Week 8 Update:
Day 50:
There is something about waking up early in the bush that is magical. The birds start stirring about half an hour before sunrise which is our “nature alarm clock”. It’s slightly less disturbing than an electronic noise and much more convenient than someone trying to wash your car. From the time we spent in Botswana we have developed a habit of not leaving the tent before sunrise for fear of getting eaten. When needed, we can go from leaving the tent to leaving by car in less than 15 minutes. In wildlife areas, it is needed.
So a nice 30 minute snooze later we got up, broke down camp and headed out, coffee in hand. The morning was warm and clear, which was a pleasant change from the coldness we had experienced.
Our first stop was the platform by Nyamandhlovu Pan Waterhole. We were met by the usual ungulates, basking in the early morning sun. A Wildebeest was scratching its ear like a puppy and Zebra was coming down to converse with the Hippo. Nothing more than a normal day in the animal kingdom’s routine.
Our route took us north on the main “tar” road towards Shumba pans. “Tar” could also be called “pot holes joined by slithers of crumbling black stuff which is a lot worse than bad dirt road or track”. Or “Place where black stuff used to be and has been taken over by thorn bushes and tall grass” The map you get at the gate still calls it tar…
The sightings were basically non existent after the platform and we deduced that, in Hwange, the way to do things is to find a waterhole and stay put, hoping that animals will come to you. We reached Shumba by mid morning and discovered an open Lister engine which was not working, a rickety hide next to a dam with trees growing in front of it, obscuring the dam, and the picnic site about 400m away from the good stuff. We decided to move on.
Just as the tummies started rumbling for lunch we found “The Place”! It was another dam, this time called: Masuma. Masuma offered a picnic spot, private camp site, thatched vantage point and dam all in one. It was exactly what we had been looking for, so we spent the rest of the afternoon there, relaxing. Two rival pods of Hippo provided entertainment and for a small distraction we had a family of Crocodiles. A few Baboons came in the afternoon, but that was about it. We were joined by some fellow countrymen at some point who asked us to deliver a message to Sinamatella Camp, our residence for the evening. They had been to the camp and decided to rather stay at one of the picnic sites further along. This, being more expensive than the camps, meant that they owed some more money and the message was that they would settle up the next day.
We left our haven with a little time to spare and bumped into the rogue campers at their picnic spot. We were promp0tly invited for tea, which we accepted and spent the rest of our allowed time chit chatting about travels of old and plans of new. It was strangely exciting and satisfying mingling with other campers again.
We made camp with minutes to spare. We were informed that there was no water, which we already knew, and asked if we needed fire wood, which we didn’t. On my comment that “we are happy” the man behind the desk remarked: “Ah, first customers for the year to say that!”
The Lonely Planed tells of magnificent views over wide open plains with water holes and mega herds of Elephant and Buffalo at Sinematella. The view is not far of as the camp is on a plateau overlooking… well, overlooking the hole of Hwange and some parts of Botswana I suspect. As for the mega herds… Although we have the 2007 print of Lonely Planet, I honestly don’t think anyone from there had been to Hwange after the massive draught of 1992/1993. With hat drought the animals that did not move away, pretty much died of thirst. See, the Elephants and Buffalo were so used to the water holes being artificially filled, that it had been many generations since they needed to migrate to water. They simply waited next to dried up waterholes until they died. Great example of human intervention then…
I digress… Oh yes, the view… The view has not changed and it is magnificent! We managed to park Magurudumu right on the edge of the cliffs and our little camp site had a big drum of water, a siphoning pipe, a small metal drum, and some firewood. What more can one ask for? It’s a little sad to see how a camp site which must have been full of life and joy in its day, can become so empty, so decollate and so neglected. We shared the massive space with a couple of researchers and a couple from Johannesburg on their way from Botswana to Mozambique. At a guess I would say that the camp could house 2 000 visitors at a time.
Day 51:
The bird alarm woke us up at the perfect time. The plains below had a quiet eeriness to them. Somewhere in the small hours of the morning I got woken up by trumpeting Elephants, in answer to roaring Lions. At another point I was convinced there was an animal skulking around our camp site, but couldn’t make out what it was. I watched the sunrise from the tent, found evidence of Elephants close to our camp site and shortly after we left…
Our plan for the day was to drive a river route back to our superb haven for showering, lunching and general relaxation. Shortly after descending into the valley we spotted a healthy breeding herd of Elephant. Although they were far away, it was pleasing to see the existence of breeding herds in the park. Along the Lukosi River we saw another big bull elephant by himself, some Hornbills, a Vulture and… no, that was it. We arrived at the Masume Picnic spot around mid morning. We were greeted by Donald, the camp attendant who promptly offered to make a fire in the boiler so that we could have a hot shower.
