We still had one packet of bacon and one packet of eggs left, so I made a cooked breakfast for the three of us. We had not eaten the mushrooms yet so I cooked those too :) The scrambled eggs ended up tasting a bit like mushrooms because I cooked them in the same pan, but they were delicious. Whilst we were eating breakfast on the stoep, two bush buck came to visit us. The male and female are both Bambi lookalike's, with tiny white spots all over their bodies. After our showers we headed to Shearwater to book the helicopter ride that Dave and Laura bought us as a wedding present. On the voucher we had it said to contact Jabulani or Snow, so when we walked in and asked for either of those people, it was a lovely surprise to hear "me and me" from the two people directly in front of us.
Booking the trip was completely painless, they simply looked at the voucher we had, still on mums iPhone as we didn't haves printer, and asked us what time we wanted to be picked up. We chose half 10 tomorrow morning, gave them our house num er and said goodbye. Very quick and easy! We drove back out of town and ventured to the left hand side of Lokathula as we hasn't yet been that way. We stopped a few kilometres down the road at a crocodile farm to have a look around. The entry was $5 per person, but mum tried to pass Dan and I off as children because they didn't have the usual age restriction next to the children's ticket price of $3. Unfortunately is didn't work some paid our $15 and got our tickets.
We were really lucky on the timing because we arrived just before 11am and they do a guided tour every hour :) We waited for a few minutes for the guide, Tinashi, to come back with his previous tour. In that time I managed to find the 1 year old hatchlings cage and tried to make them move by poking them with a stick. What actually happened is that the stick I chose wasn't long enough and I ended up dropping it on one of the crocodiles backs, so Dan and mum moved away and pretended not to know me :) When Tinashi came back he turned out the box of eggs, 22 of them, onto a cordoned off concrete block. There were already two hatched baby crocs, and we watched as the rest of them chipped away at their shells, crawled out, unfurled their tailsand disconnected the umbilical cord.
The baby's make squeezing sort of noises to communicate with their mum, and are born with 66 sharp teeth. Tinashi told us all of this and ended every single sentence with "right" and a huge smile :) We then went and looked at the young crocs that I had throw a stick on, and we actually got to hold one of them! Dan and I both held the one year old crocodile, but mum wouldn't, I don't actually blame her! :) Next we went on to look at the three year olds, who are at the correct age to be turned into handbags, shoes and belts. They had white markings on them to grade their skin, and any with injuries or blemishes were given a lower rating to allow thence time to heal. A little way down the raised walkway we encountered four seven year old albino crocodiles that they keep for breeding.
We saw a few more pens of three year old crocs, one of which was being cleaned and the man was smacking them on the head with a broom to move them out of the way. The snapping noise that the crocodiles made when fighting with the cleaner was so loud, I was amazed that he didn't seem to be phased at all. We saw an ostrich, a Daika and a peacock, and walked around the back of the "donkey" that heats water for the pens. Mum bought a crocodile tooth from a stall while Tinashi went to get elephant meat to show us how they feed the big breeding crocodiles. They can breed each year after they reach the age if seven, and can continue breeding until they die, which can be as old as 70!!
Tinashi put the steaks of elephant onto a homemade fishing rod type of contraption, and whistled for the crocodiles to come and get it. He then kept the rod just a little too far away from their faces, encouraging them to push themselves out of the water to grab the steak. The unbelievably loud snapping noise that they made when they did that was petrifying, and I think everyone there was planning a getaway route should the concrete pathway suddenly decide to break and plunge us into the water. The sound was like someone closing a really big hardcover book as fast and as hard as they could, but much louder! After he had finished the feeding demonstration we went to the pen with the male and female lion, both of which were fast asleep in the sunshine :)
That ended our tour of the farm, and we went through to the shop that sold the crocodile skin goods. It was a great shame that the bags were not made with any care at all, and we're really very shoddy for the prices they wanted you to pay. One bag was over $300 but the front pocket was very clearly misaligned and stitched very poorly. We left and drove further down the road, and tried to seek down a road that borders the elephant sanctuary. We got whistled at to turn around which we sheepishly did, Dan berating me for making him drive down the road. He really doesn't like being shouted at, whilst I couldn't care less :D At the entrance to the game park we sent mum out to ask about the price, and she came back to report that it would be $15 for each of us as well as $10 for the car, and we couldn't use the $10 Dan and I had to pay for park fees for the helicopter ride against the entrance to the park because "it was a different activity". It is such bollocks how they want to rip you off at every turn here!
We decided it wasn't worth it to enter the park, so we turned back and headed for the Azambezi lodge, which mum remembers really well. They have had a makeover since she was last there but they are still really empty, much like all the lodges in the area, because of the lack of tourists to Zimbabwe now. We each had a drink, beer for Dan, a coke for mum and a mazoe orange juice for me. After our drinks next to the river we headed back to our house to read and lounge away the afternoon. Our warthog family visited us again and played in the little sand pit on the lawn that they had created. It was really interesting and very sweet to watch the babies try and copy the adults fighting against each other :) I made us a really big chicken salad with the left over chicken from the other night and we stayed up chatting till the Mosquitos got too annoying and we all headed off to bed.
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