ZIMBABWE: Matobo National Park

A UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site, Matobo National Park occupies a total area of 44 500 hectares. Established in 1953, the Park was awarded Unesco World Heritage Status in June 2003. The Park includes an Intensive Protection Zone where a large population of Black and White Rhinoceros

are successfully breeding. The Park offers a diverse package of tourist attractions and activities. The park is situated in the magnificent Matobo Hills, a range of domes, spires and balancing rock formations which have been hewn out of the solid granite plateau through millions of years of erosion and weathering. The majestic and rugged terrain of the park is a hiker's paradise and the diversity of the vegetation supports a wide range of wildlife.

Matobo meaning 'bald heads' was the name chosen for the area by the great Ndebele King, Mzilikazi. He is buried in the Matobo Hills just a short distance from the park. Matobo National Park is also the site of the grave of Cecil John Rhodes. He is buried at the summit of Malindidzimu -' hill of benevolent spirits'. He referred to this hill as having a 'View of the World'. A short walk from the parking lot will lead the visitor to his grave, which is carved out of the solid granite hill and surrounded by a natural amphitheatre of massive boulders.

The Matobo area has great spiritual and cultural significance to the local people and there are many sites within the park where important ceremonies still take place. The Park is home to a wide variety of animal species including: black and white rhinoceros, zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, kudu, eland, sable, klipspringer, leopard, hyena, cheetah, hippo, warthog, rock dassies, waterbuck, wildcat, springhare, common duiker, crocodiles, baboons and monkeys.

The richness of the Park can also be seen from the diverse bird life. The park is famous for its large concentration of black eagles, which can be seen perched atop the rock formations or soaring along the cliffs in search of prey. Bird species that can be found include, fish eagle, martial eagle, francolin, secretary bird, weavers, pied crow and Egyptian geese. Fish species readily found in this Park include, bass, bottle fish, bream, catfish and robustus.

Matobo National Park has a mixed type of vegetation that ranges from Mopane, Acacia species, Brachstegia in other area, Figtrees, Azanza species, Zizphus species, Strychnos species and Terminalia species.

Facilities
Accommodation facilites are located at Whitewaters, Tshabalala Sanctuary, Toghwana, Hazelside and Mtsheleli. Maleme Rest Camp provides accommodation in the form of chalets and lodges and it is by far the largest rest area in the Park.

Lodges
Electrified accommodation is found at Maleme Rest Camp where the main office is located. There are several types of lodges at Maleme. 12 lodges with have 2 bedrooms, a kitchen with fridge, stove, cutlery and crockery. Some of the lodges have 4 single beds and others have 1 double bed and 2 singles. All lodges are equipped either dressing tables or wardrobes, dinning rooms with tables, chairs, heaters, flush toilet and bathrooms with cold and hot water.

There are 3 single bedroom lodges with similar facilities as the 2 bedroomed lodges.

Exclusive Lodges

Fish Eagle
This is a 2 bedroomed lodge with 5 beds i.e. one double and one single bed, one bedroom with 2 single beds all with linen, 2 dressing tables. The kitchen has a fridge, 4 plate stove, electric kettle, crockery and cutlery. The lodge has a flush toilet, bathroom with tub and hot shower, veranda, garden table and chairs.

Black Eagle
This is a 2 bed roomed lodge with 5 beds i.e. one double and one single bed, one bedroom with 2 single beds all with linen, 2 dressing tables. The kitchen has a fridge, 4 plate stove, electric kettle, crockery and cutlery. The lodge has a flush toilet, bathroom with tub and hot shower, veranda, garden table and chairs.

Imbila
Top of the range accommodation with 2 bedrooms containing 2 double teak beds. Each bedroom has 4-seater teak easy chairs. There are 2 ensuite bathrooms and flush toilets. The dining room has a teak table. The veranda overlooking the river has a garden table and chairs. The kitchen has a fridge, 4 plate stove, crockery and cutlery supplied.

