual to see a male and female lion walking side by side like an old married couple, and we watched in awe as our guide explained who they were. Jericho and Cathy (his main squeeze) were members of the Cecil pride. Cecil, with his dark bushy mane, was purported to be the largest lion in Africa but had been shot and killed in an infamous incident by an American hunter out for trophy.

In a most unusual relationship for lions, Jericho and Cecil had been buddies that shared the harem of six females, including Cathy and their offspring. Once Cecil was gone, Jericho was challenged by the younger and more aggressive BuBesi, who now is the sole leader of the pride.

Fortune smiled on us because the next night, as we were returning to our bush camp, we rounded a corner, and right in front of us was BuBesi slowly strolling up the road. We were dumfounded that the sound of the expedition vehicle with its bright lights utterly unfazed the huge lion. He just continued his slow ramble, clearly showing us who was boss. After a while, he tired of the game and sat down on the side of the road to glare at us as we cautiously drove by.

During the day drive, we saw buffalos, zebras, élan, kudu, antelope, jackals, ostriches, baboons playing in the road, and a large number of birds … but no leopards. Our guide assured us they were there, and even if we couldn’t see them, they surely were seeing us.

At dusk, we drove to one of the watering holes to see massive dark lumps in the water, which were hippos cooling themselves. One particularly enchanting episode was when a mother hippo brought her baby out of the water to teach it to yawn. Later in the evening, we spied the hippos’ huge hulks on land where the pod had come to graze after the heat of the day.

Hwange is the largest national park in Zimbabwe but not the only national treasure. Zimbabwe shares Victoria Falls with Zambia much like Niagara Falls is shared by the U.S. and Canada. However, Vic Falls is many times the size and power of Niagara and is considered to be the largest waterfall in the world.

Mosi-o-Tunya, meaning “the smoke that thunders,” as local tribes refer to it, was “discovered” in 1855 by the famous African explorer and missionary, David Livingstone. Livingstone considered the massive cataract to only be an obstacle in his path. Years later, he condescendingly acknowledged its power and beauty.

Vic Falls has become a popular tourist destination on both sides of the Zambezi River and an arena for extreme adventures. There is bungee jumping or bridge swinging from a 330-foot-high bridge over the river where Batoka Gorge has one of the world’s wildest whitewater rides. If you prefer your thrills orchestrated by a professional, you can take a helicopter ride over the falls or join an elephant water-safari. From the Zambian side, you can take a microlight ride over the falls.

Zimbabwe (formerly known as Rhodesia, named after British Imperialist Cecil John Rhodes) is located in south-central Africa with a land mass slightly smaller than California. It’s flanked by Botswana to the west, Zambia to the north, Mozambique to the east, Namibia along the Caprivi Strip, and South Africa on its southern border.

Remains of early humanoids date as far back as 500,000 years, but records dating back to 200 B.C. indicate that the earliest settlers were the Khoisan people. There was a succession of different groups from the Bantu, Shona, Nguni, and Zulu, to the Ndebele, which still populate the area along with the Shona.

Another of the must-see sites in Zimbabwe is Motobo Hills World Heritage Site and home to the largest wild population of African white and black rhinoceroses in the world.

Motobo is also home to some of the oldest rock formations and rock paintings ever found. The boulders and strange shapes they form are 300 million years old, while the paintings could be anywhere from 9,000 to a staggering 200,000 years old since dating stone is hugely unreliable.

The strange shapes and balancing boulders are the result of erosion of the softer sandstone, leaving the heavier granite stones to precariously balance one on top of the other. We had fun naming the faces and figures we found in the weathering stones, as well as feeling awed by the huge boulders that defied gravity.

On arrival at Motobo, one of our guides scrambled up a high rocky outcrop and invited us to join her to look for rhinos. Once on the top, she was able to spy a white rhino and her calf. The color distinction from the black rhino is moot; the main difference is in face shape and temperament.

The so-called white rhino – which is really gray – has square-shaped lips, a relatively mild temperament, and grazes on ground grasses; while the black rhino is a much darker shade of gray, eats from trees and bushes with its tapered mouth, and exhibits an aggressive personality.

Scrambling down the rock face – with a lot of help from my friends – we went in search of the family on foot. Our group was split up into smaller units and cautioned to walk silently single file and certainly to not squeal if we saw an animal. Our guide explained how to approach and what to do should we feel threatened.

I was so excited I could hardly breathe, let alone talk, as we carefully closed in on the pair. Bending down close to the ground to lessen alerting the mom, we crept within 10 feet, but the tall grass that camouflaged us did the same for them. Feeling frustrated to be so close but so far away, a few of us tried to grab a picture in a clearing much closer to the pair, which caused our guide extreme distress, to say the least!

Fortunately, we all survived, including mom and her two year old calf, which resembled a moving boulder from a distance. Although it wasn’t my best photo effort by far, the experience in capturing it was a thrill.

We were joined by experts on the history of Zimbabwe who showed us caves that had paintings left by early Stone Age hunter-gatherers. One of them explained to me how the people at that time came into the world naked and left the same way. They owned nothing and lived in total harmony with the land. A family group would find shelter in one of the natural massive caves and take only what they needed from the bounty surrounding them.

While they sojourned there, they would paint pictographs of the animals and edible food they found in the area, so that the next group to inhabit the cave would have a heads-up on what to expect. There is some controversy as to what substance was used to color their drawings. Some experts believe pigments were derived from plants, berries, or minerals in the rocks. Others believe that when an animal was killed, every part was used, including the blood, which could have been the source of the dye.

Any of the stains could have been mixed with the dead animal’s acidic gall to etch the images into the rock, which accounts for their longevity. A strange fish carving in this land-locked country remains an unsolved mystery even to our esteemed guides.

Just before sundown, we climbed Malindidzimu  – The Dwelling Place of the Benevolent Spirits – to celebrate the Winter Solstice. This hill is sacred to the Ndebele peoples as the home of “Mwari,” the God of Creation, and resting place of “the ancestors,” including Cecil Rhodes. At the top with the setting sun to the west and the rising full moon to the east, it was truly a magical spot filled with divine presence.

As a teenager, Cecil John Rhodes left Great Britain to join his brother in South Africa for his health. Little did he or the world know what a huge part he would play in the exploitation and colonization of southern Africa. His poor health didn’t interfere with his ambitions, and he eventually became exceedingly wealthy from the diamonds and gold his British South Africa Company extracted from the land.

In a sad tale of 19th century British arrogance and imperialism; Rhodes and his cohorts raped the land and were responsible for instigating a major war that resulted in the slaughter of thousands of Ndebele people. In a quirk of history, he ended up being hailed as the great ‘Umlamulanmkunzi,’ the peacemaker. His burial monument at the top of Matobo Hill required a special dispensation in order to allow him to be interred on this sacred mountain. He was even given a ceremonial salute normally reserved for kings.

Matobo is also home to a large population of leopards. Unfortunately, due to their nocturnal nature, we saw none. As we walked down the hill in the fading light, I asked our guide if there was a chance we could spy one of the big cats. He grinned and said we won’t see them, but again, there were at least five or six of them watching us at that very moment. Yikes!