Great travel trips in Zimbabwe

"Matapos National Park in Zimbabwe is one of the most beautiful National Parks I've seen. Huge granite boulders balance on one another spectacularly (like lots of huge marbles everywhere) Unfortunately prior to a certain ruler our tour guides used to get over 2000 clients a month, now they receive 140, and that day we were the only group in Matopas Park.

Matopas National Park also contains significant ancient rock art created by the San bushmen. Before lunch we trekked up one of the granite hills to a sheltered cave where our guide explained the details of some of these rock paintings. Basically, the bushmen created the drawings to inform the next bushmen that inhabited the cave about what they'd been up to (eating, dancing etc) and what they'd been eating (giraffe, rhino etc) It also showed the typical bushman build - small and squat with a large behind to store fat for the winter!

The bushmen lived an extremely sustainable way of living here in Zimbabwe - they were hunters and gatherers. They never caught more than they could eat in one go, and they moved on before they depleted all the natural resources to allow the area to regrow. Could learn a lot from them, but unfortunately the ‘civilised' world decided they needed to become accustomed to ‘proper' living and they no longer live there.

After lunch we visted a local village where we were treated to a scary dance from three men, one of whom was 94. Then we headed back out into the bush for the best bit - looking for rhinos. Rhino poaching unfortunately still goes on and pretty soon rhinos could be a thing of the past - its that bad. The worst part is the horn is poached for chinese medicine - none of which actually has any beneficial properties.

The park wanted rhino horn farming to actually become legalised so they could control the practice and take rhino horn without harming the rhino, but this was not passed by the CITES (the governing body for endangered animals) as it would mean supply would go up and the cost would come down, therefore the demand would go up and create more pressure on the stocks. Complicated.

Poaching of rhinos is also a huge problem because it is just so easy to do. They are territorial animals so return to the same place again and again. They are also quite docile with poor eyesight so... sit in wait at his usual spot for a day, and you've got a rhino!

Fortunately this also meant it was easy for our guide to trace where the rhinos were for us to see. We got out of the truck once Ian had found their tracks and followed him to see first three males and then a female and her son and daughter! Being on foot instead of the safety of the truck makes you feel incredibly vulnerable as you've had it if they decide to charge but our guide was extremely knowledgeable and had been tracking rhinos all his life so we felt quite safe (as long as I hid behind him) He knew where to stand and how to stay for."