Chalets
5 single bedroom chalets have 2 single beds, dressing tables, wall wardrobes, dining tables with chairs for 2. The kitchen is communal and is equipped with 2 plate stoves. Ablution facilities are communal. Heaters are also supplied in the chalets. 1 two-bedroomed chalet with one double bed and 2 single beds, dressing tables, wall wardrobes. The chalet has a dining room with dining tables and chairs for 2. The kitchen is communal and is equipped without 2 plate stoves. Ablution facilities are also communal. Heaters are also supplied in the chalet.

Campsites
Cooking facilities are available on wood or charcoal braais. Ablution and toilet facilities are provided in a communal block.

Communal Campsite
Camping sites are available at Maleme Dam, Mthselele Dam, Toghwana Dam, Mesilume Dam and Arboretum.

Conference Facilities
The Rhodes Hall is a conference facility that can host up to 30 delegates depending on the required seatting arrangement. There is a blackboard, projector, 60 inch colour television monitor, VCR and decoder. Toilet facilities are adjoined to the hall. The kitchen facilities and equipment include an urn for boiling water, pots, cups, glasses, crockery and cutlery. Movable braai stands are also available for guests' use.

Activities
Tourists are encouraged to liase with the tourist office on availability of particular activities as well as to get details on the rules and regulations.
• Escorted walks for up to 6 people - an armed scout can be availed on booking at Maleme or Whitewaters office
• Pony trails - conducted around the Maleme Dam area and into the Whovi Wild Area
• Fishing - allowed in most dams to those issued with licences at the tourist office
• Boating - privately owned boats are permitted on certain dams
• Game viewing - can be done in the Whovi Wild Area, a protected game park which is home to more than 60 animal species and hundreds of beds
• Bird watching - offers great opportunity to see the several eagle species
• Hiking - there is abundant excitement of climbing the Pomongwe Hill which gives one a good view of the central part of the Park
• 33 miler road race - a unique marathon that is conducted within the Park at particular times of the year


Why Visit Matobo?
• The Park has one of the largest concentrations of black and white rhinoceros making it easy to sight one or more of the large population of this endangered specie
• Fine rock paintings - within the park are numerous sites which were once occupied by the San hunter-gatherers. The paintings at Nswatugi Cave are perhaps some of the finest in the country and contain beautiful renditions of giraffe, eland and kudu. There are other areas of note such as Bambata Cave, Inanke Cave and Silozwane Cave - just outside the park - that display fine animal paintings. The feint but distinct outline of a rhinoceros at the White Rhino Shelter was the impetus for the reintroduction of the species to the park in the 1960's.
• Numerous cultural and historical sites
• The unique balancing rock features
• The curio souvenir sales crafted by the local communities around the park
• The quiet and unpolluted environment
• Excellent stopover for tourists in transit to Hwange and Victoria Falls

How to get to Matobo National Park
The park is located 34 kilometres south of Bulawayo along the Kezi/Maphisa Road. The Main road to Maleme is tarred while all other Park roads are gravel and mostly in good condition. Durintg the rainy season the road to Toghwana requires 4 wheel drive vehicles

KENYA: Villagers "Arrest" 2 Goat Eating Cheetahs, Take To Police And Demand Compensation For Goats Eaten

Villagers in north-eastern Kenya out-ran and captured two cheetahs they accused of killing their goats. The villagers near the town of Wajir waited until the hottest part of the day to chase the cheetahs, which after some six kilometres became too tired to run any more.

The man who led the hunt said he decided to take action after 15 of his goats were killed and eaten by the cheetahs. Th villagers tied the cheetahs, which were caught alive, and took them to police demanding for compensation.

The police later handed the animals over to the Kenya Wildlife Service. The villagers said they spared the lives of th ewild animals because they want compensation for their goats.

Mr Hassan, from a village near Wajir town, said the cheetahs were attacking his goat herd over several weeks.

“These cheetahs killed 15 of my goats – they were coming to my house daily to kill my goats,” he said.

He said he decided to return to his village to organise their capture at a time of day when cheetahs get very tired and usually rest in shade.



