Harare sunshine

I didn't think time could whizz by so quickly.  That doesn't describe the flight, or the hassles with "officials" in Sydney and elsewhere but finally, after a very looooooooooong day, I arrived in Harare and was met by Wonder - at least we recognised each other. 

This is the first time I've had internet connection, or more precisely, time to connect to it, and its taken me about 30 minutes to work out how to log in and remember my password!  It's been interesting back in Harare, and seeing the immense improvements in living standards and hearing what the situation is really like, as opposed to news bulletins we see from time to time.  To hear that a lot of Zimbabweans are moving back to live here now (from neighbouring countries, the UK and Australia) isn't surprising in a way when you see what it's like here.

The week can be summed up in a few words - sunshine (a daily occurence here), horses, cats and the odd elephant, giraffe and zebra etc.    Mostly horses.  Great.   David has stables (as well as his travel business) and at the moment only has 13 horses in training and so each morning early it's off to the stables and the race track.  I have been photographing the canters and gallops and general workouts.  Then back at the stables, on Tuesday, he wanted portraits taken.  I think after doing horse portraits, kids and families should be much easier!  Getting the horse to stand correctly with all 4 feet in the proper place AND their ears forward, and in the right spot to account for the sun was a bit of a challenge.  But great fun.  Then photographing the grooms was both fun and good practice for next week, when I start at the school.  He also wanted lots of photographs of Maggie & Polly (cats) so I was in heaven.  If I can sort out the problems trying to download the photos to my laptop, I'll be happier ....

As a thank you for all these horsey, cat and groom photography, David gave me a day out.  So, yesterday I went (with Wonder) to Chingeta which is a lovely safari lodge just 1.5 hours west of Harare, on the Bulawayo road.  We had a morning game drive and it was wonderful to see zebra, giraffes (and baby), tsessebe, lilac breasted roller (my favourite), yellow billed hornbill, wildebeest, impala.  Back to the lodge for a great lunch and then off to see Boxer (dad), Shorty (mum) and Mambo (bub) elephants.  I love elephants and spending an hour with them, in the sunshine, out in the bush - well, did I miss the office????

Today the we're all out for lunch and this afternoon back to the stables (usual routine also in the afternoons).  Tonight it's packing time again (I got away with the huge amount of stuff I seem to have this trip - most of which will be left in Tanzania) as tomorrow morning I just have time for the stables and a quick trip to the office before having to be at the airport for the afternoon flight to Nairobi, where I'll spend the weekend.