6: Bloemhof Dam - Lion and Elephant (South Africa/Zimbabwe)

Zimbabwe Pictures Here:
South Africa Pictures Here:

Week 6 Update:

Day 36:

One very long, cold and uncomfortable night in a rented caravan later, we were saddled up and ready to blow the Popsicle stand of De Hoek (Fishing heaven). We did not have a tent to fold away (although that would have been a small price to pay for the comforts of Magurudumu’s roof top palace) and on closer inspection, neither hot nor cold water was available in the rough looking ablutions. A tooth cleaning session had to suffice and we got out of there ASAP!

Avoiding road works and toll gates was fairly simple, but a little slower than expected, but we still reached my parent’s local restaurant in Pretoria by lunch time. Mimmos is the only eating establishment you are still able to spend your “Wild Card” points at.

For the Poms: A wild card is like a National Heritage card, granting the holder free access to all National Parks. When you spend money at the parks, you swipe this rewards card and then you are able to spend these rewards in certain places.

As we had just spent a huge amount of time and money in National Parks, we had enough reward points to pay for our lunch, so rather than loosing them, we spoilt ourselves to some restaurant food and fine wine… Bargain!

Our accommodation for our time in Pretoria was at Silver Lakes. This is a security village on a golf course and the house belongs to a family friend who lives in Germany. There is a flat built next to the house and my brother lives there as a “care taker” of sorts. Dr Hasselkus kindly offered us the main house for a few days. This was such a pleasure as the main house in much closer to a 5 star lodge than a normal house.

Day 37, 38, 39, 40, 41:

It all a little bit of a blur, but let me try piece it together:

Friday was admin day! I borrowed by dad’s company scooter to get to the dentist while Catt did career admin. She needed references from lecturers, medical certificates and a whole bunch of other stuff to register her qualification in the UK.

We met back at the house after mid day and then raced off to get the car serviced. In the afternoon I had to inspect my brothers flat after some work had been done on it and just after that we went to Angie and Bertus’s house for a quiet braai. Yeh right! Most of our best friends were there, so it was evident that this was the farewell party we did not have before leaving 37 days before.

Saturday was a complete waste! I blame the small French man and his whiskey pouring skill! I tried to have lunch with my brother and father, but took lunch home in a doggie bag.

Saturday evening we discovered this wonderful thing! It was about 2 x 2 foot in size, shiny, makes pretty pictures and even has sound. I think it’s called a TV. We also found the most comfortable sofa bed right by it, so we didn’t move much after that.

Sunday was a family affair. My dearest mother invited a huge amount of family members and my dearest father had to cook a ton of meat on the fire! Two tables were set and we proceeded in having one of those famous family lunches that starts at 11:00 and ends after dark!

We got home around 18:30 and rediscovered the sofa bed and TV. The great thing about lunches like that is that dinner is simply not necessary! We decided to try and leave by Wednesday…

Monday saw more admin. Mostly ABSA bank, and solving the problems with being able to access our money. This was, to be fair to us; all discussed and sorted a week before day 1. However, for some or other reason beyond our imagination, the bank decided to reset all the accounts and not give us internet access to them. I can see this being a point of ranting before this year is over!

I’ll try a little rant now: ABSA were not able to give us foreign currency because we did not have flight tickets to prove that we are leaving the country. They also wanted to make sure that we are buying the currency with “after tax” money and the woman was so rude that we walked out and into a foreign exchange shop about 5 shops away. They ordered $ in the small bills we wanted, required minimum paperwork and we even used the ABSA VISA card to pay for it. Explain that!!!

Tuesday we picked up our small bills of US$. This required a proof of address, Car Registration papers and Passport… Oh, and swiping the ABSA VISA card…

It was time for fuel, so we drove to Metro in Pretoria who sells Diesel about 30c less than normal price. By this time a certain pump attendant knew me well. I always fuelled there when in Pretoria. I always bought more than 200l of fuel at a time and I always tipped well. After hailing me to the diesel pump the smiling Muso asked where I had been. I told him about our travels while he was filling the car. This takes a while. He asked what our next destination was and after telling him our plans up to Malawi he frowned and asked: “What, not to Tanzania?” So he forced it out of me…. I told him the long story of our planned trip and when I got to Dar Es Salam he stopped me… He told me that his sister lives in Dar, his mother in Zanzibar and his brother in Arusha and made me promise to look them up when I got there. This came complete with names and phone numbers. “Random chance” were the words that sprung to mind.