While the water was heating we took up our position in the hide. This came complete with laptops to do some editing and writing, camera, video camera, binoculars and bird book. We took in our own chairs and even took the Cobb inside to cook our chicken over lunch time. The day went swimmingly! The shower was piping hot, which is not something that you seem to have missed until you find one. The waterhole was a bustle of small creatures. This included a resident couple of tree squirrels who soon got used to us and ventures closer to where we were sitting. We were entertained by a “Hippo surfing Grey Herron” who… well, did just that! The Hippo were as active as the day before and while they were obviously running and playing below the surface of the water, the Herron would stand on their backs and pick out the small fish they disturbed as they moved. Brilliant!
I was really glad we decided to cook the chicken that afternoon and not that evening. From lighting the Cobb to chicken being cooked was about three hours. Man those chickens were huge! We left the waterhole, rested and relaxed, at about 17:00 and reached camp with a little time to spare. We took our usual spot and the wood delivery came shortly after. We realized that we were at the start of yet another warm and comfortable African evening in the bush.
Day 52:
We left camp shortly after sunrise. The water had been restored to the outside taps, but not the bathrooms, so we had a similar idea as the previous day. We headed on the main rode towards Robin Camp, the third of the big campsites in the park and the closest one to Pandamatenga and Botswana. From the maps we deduced that there were a range of small circular routes around the camp and that indicated more activity… to me anyway. Boy was I wrong! The tracks were marked by concrete sign posts, but most of the time you could not see where the tracks actually were. Lonely Planet describes a “bad restaurant and crappy bar” at Robin Camp. We already knew that the shops at Main camp and Sinimatella were no longer, so didn’t really expect to find the bar or restaurant open. We were simply hoping for a flush loo. The camp itself seemed really nice! I was a little sad not to have the time to stay there as well until I found that they to have no water… after being dire3cted to the toilet by the manager and using the toilet… for a no2 that is… I asked when the restaurant had closed and the answer was 1996. So well done once again Lonely Planet for keeping up to date.
We left the park by late morning and started chatting about our experience there. I was almost keen to suggest that privatization of the camp sites may be a good idea, or perhaps giving it over as a community project. Ablution facilities often becomes the decision making factor. No facilities are fine. Rustic facilities are fine. Great facilities are great, but run down, dirty or ill maintained facilities are unacceptable, and it was obvious that Zim parks do not get that point at all. The prices were fair and the park phenomenally beautiful. You could clearly see that the roads would be a nightmare in the wet season, but I also believe that game viewing would be quite spectacular in the dry season.
The road out of Robin camp and towards the main Vic Falls/Hwange road took a while. You could also see evidence of mud driving fun around every corner and although it was bone dry for us, the holes still slowed us down. We still made good time and reached Victoria Falls by mid afternoon. A good day’s work we felt.
We booked into the Victoria Falls Rest camp instead of the old municipal camp site as we were warned about neglected and dirty facilities. There is a concept in Southern Africa’s camping prices that really pisses me off! (Pardon the French) When we asked for rates, we were told $10 per person per night. That seemed fair and we agreed to stay there. Then we were informed that there was an additional charge of $8 per day for the vehicle. So why can’t they just ask $14 a person a night then? I’m pretty sure that it is to accommodate big overland trucks and advertise cheaper rates, but still, I hate that!
Anyway, the camp site was really nice! Big green lawns and shady trees, swimming pool and ablutions which seemed sterilized. It offered a Wi-Fi service at $5 for 80 Megs, which we thought was a bit steep, but not astronomical.
After paying our $14 per person per night for two nights we found a really nice place next to the fence to park. It seemed private and comfortable, complete with electrical points, bench and shady tree on one side. Big mistake! Within half an hour two touts came by to try and sell us some trillions of Zim Dollar. The word “Relentless” was created to describe there people, I’m sure of it! I know they are only trying to make a bit of money in a country and in a town that is all about tourism and souvenirs, but seriously? The conversation goes like this:
Tout: How about some Zim $?
