Zimbabwe: Visiting the Smoke that Thunders, making friends and being blown away by an amazing people

On our first day at Vic Falls we walked to see Mosi-Oa-Tunya ("The Smoke that Thunders") - WOW! seriously very impressive! When you see that huge quantity of water falling such great heights, you think your eyes must be decieving you. Because it's rainy season and the Zambezi is so high, the Falls create huge amounts of spray and at parts we couldnt see the Falls at all, but just got soaked from the spray (which was just like rain except it fell up instaed of down). Now I understand why it's one of the seven wonders of the world. Tick.

While in Vic Falls we met a couple from Belgium, An and Jo, who are in the second half of their epic journey across Europe, Asia and then up the length of Africa.(Check out their journey on http://www.anenjo.be/). We got chatting and decided to meet up in a few days time in Hwange and then travel together along the length of Lake Kariba and into Mana pools. We tried to do some grocery shopping before leaving Vic Falls so that we would be prepared for a week in the bush, but couldn't find much in the shops. We were struck by the desperation of the touts in the streets, trying to sell old Zim dollar notes to tourists. They get quite intense and don't accept 'No' for an answer. You can sense their absolute desperation and we left V Falls feeling quite saddened at the state of such a beautiful country. This feeling continued as we entered Hwange National Park.

Although Zimbabwe is now using the US Dollar as their currency and things have improved, you still get the sense that it is country on its knees battling to stand up again and raise it's head as a Tourist destination again. The use of the dollar also meant that Ang and I had to do some serious arithmetic when shopping and at times I had wished I had learnt my 7 times table better in primary school.... 7 times 7 is......ah....uhm...well 7 times 5 is 35 so that means..........and so it went on. You also don't get anything below one dollar even if the price says it is as there is no change. At one shop we had to take our change in sweets...Ang was not complaining though. This unfortunately means that 1 dollar bills here are increddibly "well used" resembling dirty pieces of cloth with a rather bleak looking George Washington staring back at you.

We stayed at the Sinamatella Camp on the first night and were one of two groups of tourists in the camp. The staff try their best to keep the facilities clean, but the camps are totally run-down and in need of serious attention. The view of the flood plain from the camping area was amazing though as we witnessed an electric thunderstorm over the park.

We drove through the park the next day towards the Main Camp, but unfortunately didn't see much game. The bush is very thick and in parts the grass was higher than the car. We also read that poaching may have affected the numbers of game. We arrived at the Main Camp and noticed that a renovation programme was in place, so things are looking up! The staff were so friendly and helpful. Before and after each game drive the gate guard gave us tips on which routes to take based on game sightings in the past few days. Our luck was not playing the game though, and after two nights and three days, all we'd seen was a few ellies, impala, zebra and giraffe.

An and Jo met us at the Main Camp on our last day there and we decided to find a camp site just outside of the park for the night (the camping fees were quite steep) and then head off along the road to Kariba the following day.

The drive the next day was beautiful. Neat little huts, cattle pens and maize plantations nestled in bushy green vegetation and huge trees. We decided to explore the town of Binga on the South western bank of Lake Kariba, and were taken in by the views of the lake from Masuma Lodge and decided to camp there for two nights. We ate like Kings, combining our food and recipes and had a great stay there. The first night we tasted the famous Kariba Bream. The Second night Jo made authentic Belgian fries in our little bread potjie on the fire and we were educated that French Fries actually originated in Belgium, not

France. Delicious!

While at Masuma Lodge we went on a boat trip, for the boys to do some fishing and to hopefully see the elephants at Elephant Bay (a bay along the lake where the elleies come and drink everyday). Again, we did not have much luck, the boys didn't catch anything and the ellies didn't come drink! But a beautiful day on the water nonetheless.

We left Binga and headed East for about 250km's to the town of Karoi. We had heard that the road may be a bit of a challenge and not many of the locals could give us much information about its condition. It turned out that the road was not too bad providing enough puuddles and potholes to keep me and michael on our toes. The drive took us around 9 hours due to the condition of the road, but the drive was probably one of our trip-highlights so far. The people living in the villages we passed were so friendly, running to the side of the road to wave and scream "How are you?!!" We all commented that we spent the whole day with our hands in the air, waving and smiling and screaming "Fine and you?!" out the window. Our perceptions of the country were changing and our hearts breaking at the characters of the people, desperately poor, but so friendly. It was on this road that we were stopped at the Tsetse Fly Control Point. As we stopped we joked that they would check our cars to see if we were smuggling any of the biting flys. And then, true as nuts, I guy came out of a small hat carrying a net, he was actually going to try catch the buggers if found. Luckly we were not transporting any of the critters and saved the net-guy the effort of clambering around in our car.

We spent the night in Karoi, which looked as if it used to be a hub of a farming town, comparable to a town in the Natal Midlands. Now, it's run-down and there were no camp-sites except the parking lot of a small guest house. We had an interesting evening. I had a small confrontation with one of the "operators", who, after learning that we were South African kept calling me "Madam", "Mummy" and "Boss" despite my protests. Sleep that evening was replaced with listening to said operator playing all the ring tones available on his cell phone and phoning various friends using speaker phone. An and Jo were also awakened from their shortened slumber by the sounds and motions of their car being washed whilst they were sleeping in it! Strange indeed.

Our excitement for our planned stay in Mana Pools was shattered the following day when we learnt that Mana Pools was closed due to flooding. Apparently four of the sluice gates at Kariba had been opened two weeks ago and they were planning on re-opening them soon without any notice. A real bummer. Jo had nick-named Grant "the big-guy" (the first time I have been refered to as big) and we had been joking during the previous days about the Mana Pools lions choosing 'the big-guy' over the rest of us. So now we'll never find out ;-) Dissapointed and deflated we opted to drive to the town of Kariba, camp the night and see the town. We were met with more derelict campsites, lodges and shops, without any other tourists in sight. We eventually decided to camp at Warthog's Bush Camp, our cheapest camping yet at $3 pp!

The following day we headed to Harare, where we are currently, staying at Small World Backpackers. We've indulged in their laundry service and all our clothes are currently being washed- yay! Today, we walked to the closest shops and again our perceptions of Zim were changed. Harare is a bustling, clean city (the parts we've seen of it), the shops are well-stocked, the people are enterprising and positive. However, there is an undertone that rears it's head every now and then. One of oppression borne by a country ruled by a dictator. Today there was a protest in the Capital against sanctions with threats of intimidation being made.

Zim is sucking us in and we wish we could spend more time here, but time is ticking and Malawi is calling. Tomorrow we plan to do some shopping and then head to Malawi via the Tete corridor in Moz.

Things Ange has learnt:

1. The washing machine is man's best invention

2. When you are offered a free meal from the resturant at the campsite you are staying at and all you hear is 'Schnitzel', you can't be blamed when learning on completion of meal that the chef actually said "Warthog Schnitzel"- apologies to all Rennies!! :-)

3. My suspicions were correct- Bullie Beef tastes and smells like dog food.

Things Grant has learnt:

1. If you don't like waving hello to people, then Africa is not for you.

2. Ange has set the world record for the most number of sneezes in a day! 5 million and counting (shame she has been suffering from some serious hay fever)

3. Zim is the land of milk and honey and the people have hearts bigger than their president's greed.

Road trip tunes:

Ross's CD's!! they are awesome- thanks Rosco! Also a bit of Regina Spektor and 500 days of summer soundtrack.