We also washed the car, badly, did one or two loads of washing and went to mom’s house for a last dinner. This time no extended family involved.

Day 42:

Time to go! After a last wonderful shower in a marble bathroom, we packed the last little bits and almost hit the road. On double checking the paperwork I realized that I had left the car registration papers at the foreign exchange place. OOPS!!!

So after a quick stop to pick that up, we headed… To Narnia, and the north! Our mission was to avoid toll roads. This meant that it took us about an hour and a half longer to reach Mapungubwe National park, but cost us more than R200 less. This park is the sight of the Mapungubwe Hill upon which a very famous golden statue was found… More about that just now…

We reached the reception from the western side. After checking in and booking a Herriatge tour for the next day, we had to backtrack some 20km before finding the turn off to the camp site. There is no other way to do this.

The camp site, in National Parks fashion, is really nice! It has an electrified fence around it, but only to keep Elephant out. The rest of the animals will probably fit underneath. The individual camp sites are far enough apart to create a sense of privacy and the central ablution facility is really nice… although not marble.

We cooked a killer Bolognaise and retired to the palatial comforts of our own roof top tent! Neither one of us had slept that well in about a week.

Day 43:

We woke up, well rested, to a fantastically warm morning in the bush! The birds were louder than you can imagine and the lush green bush incredibly inviting! I suddenly realized how much I have come to disliking cities and masses of people.

One quick shower and coffee later and we were in the car and on our last game drive in South Africa. The game in the park is plentiful! We saw masses of Impala, Zebra, Wildebeest, Water buck and some other plains game. The park is split in two by a citrus farm, and when we drove from our side (Vhembe) to the reception side (Dongola), we even saw a breeding herd of Elephant at a water hole right next to the road!

We drove down to the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers before our tour. The parks people have built an impressive walkway and even more impressive view points on a high rocky hill overlooking the action. We were impressed!

At 10 AM we met our tour guide, Sedrick. Sedrick is a young man with dreadlocked hair and full of jokes, but it quickly became apparent that he new his stuff! The drive to the site is about 20 minutes by Land Rover. At the foot of the Mapungubwe hill is a protected archaeological digging site. This serves as explanation of how old the site is and what tribal activities were likely in the area.

Sederick explained that the place was found by the Van Graan farmers who convinced an old man to tell them were it was after hearing rumours of treasure. They discovered it not much later and their son, who went to the University of Pretoria bragged about it there. The University then did the archaeological thing and basically removed all the artefacts, treasure, and even human remains. They then shipped it back to Pretoria to study it further. This all happened in the 1930’s

They then discovered this to be the first signs of class discrimination in Africa as the king lived on a hill and the commoners down below. Or something like that.

In 2007, after much debate and aggravation, the University allowed the tribes who lay claim to the ancestry to rebury the remains on the hill. There is currently a massive exhibition centre being built on site and the idea is that the rest of the artefacts and treasures will be returned there once completed.

The biggest treasure of all is a tiny golden Rhino. It’s actually a wooden carving that has been gold plated. The university buffs believed this to be evidence of trading between the Middle and Far East and Africa around 1200 AD. Recently it was speculated that the gold may have come from South Africa. That was dismissed by the fact that the first discovery of gold in South Africa was in Baberton in the 1830’s I think. More research and testing found that it actually came from mines in what is now Zimbabwe and even further evidence suggests that the guys from the Middle and Far East came there to get gold, and trade it for glass beads amongst other things. Funny thing here… To this day South Africa still import their glass beads from China.

So in short:

There once was an ancient civilization that lived happily on a hill and discriminated against the poor. The rich ones who died got buried there with some gold. The farmers came to take the gold, but then the university took it, and the human remains. Now they’re giving it all back, including the Rhino, I assume.