Me: No thank you.
Tout: I have ten trillion, twenty trillion, which one do you want?
Me: Seriously, no thank you.
Tout: How about some old clothes, can you give me some old clothes in trade?
Me: No old clothes, and I really don’t want Zim $ thank you.
Tout: Can you give me some food to eat?
Me: No, sorry.
Tout: Just a little something?
Me: Dude! I paid to be in a private camp site to have a peaceful afternoon. You are now disturbing my peaceful afternoon, so please leave me a lone. I will not buy anything from you and I have nothing for you!
Tout: Why don’t you want my Zim $? Can I take you to the open air market for some other souvenirs?
Me: (Shouting) LEAVE ME ALONE NOW!!!!
That also did not help, so we had to move the car to the middle of the camp site not to be bothered. That was the third valuable lesson I learnt in two weeks. I though t I was travel wise before…
Lesson one: When you see nice fruit and veg next to the road, stop and buy it. People don’t transport their produce out of their region.
Lesson two: When asking for camping rates, ask if they charge extra for the car. Favour those who do not.
Lesson Three: Don’t camp by the fence! This is not Kruger Park!
Lessons learnt and camp moved we decided to take a wander into town. We were after some fruit and veg, a few groceries and an internet café to update the blog and send some email. From the second we left the campground people started pushing their wares and services on us. If it wasn’t trillions of Zim $ (I’m pretty sure someone has a stockpile just to sell to tourists) it was taxi’s to the falls, carvings, paintings and anything you can think of. One taxi driver offered his services while sitting in a bar! Seriously, he was just leaning out the window, pint in hand, and said: “Taxi to the falls?” OK…
The Internet café was easy to find. There are many in town and the first one we ventured into charged $1 for half an hour and you could plug your own machine into their network. This seemed fair, so we purchased a $’s worth, hooked up the Mac and started uploading. By the fourth time it errored we gave up and left content with having been able to retrieve our emails. We found another café which was open on Sunday so we made a Skype date with Catt’s parents for the following afternoon. We then ventured into the Spar supermarket. Looking at their prices for fruit and vegetables, and pretty much anything else, we left with a bottle of Benzene for the MSR stove (Which was still working brilliantly I might ad) and a couple of soft drinks as a treat. One example would be the $3.50 for 5 small apples.
The walk back to the campsite was met with the same amount of selling and touting and the same amount of “no thank you” attempts from me. Once we were in the camp site, at our place far away from the fences, things became calm and peaceful again. The night was disturbed only by the patrolling security guards, which was not really a disturbance at all.
Day 53:
Instead of the birds waking me half an hour before sunset, I woke up to the sound of a Microlight flying over the Falls. I have to admit that I was a little jealous! Two years previous we were in Zambia and we took a helicopter flight over the falls. This time the $100 per person was simply not in the budget! I lied in bed wondering how much money those guys make, and how much of that $100 they have to pay to the touts and booking offices. While pondering this, I heard the first helicopter flying over us. I was still wondering how much it would cost to buy a helicopter and go and operate it here when Catt kicked me out of bed.
It was our day for visiting the falls. The Mosi-Oa-Tunya (smoke that thunders) that was rumbling away all night and who’s light spray we could see bellowing from the gorge was our reason to going there, and the time had arrived to visit the park. We had vowed to have a non driving day and started walking towards the falls… And Mr Relentless brought some friends along. By this time I was well used to, and well equipped to deal with the situation and wasn’t so disturbed by it. We decided to take the shortcut which is a footpath away from the tar road. This was a great idea until someone coming from the front warned us about the Elephant on the path. We walked a little further on and saw a bunch of locals hiding behind some shrubs and then decided to turn around and take the longer tar road. That road only had Zebra and Warthog on. I always laughed at prospective tourists wanting to know if there were wild animals walking around the streets of Johannesburg. Well, now I can say, with authority, that wild animals do indeed walk in the streets in Victoria Falls. Not Johannesburg as far as I know though.
