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My first Saturday in Zim, my roommate and I visited a game park!! The Haka Camp Game Park, to be specific. Located on the edge of town, it was just a 30 minute drive from our apartment. To get there we saw new parts of the city, including the beautiful, tree-lined stretch of road pictured above.

In less than half an hour I was outside hiking next to herds of zebra, wildebeest, and impala! In the picture of me below you can see the zebra in the field behind me chomping on grass, these are the same zebra in the close-up picture. We just walked right past them and the wildebeest!

I learned from my roommate, who studies how land usage impacts the environment among other things related to ecology and environmental science, that wildebeest and zebra are often seen together because zebra eat the top of the grass and then wildebeest munch on the lower portion as they prefer short grass. It turns out that the two have complementary strengths as well as taste in grass, namely zebra have keen eyesight and wildebeest have a great sense of hearing.

As you can see from the photos, everything was very green due to it being the rainy season, but there were also giant granite rocks all over landscape, which is apparently pretty typical across Zim. My sister Megan, the geologist in the family, informed me that this is because Zimbabwe is part of the core of the continent (i.e., Zim is a craton) and that those rocks formed 2-3 billion years ago from magma reaching the earth’s crust and cooling. The shape of the rocks comes from billions of years of weathering.

It was so nice to get out of the city and enjoy some fresh air and light exercise. I am looking forward to more of these types of adventures while I am here!