April 18, 2014.  Today is our last full day in Africa.  It's a free day for us, so we can choose what we want to do.  The entire group has chosen to do a Rhino safari this morning, so we were picked up at 6 am to go see rhinos.  We went to a preserve outside Victoria Falls.  This is a 6000 acre fenced area that has a captive breeding program for black rhinos.  They have 7, with three more on the way.  We drove around for 3 hours and didn't see a rhino.  Finally, the two drivers stopped and the senior one said "we'll serve you breakfast and then drive around more because we really want you to see them."  This was 9 am.  He knew we had until 1 pm before we had to be back at the hotel.  Okay.  So we drive about 10 minutes, come around a corner and there they were.  Two black rhinos in the road.  The other vehicle was about a block ahead of us and, apparently, they popped out of the shrubs after they went by.  Our driver radioed their vehicle and they came back to get a look at them.  They weren't too concerned.  Walked down the road at a slow pace and then went off into the bushes again.  But we had seen them!  And they served us breakfast anyway.  More warthogs at the campground where we had breakfast.

While we were driving to the reserve, there was a very large family of baboons along the road.  There must have been 25 of them climbing in the trees, sitting along the road.  They seem to be right at home in town, too, because we saw them in the city park yesterday.

After lunch, we went for a helicopter ride over Victoria Falls.  Six people to a helicopter.  It was supposed to last 15 minutes but it seemed a little longer than that.  The view was spectacular.  The photographers in the group were ecstatic.  It was great, I'd do it again.  I had the opportunity to do it when I worked at Fish and Game but never went.  Beverly LOVED it.  I don't think I've seen such a grin as she had when she got off the helicopter.  :)  They took pictures of everyone getting on and getting off the helicopter with footage of the falls.  She doesn't know if but I bought the ones of her.  I figure her grandkids want to see grandma on the helicopter.  :)

Tonight, we went to dinner at "Boma" which is a large place that has entertainment by African dance troops, and some drummers.  They put a drum behind everyone's seat and you could join in.  Beverly did, which was fun to see.  It was a very loud noisy place so we couldn't visit very well which was too bad because it was the last time the group was together.