The entrance to the falls was clean and neat and well maintained and we paid the $20 per person entry fee without feeling ripped off. I have to mention that that is the SADC rate and the international rate is $30 per person. From our trip to Zambia we were wise to the precipitation falling from blue sky, so we rain geared up and worked our way to the Livingstone statue as a starting point. Now Livingstone is the man who discovered the falls, thought they were the source of the Nile and named them for Queen Victoria. Well, let’s perhaps just mention that Livingstone was shown the falls by the local chief who called it Mosi-Oa-Tunya and he was helped also a little by his 300 od porters and guides. So not taking anything away for one of the great explorers, but I’m pretty sure the falls were discovered a while before he got there. It’s a little hard to miss.
From the man’s statue we meandered from viewpoint to viewpoint trying to catch a glimpse of the waterfall and it soon became very apparent that this was no easy task. The water was simply too much and the mist and spray was so intense that it obscured the actual falls completely. Every once in a while, when the wind shifted or some other natural event changed slightly, the mist would lift in we would stand in awe of the magnificence and immense power of the masses of water falling over the edge. 8 Weeks before we had been at Augrabies falls which is said to have the most volume of water falling of any waterfall in the world when it’s in flood. Honestly, although I have never seen Augrabies in flood, I find it very hard to believe that the hole of the Orange Freestate can have as much water as Victoria Falls when we were there!
The place called Danger point was pretty much inside the spray and we never could see the main falls. The western side of the falls, close to Livingstone’s statue we did manage to see and that was hellishly impressive! We never saw the Horse Shoe Falls, or Rainbow Falls. We had a really nice view of the old bridge linking Zimbabwe and Zambia and that brought us to the end of the path.
Walking back to the campsite we discussed the best season to visit the falls, as well as the best country to see it from. This ended up being a much longer discussion that you may think and the conclusion was this: You need to see the falls in both the wet and the dry season, and you need to see it from both countries. This can become very expensive if you have a European or US passport as you would need visas for both countries. So, Zimbabwe side in the dry season would be my preference as you get to be close to the main falls and see it all the way to the bottom. Zambia in the wet season as you are a little further away from the main falls, and you will hopefully see more of it from that side. Helicopter flight would be great in both seasons as well, but if I had to choose one, I think the wet season would be more spectacular from the air.
After lunch we took a walk down to the traditional curio market. If you do not like hard selling, bargaining, touring and Mr Relentless, my advice would be to stay away! Fortunately for us, we decided not even to take a wallet with us, so it was easy to say so. The shops at the start were quite expensive we thought, so we were taken to the outdoor market. This was much closer to the artists and further away from the business men. Don’t be fooled though, it’s not like they would ever not try their damndest to separate you from your money. We still found the prices too high, so left without any purchases. To put a figure on it, for a soapstone Hornbill pair of about 20cm high, they would charge $35. A similar size statue at the Ruins was $10.
We had that Skype date with Catt’s parent that afternoon and decided to try updating the Blog at the same time. Suffice to say that the Skyping was so frustrating that we managed about seven sentences in fifteen minutes, the Blog never got updated and I did not manage to send any of my 35 emails. Oh well, it wasn’t entirely unexpected. We decided to try the first café again in the morning.
I think by this time we had almost become immune to Mr. Relentless and I did not even hear what they wanted to sell any more. I simply shook my head and said a polite “no thank you” as many times as it took to make them go away. The camp site was a safe haven and I was thankful for it.
Day 54:
Our mission for the day was simple: Update Blog, see about COMESA Yellow Card insurance, visit the local market for some fruit and vegetables, and head off to Binga for a stop over towards Mana Pools. Simple enough I thought. We arrived in front of Internet café no 1’s door at 8am. It was still closed. I remembered an insurance agent who advertised public internet from the previous day, so we walked over to that building. They did indeed offer public internet and they also offered COMESA insurance.
COMESA is a 3rd party liability insurance that is valid for every country we intend to visit up to and including Sudan. It works out a lot cheaper, and a hell of a lot simpler to buy this one policy rather than buying 3rd party insurance at every border. Here is the funny thing… and you have my permission to laugh: AA of South Africa offers COMESA. It’s advertised on their website. We got our Carnet from them. I researched COMESA for months trying to find someone to get it from without success. The only firm contact I could find was in Lusaka. When buying our Carnet, the AA never mentioned insurance, or offered it to us. NICE!!!!