I was sipping a cup of tea when I saw them killing another goat,” he said, explaining that this was early in the morning.

He said he waited until several hours later when the sun was high to go after them.

“I called some youths and we ran after them,” he said.

“We caught them and we brought them to the local authorities.”

The fastest land animal in the world, the cheetah is a marvel of evolution. The cheetah’s slender, long-legged body is built for speed. Cheetahs are tan in color with black spots all over their bodies. They can also be distinguished from other big cats by their smaller size, spotted coats, small heads and ears and distinctive “tear stripes” that stretch from the corner of the eye to the side of the nose.

Diet
Cheetahs eat mainly gazelles, wildebeest calves, impalas and smaller hoofed animals.

Population
In 1900, there were over 100,000 cheetahs across their historic range. Today, an estimated 9,000 to 12,000 cheetahs remain in the wild in Africa. In Iran, there are around 200 cheetahs living in small isolated populations.

Range
Historically cheetahs were found throughout Africa and Asia from South Africa to India. They are now confined to parts
of eastern, central and southwestern Africa and a small portion of Iran.

Behavior
Found mostly in open and partially open savannah, cheetahs rely on tall grasses for camouflage when hunting. They are diurnal (more active in the day) animals and hunt mostly during the late morning or early evening. Only half of the chases, which last from 20 – 60 seconds, are successful.

Cheetahs knock their prey to the ground and kill with a suffocating bite to the neck. They must eat quickly before they lose the kills to other bigger or more aggressive carnivores.

Cheetahs are also typically solitary animals. While males sometimes live with a small group of brothers from the same litter, females generally raise cubs by themselves for about a year.

Reproduction

Mating Season: Throughout the year.

Gestation: Around 3 months.

Litter size: 2-4 cubs

Cubs are smoky in color with long, woolly hair – called a mantle – running down their backs. This mantle is thought to camouflage cubs in grass, concealing them from predators. Mothers move cubs to new hiding places every few days. At 5 – 6 weeks, cubs follow the mother and begin eating from their kills.

KENYA: Entrepreneurs Boot Camp Goes To Kenya

This unique four day event, an accelerator boot camp of sorts for aspiring and budding entrepreneurs, is this year held in Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve between Keekorok Lodge – which just again bagged another World Luxury Hotels Award in last month’s Gala Dinner ceremony at the Harbour Grand in Hong Kong – and the nearby Sandriver Camp.

The Sun Africa Hotels management will in fact provide major logistical back up for the event at their Keekorok Lodge, where an airstrip assures daily connectivity with Nairobi’s Wilson Airport.

A group of 20 eminent speakers has been selected for the event, drawn from a wide cross section of business spanning from high finance to fashion, no doubt all keen to pass on knowledge and help the boot camp participants to grow a network of contacts useful in their daily businesses. From host country Kenya to the UAE, from Nigeria to Mali, from Ghana to the UK and from South Africa to the Lebanon will the speakers also add an international component to the lectures and workshop sessions where they will interact with entrepreneurial start ups.

The Global Entrepreneurship Summit this year took place in Nairobi / Kenya and the key guest and co-host was US President Barack Obama. The summit itself was seen as a major success in raising Kenya, East Africa, continental and global attention levels to both opportunities and challenges ahead in today’s globalized economy and the boot camp is no doubt aimed at building on this success.

The Maasai Mara, part of the greater Serengeti Ecosystem which transcends the border between Tanzania and Kenya, is home to one of the world’s greatest wildlife spectacles, the annual migration of up to 1.5 million wildebeest and zebras spanning from the low grass plains between Serengeti and Ngorongoro to the Maasai Mara. It is here where the herds must cross the often swollen Mara River in order to reach the rich pastures on the other side, running a gauntlet of crocodiles in the river and predators laying in way on both sides. Taking such an event into the heart of the Maasai Mara shows that organizers have come to appreciate both the remoteness, thought to be conducive for undistracted sessions as well as the excellent connectivity from Nairobi to the park, which makes this particular event very special.

