Southern Africa - Part8: Limpopo Valley - Mashatu

After breakfast we started our way down to the plane. Along with us came our guide Dave, whose son, unfortunately, was taken to the hospital the evening before. Since we were heading anyway to Bulawayo Dave could come with us instead of having to drive, saving him more than 8 hours of travel. We left Bumi Hills to the south overflying Matusadona National Park with it’s mountains straight to Bulawayo. At Bulawayo, we fueled, dropped David off and cleared customs and immigration to leave for Limpopo Valley in Botswana. We had to pay to refuel in cash, however, our safety pilot again talked us out of the normal fees Zimbabwe is charging for meteorology, airway, and passengers - so we got lucky and paid only 80$. From Bulawayo we flew initially southwest towards Francistown. Since Limpopo Valley’s immigration and custom is only open until 3 pm we planned for Francistown with longer opening hours, however, since we were good in time we skipped Francistown and flew along the Shashe River directly to Limpopo Valley. The Shashe River with its broad riverbed was ideal to fly low level again following its turns and bends just above the surface. Unfortunately, the wind was strong and gusty making it bumpy and difficult to fly but we had still lots of fun doing it. Limpopo Valley Airport is a rather big strip in the middle of a conservation area with a paved runway and a small nice terminal. We phoned for custom and immigration who arrived in less than 10min from the nearby border post asking why we didn’t go to Francistown. By telling them that the weather had been too bad for that they were satisfied and welcomed us to Botswana. Our lodge already sent a driver, although for another flight inbound which was luckily the owner of our aircraft rental company accompanying two other Germans. Since they were arriving two hours late we could take their transfer and sent out a new one for them. The drive to Mashatu lodge was one of the longest so far taking us over an hour through a grassy steppe where we could spot giraffes and elephants.