Matobo National Park

We had a wonderful guide, Brian, for this trip out to the park. He was knowledgable, interesting and enthusiastic.

Almost as soon as we'd entered the park, we spotted two white rhinos grazing. We hopped out of the little open truck thingy and gradually approached them. For ten, maybe fifteen minutes, we stood and watched them from just a few metres away, while Brian told us in hushed tones all that anyone could possibly want to know about rhinos.

We checked out a spring and nearby found a recently killed zebra, its blood still wet on its wounds. Almost certainly the loser of a young males' fight.

The park was beautiful. The sky was a huge, improbable blue, with not a cloud to be seen.Sitting by the lake at lunchtime, I could smell the hot earth.

We also visited caves to see bushman rock paintings (of disputed age). Again, it was great to have a good guide to explain them, although I'm not really sure that so many references to large buttocks were strictly necessary.

The second cave site involved a walk through a truly impressive rocky landscape. After seeing the paintings, we headed up to the top of a hill - well, a huge lump of rock - where I slunk off from the group for a much needed dose of solitude. The scenery took my breath away, and made my heart ache for this wounded country.

Bulawayo

Bulawayo struck me as a charming town, with its wide streets, flowering shrubs, bits of colonial architecture and local bustle.

Visited Chipengali animal orphanage, which is apparently a kosher orphanage. Good close-up viewing of leopards and lions etc. A bit too close maybe for those who got sprayed by one of the lions.

Some pics from Chipengali:

Antelope Park

We drove from Great Zimbabwe into the sunset, to Antelope Park, near Gweru. This seemed like quite an upmarket resort - and a circus.

A member of staff came to give us a briefing on all the activities on offer: walking with lions, hunting with lions, lion cub viewing, elephant riding, elephant swimming, elephant training... I'm surprised they didn't have seals balancing balls on their noses.

As my fellow truckies eagerly signed up, my heart sank. This wasn't the Africa I had come to see and I didn't want a part of it. I managed to stay out of arguments about how I felt about what they were doing, and spent a pleasant day reading and doing exciting things like some washing.

The park claims to be running a captive breeding programme aimed at releasing lions into the wild. In twenty years they haven't yet released one, though apparently they hope to do so soon. Whether their lions end up in zoos or being 'hunted' by rich tourists who like shooting semi-tame animals isn't quite clear. I certainly can't see how a life of playing with humans is going to prepare a lion for the wild.

Still, it was nice to camp on the banks of a crocodile-infested river. And to make use of the swishest ablutions block in Africa.

Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe is indeed great. Dating from the 13th Century, it is "the greatest medieval structure in sub-saharan Africa". It gave its name to Zimbabwe and it's fascinating place. Its dry-stone walls seem barely battered by time. Goods from Arabia and China were found there, along with the famous soapstone birds - one of which graces the national flag.

Nick posing in front of the scene on the 10,000 dollar note.

Photos

As you may have noticed, I'm still having trouble with photos, this time with the uploading. Watch this space...

Harare

For some absurd reason my head was constantly singing "Harare" to the tune of "Valare". Well, Dad's version of the tune of Valare, as it's the only one I know. It was unexcitingly like any other city, and penniless as we were, we felt we had exhausted it's charms in an hour.

At the Zimbabwean border this morning, we had taken the exchange desk by surprise by trying to change some money. The poor chap behind the counter looked quite befuddled and had to call reinforcements to turn computers on, unlock money boxes and find receipt books. Not surprising really at Z$250 to US$1. Later that day we got a rate of 13,000. Today (a week later) it is up to 20,000. The idea was to change a little so that we'd have at least one official receipt as the 'parallel' rate is illegal. How this is meant to work beats me - a small bottle of water cost US$52 at the offical rate! I thought there might be some complicated economic reason why this dual system works, but I'm assured that it's because "Uncle Bob lives in cloud cuckoo land". No doubt Simon will be able to furnish me with a good explanation if there is one.

We also took the good (but possibly in-bred) folk at our campsite by surprise, due to a communications error. I guess Harare isn't really on the tourist trail these days, but they turned on the water and rushed off into town to buy beers and snacks and whatever else you need to stock a bar and generally made us feel welcome. And found us some Zim dollars, so much fun was had clutching six and a half million dollars before divvying it up.

