Patrick Fonseca is a German guide for Sunway Safaris. He writes:

Greg and I are good buddies. Since our last tour together for Sunway Safaris a few years ago, we have tried to get a tour together again, and it finally worked. We were put together on a Zimbabwe & Botswana ZBa16. It was lots of fun. We enjoyed our game drives in Kruger National Park, and we had good luck in seeing wildlife like Elephants, Zebras, White Rhinos, Antelopes, Birds and even Lions. After spending a lovely night at Awalani Lodge in South Africa, we had an amazing time at the great Zimbabwe Ruins and stunning moments tracking White Rhinos by foot in the Matopos National Park. We finally arrived at Miombo lodge which lies at the edge of Hwange National Park...

 

 

 

Here at Hwange we spend the whole next day in the Park itself, trying to find wildlife here. Anyway, we arrived at Hwange, showed the clients the area and checked into the rooms. Now there was some free time this afternoon to relax at the pool and prepare for the following day.

We parked the truck, unpacked the entire luggage for the clients and all the items needed for dinner preparations. Once we were done with unpacking and all of the clients collected their luggage, Greg and I made our way to our room to get some well deserved rest.

It was a really good rest as our room was nice and cool compared to the heat outside. An 'eyelid inspection' at this time of the day was the perfect thing to do, because we would need all of the energy for what was to come. After all the relaxing and resting we made our way towards the truck, wondering already from a distance why the indicators were on. As we got closer to the truck, there were a lot of Vervet monkeys running away from us, some with apples in their mouth and some with banana. So by the time we came to the conclusion that we had been hit hard by a monkey circus. Somebody had left a tiny little gap of their small sliding window open, and this is where the cute little Vervet monkeys got in; raiding our fruit basket and enjoying some delicious snacks that the clients left in the truck for them. This was the very first time that I had been hit by the monkey circus, but I really hope that it was the last time. The mess they left for us to clean was immense! So before we were able to start dinner preparations, we had to get rid of all the monkey party leftovers. 

 

Never ever leave your windows open! Your guides will tell you again and again to close the windows when we stop somewhere. It’s not to tease you; it is to keep your belongings and our truck monkey proof. Somehow in the locking the truck process we didn’t see this small gap of the small window - You can imagine the briefing we gave our clients that evening. We all do make mistakes, and we all rely on each other while on tour, as we travel as a group, as a team. So it is always a good idea to put a little effort in together and keep each other's truck snacks and your food safe from pint-sized burglars...