Anyway, we started at a price of $1 368 and soon found out that it was valid for a year per country and you could specify the time you intend to spend in a country and pay a reduced rate. The final figure we worked out was $268. While Catt was in charge of the math, I was in charge of updating the blog… unsuccessfully. We decided not to buy the insurance straight away and just check online for advice or prices, so we left the insurance agents for the first internet café, which had been the only working one thus far. This time it was open, so we decided to go the whole hog and plug both the laptops into their network. One machine to update the blog, the other to send emails, and both to research COMESA. The Nett result was: No updating of the blog, no sending of emails and $268 seemed very expensive for COMESA. We would try again in Zambia.
The market was fairly easy to find and prices were very reasonable! We bought: 12 tomatoes, 4 green peppers, 5 potatoes, 5 oranges, six bananas, three pieces of fruit we did not know, two bunches of butter lettuce and a bag of sweet potato. Total cost: $8.
Full fridge and happy heart, we left town on time, chose the shortest route along the Zambezi towards Binga and expected a fairly rough, but steady pace and a mid afternoon arrival. Some time into our journey we were flagged down by a man in a Toyota Pickup. He had apparently run out of engine oil and was trying to nurse the car to town to get some. We helped him out for two reasons: We had engine oil, and it was the right thing to do. For a second or two I suspected that he may ask all overlanders he comes across for a pint of oil, saving himself a heap of money on motor oil, but it did not matter that much to me.
He reached a little bit of tar road close to Deka Drum and started seeing the first signs of people advertising fishing spots and lodges. That tar did not last long and only rejoined tar fairly close to Binga. On the last bit of dirt I hit a pothole very hard. I was happy not to have lost a tyre, or broken suspension, but on the first uphill I discovered that the impact had broken a bit of the exhaust pipe just short of the silencer. Magurudumu had turned into a roaring diesel beast and we were in desperate need of a welder. We found two camping sport on T4A in the area. One was next to a crocodile farm in town; the other was 11km before town and attached to a lodge. We decided to check out the latter, thinking that a lodge will probably have a welding machine and someone who knows how to use it. While driving though the nice new gate and spotting the pristine lawns with big shady trees and new buildings I had already decided that it would be too expensive a place, but persevered towards reception anyway.
Reception was empty, so we walked into the dining room to find help. My jaw dropped! The dining room had a 270 degree panoramic view over the lake from a high vantage point. It had an infinity swimming pool below on one side and the bar, with the same view, right below. A lady came from the kitchen to great us and we asked her about the camping, still thinking it would be completely out of our budget. It was not! To our utter, yet pleasant surprise, Masumu Lodge charges $10 per person per night. No vehicle fees, or hidden bollocks, a simple $10 per person. We wanted to stay for a week!
Alan and his wife, whose name I never got, manages the lodge for a syndicate. They have no website, no brochures, no email address and apparently no marketing strategy at all. What they did have was a stunning lodge, in a stunning location complete with house boat, other boats, self catering chalets, catered accommodation and camp site. I found it very bizarre! Alan did have a welding machine though, and he knew how to weld, so after taking the exhaust off the car I took it to him and he agreed to mend it for us while we had a drink or two in the bar while watching the sun set over Lake Kariba. It seemed fair for us to spend some money in his bar in exchange for a welding job, so we did just that!
Day 55:
The day started at 3am with an over active, very vocal Cock (As in male chicken). This young rooster decided to announce sunrise every five minutes from 3am until the actual sunrise which was at 6:45. It wasn’t that bad really; I soon got used to him and slept through his performances. I think Catt was less impressed.
After havening a shower in facilities fit for a boutique hotel we took a walk up to reception to settle the bill and say our good byes. It was hard to leave such a nice place after one night only, but we had our Mana Pools booking to make, so we just did not have enough time… again!
We managed to get away by 9am and headed towards Kariba for another night’s stop over. The 377 kilometres was estimated to take us almost eight hours and neither one of us were looking forward to that one little bit! Because of all the rain they had in the area the road was in a terrible state in places. The first 100km took us two hours. We stopped for a chat with a guy coming from the front. He informed us the road was shocking, but the last 200km was OK. We informed him that the road was shocking and we took 2 hours to complete the 100km’s, but that he should definitely stay at Masumu Lodge and we gave the GPS co-ords.