If you don't hear from me again, it's because Uncle Bob has read my blog...

Mozambique

This was the second best sign I spotted in Blantyre. My favourite was painted on a supermarket wall:

WE SELL:
EDIBLE GROCERIES
INEDIBLE GROCERIES

- I can't remember what else they sold, and unfortunately didn't have time to get a photo.

We left Blantyre and headed for the border. We only had to sit around at the Mozambique post for a couple of hours, which is apparently quite good. Plenty of time for lunch while our visas were being processed.

We pulled off the road to set up camp for the night, just before the sun sank, sending the flat-topped acacia trees and yellowing long grass into scenic silhouette. The sky was clear and I gazed at the stars till my neck ached. Sat round a roaring bonfire and it was hard - so hard - to tear myself away to go to sleep. Could happily have stayed up all night. I wish we had more bushcamps - you only need a beer and a shower every now and then, after all. Although the air was cooler, the groundsheet was still warm to touch from the hot dry soil beneath and I slept bagless with the tent open, until woken by a group of people trying to drive a donkey cart through our camp - we were blocking their path, but their chatter didn't sound angry.

A shame not to have seen more of Mozambique, rather than just drive across it. Next time, next time...

Lake Malawi

Spent four days in one place! Kande Beach campsite, on the shore of Lake Malawi, by the village of Mbambo. This has been a real highlight of the trip, due to plenty of (very enjoyable) interaction with the local villagers.

Just a couple of minutes' walk from the campsite there was a row of craft stalls where all sorts of things, but mostly Malawi chairs, were being carved and sold. Many of our group spent a long time negotiating prices (to their delight these often included items to barter - literally the shirt off your back), and specifying the designs they would like carved into their chairs. All of this business was conducted sitting in the craft huts, in between being taught to play bao. Since I wasn't buying chairs, I played a lot of bao and had the chance to talk to lots of people and photograph adorable children.

On our second day in Mbambo, we set off early to buy dinner. It was curled up cutely looking at us when we first met it, and tied to a huge stake by the time we eventually got it back to camp. The pig roasted slowly over the fire all day. I took a break or two from tending it (actually sitting around watching Chris do the man-with-big-fire thing) now and then for a swim in the lake. Bilharzia? We play with fear! As the afternoon wore on, it seemed appropriate to finish preparing the punch by chucking a few bottles of pop into the pot where the fruit had been soaking in spirits all day. Then it seemed appropriate to taste it... Suffice to say a good time and lots of pig was had by all. And a very revealing game of 'I have never'.

The lake is beautiful. The only problem was that I kept calling it the sea. It's huge. Waves lap up on the sandy beach... great for swimming and no sticky saltiness!

Another day we played a football match - our truck against the village. I explained that I can't play football, but that made no difference - I was there in the starting line-up. Successfully made contact with the ball, ooh, maybe once. My embarrassing uselessness didn't seem to matter and certainly didn't stop it being great fun. That evening we went for a meal at a villager's house - great to try some local food. After dinner the massed choir of Mbambo's children sang and danced for us and soon had us up dancing and singing too.

On our last night in that campsite I went off to my tent for an early night and a good read. Soon the wind was getting up so I went out to do some re-pegging as the tent started to shudder and sway - not easy to get a firm fix in the sand. Could hear distant thunder and rain was starting to spatter. Was back inside, firmly in the middle of the tent away from potential leaks when the storm hit. It felt tremendous - howling winds making the tent flap and billow and shake, drips coming in... began to wonder whether the tent would last the night - and whose I would run to when mine collapased!

Left that campsite this morning and drove all day to reach Blantyre.

Hope to add photos to this before you see it, but will publish anyway as after tomorrow there will be no internet again for a while.

Everything going pretty well. No bad side-effects from the larium (don't think erotic dreams about my fellow travellers count). Every day think to myself how pleased I am that I had my eyes done. Having clean clothes feels like a luxury... It's a good life.

A step-by-step guide to roast pork

Tanzania to Malawi

Entered Malawi at Karongwe, followed the lake South, left it to go over the hills before reaching Nkhata Bay. Now in Blantyre. From here will go into Mozambique, crossing the Zambezi before bush camping near the Zimbabwe border. From there we head to Harare.

Click on map to go to larger enlargable version. I hope.