Day 1 JHB to BulawayoWe had a relatively early start, leaving home at 5-30am, after a bit of confusion we finally all met up at the Petroport after Pretoria, we were finally on our way, today our destination was Bulawayo via Botswana. Breakfast was had in Potgietersrus.
Thereafter we headed towards the Botswana border at Martin’s Drift, we were welcomed at the SA side by the most miserable person you could wish to meet, ah well, I guess it’s a crap job, but someone has to do it..
The Botswana side is where our patience test cycle began, plenty Immigration and Customs counters, but one miserable road tax counter, manned by slowcoach himself, 2 hours later we were finally in Botswana, heading towards Francistown.
We had wasted a lot of daytime, we still had another border crossing at Plumtree to do…
This time the Botswana side was quick, but then the Zimbabwe side beckoned, another 2 hours were wasted, road tax, carbon tax, temporary import permits, what a mission..We finally left there at 7 pm in the dark, breaking the single most important rule in Africa….’Don’t travel at night’! We had 100km to go; thankfully we all had HID lights, after being waved through quite a few police roadblocks we arrived in Bulawayo at 8pm, which was in a partial black out, chaos reigned, out of order robot intersections are not 4 way stops in Zimbabwe, drivers careen through them at will, apparently there are regular accidents, every robot became a stop street for us, this place was madness. It took us another 30 minutes to find our pre-booked accommodation for the night, Bucknell Lodge,(
maureen@yoafrica.com) power was out there as well, Zimbabwe has load shedding like you’ve never seen before….Winney invited us in, she was the cook/housekeeper/do-everything of Bucknell Lodge, she pointed me towards the generator (everyone in Zim has generators)and after a short while we had lights and power.
While Winney was warming up our dinner, Maureen , the owner of this splendid one time huge family home/now splendid lodge arrived, then the party started.. we had just done over 950km, been on the road for 15 hours, but we were finally in Zimbabwe, Maureen kept us entertained until we could no more, the 4 of us finally passed out, exhausted, it had been a long day.
Day 2 Bulawayo to Vic FallsAfter a tasty breakfast laid on by Winney we hit the road, forewarned about the numerous speedtraps, Zimbabwe Police have been issued with laser traps and have been told to go make money, you can just imagine….
We refueled at the last petrol station on the way out of town and headed for Vic Falls, it was a pretty uneventful day, we passed through countless roadblocks, but the police manning them were friendly and courteous, we were novelties to them, foreigners on loud flashy expensive bikes touring their country, we soon learnt that you got nowhere until pleasantries were swopped, ‘hello sir, how are you today? Fine sir, how are you? Fine thank you. Aaieh, so, you are tourists, are you enjoying Zimbabwe?’ So it went on, what impressed me was the proud but humble approach these people had, nothing was too much trouble, they had all day to do nothing and were very interested in us as tourists, no agro at all.
We stopped in at Halfway Motel, yes, halfway between Bulawayo and Vic Falls, we met up with some Zimbabwean tourists on their way to Hwange National Park, after a chat and refreshments we headed towards Hwange town itself to refuel and scout the shops for provisions which we thought we’d need the following day en route to Mlibizi. Thereafter it was a short hop and we were in Vic Falls, we booked into the Sprayview Hotel, affordable yet very pleasant accommodation.
Myself and Carol stayed here a few years ago at a time when Zimbabwe was on its way down, it was immediately apparent that things were improving, the entire menu was available and the bar was well stocked. After checking into our rooms each of us decided on which adventure option to do the following morning, Rob decided on the gorge swing…’Cuzz, do you know what that is? Not really sure but it looks cool…’ Carol opted for the elephant safari and myself and Debbie decided on the jet boat safari above the Falls….more on that later.
Once the excursions had been booked we went to see the Falls which were at their fullest for the season, Debbie had never seen the Falls, and was not disappointed, neither were we, no matter how many times you visit them, Vic Falls remains an awesome sight.
Our next stop was the Vic Falls Royal Hotel, we parked off on the verandah overlooking the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia, we drank tea, right posh and all….
On our way out we stopped to view the paintings in a gallery, the artist was Larry Norton, Google him and see what his paintings cost, then have a look at them and understand why, they are simply amazing, but more on him later.
It was time for dinner, Sprayview Hotel fed us a sumptuous meal, thereafter we all headed for bed, anxious about the following day’s adventure we had selected.
Topic: Zimbabwe's doors are open (THE STORY IS COMPLETE....PHEW!!) (Read 5804 times)