The cost of the tour is R135 per person and it is well worth it!

We left the park after a well derived sandwich made by Catt. No one makes sandwiches better that she does, by the way! Our next and final destination in South Africa was Musina and we reached that shortly after. I had to close a bank account, Catt wanted to Skype with her mom, we needed to get some reflectors and we were done and out of there within half an hour!

That brought is to the chaos known as the Beitbridge border post! The last time I went through there was some 15 years ago and it was utter frustration! That was before Zimbabwe fell to pieces and everyone in it wanted to leave! That was also the last time the place was painted, or cleaned I think.

Touts will try and tell you that you can not do without them, and they will jump the cue for you. However, the process is simple enough: On the South Africa side you do your immigration first. When leaving SA you can jump the half a kilometre long cue and go the counter of the far right hand side. Then you do customs. You need to declare your camping equipment and camera equipment and pretty much everything apart from food and clothing. Then you do a Police clearance where you get asked for a cold drink. (We did not have cold drink to offer) and then you get to the bridge. This is where we were told that we did not have the right declaration form and we got sent back to find the right one. ( I suspected that if we had cold drink, this may have been avoided) Once we had that right declaration form, we were allowed to leave the country without the guard reading even the first line of the form.

Now the Zimbabwe side. More touts will try and sell their services. The immigration is quick and easy and we did not even have time to fill in our forms while standing in the cue. Catt had to get a visa because they don’t like the English, but even that was an effortless $55 to spend. I had to pay for the bridge toll, another $9.13 without problems. Then came customs. The touts kept on jumping the cue and kept on pestering me to use them. I simply refused and by the time I eventually got the front, the friendly lady looked our paperwork over, stamped all that was needed and sold us the compulsory 3rd party insurance at $70. She was smiling while she took our money though.

Top tip here: They quote everything in South African Rand. If you pay in US$, they exchange at 10 to 1. So our insurance of R700 should have been $94 according to the R7.50 per $ we exchanged at. However, they only charged us $70 for the R700 insurance.

After customs you get another Police clearance and then a customs inspection before getting the final stamp to leave the border post. Half way up the ramp you hand over your gate pass to a Police man asking for a Coca Cola (Which we did not have for the second time) who tears it in half and at the top of the ramp another person takes the remaining half and opens the gate to Zimbabwe to you.

So, a total of $134.13 (ZERO bribes) and two hours later, we hit the road again. We had decided to stay at the Lion and Elephant motel at the Bubi River that night. We arrived a shade after 5 and immediately realized that it was a great decision! The only change to this place since my last visit 15 years before was the size and magnificence of the massive Bougainvillea plants at the entrance. The friendly owner charged us R50 for camping and even offered to supply us with meat for our journey on.

While pitching camp we came to a sudden realization that we did break the law! It seemed as if we had smuggled some wildlife in from South Africa. When Catt lifted the rain cover of the tent, she found a fruit bat that took refuge there. The poor fellow obviously mistook it for a safe place. He could only have come from Mapungubwe and he must have spent a terrible day in the dark visiting border posts and getting bounced around under the cover. We were however parked next to a Paw-Paw orchard and started hearing the sounds of other fruit bats just after sunset. He must have made a friend as he was gone by the time we went to bed.

We were alone in the simple camp site that night… The way we prefer Africa! It was slightly emotional to leave South Africa, knowing that it will be long before we return, but this was where our true African adventure started!

If I had to do it over again:

I would have liked to spend less time in Pretoria and more time in Mapungubwe. This was simply not possible due to the amount of people who wanted to see us and we wanted to see, and the amount of admin we had to do.

If Botswana was on our itinerary I would have crossed over at Pont Drtift and then Plumtree, or even Pandamatenga into Zimbabwe. This would have cost us too much money though which is why we selected to brave Beitbridge.

Stats:

We travelled 9 400km over 43 days in South Africa and spent R15 000 on fuel. We spent R4 500 on accommodation and R7 000 on food. After car fixing and buying a few more bits of equipment we are over budget, but only by about 10%. We plan to rectify that by buying fruit and vegetables in markets and staying in places like the Lion and elephant at R50 a night!