SOUTH AFRICA: Two SA Safari Destinations Listed In CNN’s Top Ten

A six-hour drive from Johannesburg to the edge of the renowned Kruger National Park, Leopard Hills offers safaris through 10,000 hectares of big beast countryside.

The main lodge is sited on a rocky outcrop in the western sector of the Sabi Sand Game Reserve overlooking an active waterhole and magnificent plains where the Big Five reside.

Rates include two drives per day and optional walking safaris with the chance of close-quarter glimpses of rhino, lion, leopard, buffalo and elephant.

Rangers are established photographers and can advise on taking quality safari snaps.

Leopard Hills (South Africa)

2015 Safari Awards, the Oscars of the Safari industry, are a useful guide to the best available tours. CNN examined the honors roll and gathered 10 of their favorite finalists. These are the adventures that excel in location, animal encounters, social and environmental responsibility and offer something different.

Pumba Private Game Reserve & Spa (South Africa)
Hippo, hyena, wildebeest, kudu, eland and antelope are among the attractions at the family-friendly Pumba Private Game Reserve & Spa.

The big draw, however, is the majestic and endangered white lion.

Pumba, a malaria-free haven dedicated to conservation and boosting the local community, operates a white lion-breeding program and is one of just two homes to the beast in the whole of southern Africa.

Accommodation includes the Water Lodge, overlooking Lake Cariega, or Msenge Bush Lodge, looking out over a waterhole and mountain views.

The other eight destinations chosen by CNN were Fundu Lagoon (Tanzania); Karisia Walking Safaris (Kenya); Nyungwe Forest Lodge (Rwanda); Samode Safari Lodge (India); Tongole Wilderness Lodge (Malawi); African Horseback Safaris (Botswana); Goliath Safaris Luxury Tented Camp(Zimbabwe); Norman Carr Walking Safari (Zambia).

How the 2015 Safari Awards are run

The Safari Awards was founded in 2008. The competition has gone from strength to strength and is regarded by many as the Oscars of the Safari industry.

Over 4,000 vetted tour operators, travel agents and travel journalists are invited to vote for the best safari camps, lodges, house, mobile and riding operators, and wildlife organisations. A panel of 14 highly-respected, knowledgeable and independent judges vote to create the ‘Judges Shortlist’ of about 200 safari camps, people and operators. Further voting takes places to produce the top five per category which are then visited and further voted on to produce the winners.

TANZANIA: Great Wildebeest Migration

Each year around the same time the circular great wildebeest migration begins in the Ngorongoro area of the southern Serengeti of Tanzania.

This migration is a natural phenomenon determined by the availability of grazing. It lasts from approximately January to March, when the calving season begins – a time when there is plenty of rain ripened grass available for the 750,000 zebra that precede 1.2 million wildebeest and the following hundreds of thousands of other plains game.

During February the wildebeest spend their time on the short grass plains of the south eastern part of the ecosystem, grazing and giving birth to approximately 500,000 calves within a 2 to 3-week period: a remarkably synchronised event.

Few calves are born ahead of time and of these, hardly any will survive. The main reason for this being that very young calves are more noticeable to predators when mixed with older calves from the previous year, and so are easier prey.

As the rains end in May the animals start moving north west, into the areas around the Grumeti River, where they typically remain until late June. July sees the main migration of wildebeest, zebra and eland heading north, arriving on the Kenyan border late July / August for the remainder of the dry season (the Thomson’s and Grant’s Gazelles move only east/west).

In early November with the start of the short rains the migration starts moving south again, to the short grass plains of the south east, usually arriving in December in plenty of time for calving in February.

Some 250,000 wildebeest die during the journey from Tanzania to Maasai Mara Reserve in lower Kenya, a total of 800 kilometres (500 mi).

Death is usually from thirst, hunger, exhaustion, or predation.The migration is chronicled in the 1994 documentary film, Africa: The Serengeti. The second-largest is the South Sudan animal migration.