The next 60 kilometres took us 3 hours and sometimes we were driving at walking pace. The damage to the roads from the rain and the trucks was just insane and it was like bolder climbing the whole time. We stopped for lunch before we had reached our half way mark, looking forward to the last 200km of OK road. The OK road was still a track, but at least you could drive at about 50km/h on it and there were no potholes to speak off. We did come across a bridge that was half washed away and on the approach I though we would need to turn around. My heart sank! I was tired and wanted the day to end and we had only about 120km to go.
We managed to cross the bridge with about a wheel’s width on either side to spare and a few minutes later, driving over a rise we simultaneously gasped: WOW!!! Right in front of us, in all its glory, was Lake Kariba, bathed in golden sunlight. It was an incredible sight! The rest of the track took us over some mountains and down some valleys, offering glimpses of the lake around every corner before the road spilled out onto the plains below. The straight track towards the tar road was fair and we still made relatively good time, hitting the brakes hard every once in a while to slow down for a hole or ditch. Reaching the tar road was heavenly!
We headed towards the M.O.T.H campsite in town and just before entering it saw a sign for a Kushinga Lodge and Camp Site. From our previous day’s experience we decided to see what that looked like. We followed the signs around town and found the lodge without hassle. Reception was closed, but the guard told us the cost was $5 per person for camping. We started pitching the tent without delay. It was a fair camp site with a lawn and clean, but cold water only ablutions. At $5 a person you couldn’t really argue and we were so tired that it didn’t really matter to be honest.
Day 56:
The alarm woke us up around 7am and neither one of us was in the mood for getting out of bed. It was however the day to get to Mana Pools, so with that thought, we hastily packed up, paid our $10 and started leaving. We were approached by a friendly man with a safari Company logo on his shirt. I suspect just for a friendly chat, se we obliged. The usual questions got the usual answers and when I asked about an internet café in town, he invited us back to his office so that we could…. You guessed it… update the blog and send some emails. I though that was really decent of him.
We followed his vehicle and by the time we were 8km out of town I suspected that the group of men on the pickup in front of us were… well, taking the piss… It would have been a good joke, I suppose, to see how far the big Land Cruiser will follow them for an internet connection. I was just trying to work out how long it would take for me to see the funny side when they turned down a dirt track and minutes later into their office compound. We had arrived at the office of Natureways Safaris. Inside the office we were shown to the boss’s desk and presented with a network cable. I could not get the Mac connected at all, tried the PC with no success and asked to use one of their machines to at least update the BlogSpot page. I was presented with a laptop, used my USB drive to transfer the data, connected to the internet, logged onto the BlogSpot and… The laptop did not have a program installed to read a word document. I gave up, lied and said we were all done, thanked our host for the effort and the coffee, gave them a Fever Tree anti mosquito candle and we went on our way.
Note: So you see, it’s not like I have not been trying to update the blog, it has just been a little challenging.
We drove back to the Kariba Dam wall viewpoint to have a look. A number of sluices were open offering a spectacular spray of water from the wall. The viewpoint is in the perfect location to see this, only no one bothered to cut down the trees right in front of the platform. So you can’t really see the complete wall, but we still managed some nice photographs and an all round pleasant enough dam viewing experience. Back in town we filled the tanks with Diesel at $1.16 a litre, slightly more that what we had been paying, but cheaper than Zambia we were told. We visited the Spar for some groceries and were disappointed with not being able to complete the list. We decided to have a look in the TM (Local supermarket) and found everything that the Spar had, plus more and at much better prices. We completed our list without any trouble at all and the amount came to $25.77. Problem, as you may imagine, is that there are no coins for change. TM however overcomes this little issue easily. Our change was made up of two black pens and one sucker sweet. I liked it!
We left town by mid morning and decided to have some lunch at the Zimbabwe wildlife offices on the escarpment before entering Mana Pools. We made that in really good time, so settled for a piece of fruit, a fresh cup of coffee. While filling in the permit to enter the park, I was once again faced with the difficult question of our address. I wrote “Pretoria, South Africa” and left it at that. The guard however was not satisfied and asked for a full address. I started explaining that our true address was the roof of Magurudumu and he simply said that if I received my mail there, I could write that down. I wrote down a fictitious address in Pretoria instead and he was happy. I told him it was fictitious, but he did not seem to care. The picture looked right to him I supposed.
