Zimbabwe

Thursday 4th February 2016 – After a wonderful, blissful sleep and full breakfast at Cyclas B and B we took the car back to Avis. Eckson, the Avis representative told us about his four years of working in Kruger Park and that he had seen ‘plenty’ of leopards in his time! We hoped to…with Lady Luck on our side…eventually to see an elusive wild leopard on our travels in Africa. Eckson arranged for a lift for us back to Malelane town where we hopped onto a taxi bus to Nelspruit, then another to Burgersfort. At that point we were lucky enough to catch transport to Polokwane, our fifth mode of transport of the day! Heading northwards the misty mountains of Klein Drakensberg surveyed our passage. On the horizon the overlapping blue serene mountains faded away into the dusky evening light, calling us onwards towards Zimbabwe. We arrived at our destination around 7.20pm and checked into Pits Lodge, falling asleep to an impressive thunder storm!

Friday 5th February 2016 – Up at 6.30am we hoped to travel into Zimbabwe today. Our first taxi bus took us to Louis Trichardt and then we caught another to Musina. To get to the border crossing of Beitbridge we needed another short taxi ride. We had been warned that this border crossing was highly dangerous and signs all around advertising ‘High Crime Area!’ made us even more alert…just as well when a group of decidedly dodgy locals tried desperately to usher us onto an unmarked taxi bus with no other passengers aboard! Aaron, with heightened instincts, rejected the offer…we knew that no taxi bus ever went until totally full and that there was malice here! Instead we walked into town and asked for advice at a local shop. They guided us to a nearly full taxi bus that went to the border. Relieved, we climbed aboard and headed ever nearer to Zimbabwe. We were fortunate at customs. Our visas were issued quickly and an official, after asking us where we were heading, directed us to a coach going directly to Bulawayo! As night set in, electric thunderstorms appeared either side of us in the distance. Lighting up the sky, each thunderbolt illuminated behind the silhouetted clouds like a spectacular, natural laser show. Eventually, after fourteen hours of travelling, we arrived at Bulawayo around 9.00pm. It was late and dark…fellow travellers John and Pretty, who lived in town…shared a cab with us and helped us navigate to a cheap hotel for the night. The Royal Hotel was anything but ‘Royal’…it was seedy with a stale cigarette smell emanating from every area of the room. We quickly pulled out our clean, silk, sleeping bags and settled down for the night.

Saturday 6th February 2016 – 5.15am sharp was our wake up call! We wanted to get to Victoria Falls today if we could. We arrived via taxi at the bus rank where two large competing coaches were waiting. It was fierce competition as two groups of opposing men rushed to our taxi, fighting over their next potential passengers. Zimbabwe, so far, has been the most aggressive African country we have visited and people are literally fighting for food, jobs and survival hence tempers are frayed. This was even more evident when a young woman arrived and was physically pulled from one coach to the other until she eventually ended up on our coach shaken and very distressed. It was no surprise to us when men from our rival coach violently manhandled the individual who had won the passenger. It really was quite shocking and disturbing to watch. The fight for passengers continued until 8.30am when we finally departed amid much beeping and shouting…quite a chaotic scene indeed. En-route, while I napped, Aaron witnessed a baptism in the river, very biblical. I lost my patience with a local woman, when after we had endured two and a half days of full on travelling, she carelessly threw liquid out of her window while the coach was at full speed and typically it went all over me rather than out the window! I was none too pleased and verbally made it known to her. We arrived in Victoria Falls a at 3.00pm and found our oasis at Victoria Falls Backpackers…a tranquil, shady piece of paradise…it even had a giant chess set with locally carved chess animals and tribesmen to play with. We decided to treat ourselves to the best room in the house that night and in the evening chatted merrily to fellow backpackers from South Africa, Canada and America.

Sunday 7th February 2016 – After a glorious lay in till 9am we swapped rooms and moved into a small bedded tent (half the price of our room the previous night). We breakfasted by the pool on tea, fruit, yogurt and cornflakes. Deciding to delay visiting Victoria Falls till tomorrow, we caught up on chores for the day. Aaron blogged and I downloaded photos and organised washing while bees, dragonflies and butterflies hovered over the pool amidst the beautiful gardens. Later we shopped for food and took dips in the cool pool. That evening there was an impressive thunder storm and when we turned in for the night we were reduced to fits of giggles when we realised that the tent’s mosquito net was only really made for one person and not two! Giggling away, with Aaron’s face smothered by the net we eventually managed to nod off to the sounds of thunder and heavy rain.