We turned off the tar road and were faced by another boom gate. This guard checked our permit, filled in his book, asked for headache tablets and malaria medicine and sent us on our way. (We gave him some Grandpa aspirin) A while later we found another boom gate. This guard checked our permit, filled in his book and sent us on our way without asking for anything. The road was rough, but fair and we were making good time. We spotted some vultures circling pretty low and I wanted to see what they were up to. I stopped the car and proceeded to make my first of two big mistakes of the day… I opened the window.
As the window came down, the Tsetse flies came in. I closed it again as fast as I could, but it was too late. After the internetlessness, the viewpoint with the trees obscuring the good stuff, and my tiredness from the previous day, I was slightly unhappy about this. I managed my revenge and killed three of them within the first few minutes and while internally moaning about how hard life as a traveller can be, the universe decided to through a little more humour my way. What I though to be the last fly was sitting on the inside of the windscreen right in front of me. Without even slowing down I swatted at him with the back of my hand. Not hard, not that fast (I missed him), but the fifteen year old windscreen was obviously too brittle to take the impact. I shattered it! While trying to swat a fly… I can’t wait to write that insurance report.
We reached the reception of Mana Pools at Nyamepi shortly after I managed to see the humour in it all, checked in, found our camp site and had some lunch. We met three Brits who are doing a bit of travelling. We went over for a chat after lunch, thinking that we really should try and be more social. They had been travelling trough Mozambique. The guy in charge is renting a kitted out Land Cruiser from a friend for £30 a day. The other two, a couple, were along for the ride at £10 each a day and flying out of Africa from Malawi, where the guy with the car is picking up some more friends to chare the costs. The concept is that he had the time to do a long trip and he is basically changing travelling partners on a regular basis until he hands the car over, three months down the line, in Botswana before flying home himself. I though this to be a very clever way of doing it. The only problem being that you are restricted as to which times you have to be at which airports.
We also found that at Mana Pools the new pricing works like this: The camp sites on the river are $100 a night per campsite. This will accommodate up to 6 people. Our pre booked and pre paid site was on the river and we paid $15 per person per night before the price increase. The camp sites off the river (50 meters away) are charged at $20 per person per night. They are closer to the ablutions, but have no river frontage. The ablutions had been re painted just before we got there, so we found them really good. You can do a walking safari (Guided) at $10 per person per hour, or a canoe safari on the river at the same price.
Late in the afternoon we decided to drive the river road. The grass and bushes were still a little long, but we had many nice sightings of game. The most mentionable was the elephant who decided to push a tree over onto the road, minutes before we got there, and started feasting on the fresh leaves, blocking the road. That was then our turning around point.
I don’t often write about the food we eat, but that night’s dinner is worth a mention. We had hamburgers. Not that impressive by the sounds of it, but we managed to make everything from the bread to the burgers from basic ingredients. We were impressed! Tummies full and hearts happy we fell asleep to the sounds of roaring Lions, laughing Hyenas, barking Impala and very noisy Hippos.
If I had to do it all again:
We met someone who told us what game viewing in Hwange is like in the dry season. He said that after four days of Lion kills, vultures and massive herds of Buffalo and Elephant by the waterholes, he got so spoilt that he didn’t even really stop to look any more. That was in October. We could not see Hwange in October, but that made it back onto the list of things to return to.
Vic falls was great. Instead of spending $4, one $ at a time in useless internet cafes without achieving a single task, perhaps the $5 for the lodge’s Wi-Fi would have been better. So we learn…
More time at Masumu was needed! If nothing else, a housekeeping day there would be great! Our booking at Mana Pools prevented this, which brings us to another point: No more advance bookings! They spoil our fun! We have a date to meet with Catt’s parents in Malawi, and decided to aim to reach that four days before the actual date. That way, if we find another Masumu, we could stay longer. Like I have said, they have no website, not email address, but the manager’s personal email address is Grand_4@hotmail.com, and it is on Tracks 4 Africa.
The Binga/Kariba day is a killer, but I don’t really see any other way to do it. I suppose you could stay over around Matusadona Park, but then you have to pay the entrance fees etc. for one night’s stay. So really, “man up cupcake and deal with it” would be the answer. Alternatively, you could stay at Deka Drum, then Masumu, then three nights in Matusadona, then Kariba for two nights and then Mana… If you had the time.
If I had to do the last day of this week again, I would have stayed in bed. That would have prevented me from getting bitten by tsetse flies, and smashing a windscreen with the back of my hand.
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