Zimbabwe: Harare – Masvingo – Bulawayo – Hwange NP – Vic Falls

Just like Zambia, our first day in Zimbabwe was mainly spent in the truck simply covering distance. We did have one memorable event though while commuting. It was about 8:30am and most of the people in the truck were asleep from yet another early morning. I was sitting up the front, stretching my legs, when we passed a truck with a load on the back heading the opposite direction. The truck going the opposite way somehow flicked a rock up, which hit the front window in the passenger cabin of our truck (despite it being protected by some mesh), which resulted in a really loud bang, Next thing I saw/heard was the glass of our truck window starting to crack. I barely had time to get my hands to my face and duck my head before the window exploded and covered me and the front of the passenger area in flying glass. Fortunately the glass didn't do me, or any of the others on board, any injury, with little more than a few half cm long surface scratches on my legs to show from my shower of glass. We spent the rest of the day getting wind blasted from the open window – luckily it wasn't raining today.

Our campsite for the first night was just outside of Tanzania's capital of Harare, which we spent about an hour checking out while the truck got some fuel. We got in quite late, put the tents up, had some dinner and most people went to bed early as a result of three 12+ hour days on the truck, along with the associated early mornings, taking its toll on our bodies.

The next day wasn't nearly as long in the truck as we headed for Masvingo. Our campsite was located just out of town and mercifully, we got there about lunch time. We had a couple of hours to kill before we headed to the local Great Zimbabwe ruins, which the guide tells me is the forth most famous non-mortar brick structure behind the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China and Macchu Pichu. The ruins were quite impressive and spanned up and down hills and through valleys. Our camp was very nice with hot showers and overlooked the lake.

The next day we headed for Bulawayo, which meant more time in the truck. Our campsite at Bulawayo is our home for the next two nights so everyone elected to upgrade into proper rooms, although we maintained shared facilities, so that we could stretch out and have a proper bed. We arrived mid-late afternoon after spending a few hours wandering around the city itself. The next day we left for an all day game drive/village tour in an open top jeep, modified to carry 16 people. We saw several cultural sites within the Matobo National Park, including checking out some cave paintings, seeing Gordon Park, the starting place of the Boy Scouts and passing the gravesite of John Cecil Rhodes, who explored a lot of Africa and started up a successful diamond trading business. Zimbabwe was previously known as Rhodesia, named after John Rhodes.

We visited a local village just prior to lunch, where we talked (via a translator) to the local village chief, who was quite the character – having narrowly avoided death after taking on a leopard with only a spear. The local kids did a dance for us and we had the chance to buy some local wares (as we quite often do). In the afternoon we went looking for white and black rhino, which we didn't have too much luck finding until right at the end of the day, where we got out of the car and walked up to within 20m of them. It was quite exhilarating starting within 20m of two male rhinos with nothing but grass between us. Apparently rhino's have incredibly bad eye sight and would have seen the group of people as one big blob, rather than individuals so wouldn't be prepared to take on such a large being. Just as well for us because they can hit something like 50km/h in a matter of seconds so we'd have no chance of out running them.

The next day we got back in the truck and headed for Hwange National Park. We stopped on the way at the Painted Dog Organisation, which works to protect and rehabilitate native dogs, as well as stopping poaching. Shortly after visting Painted Dog we arrived at our campsite, right on the edge of Hwange National Park. That afternoon we had a game drive inside the national park in an open top Jeep. We saw quite a lot of giraffe, elephant, cudu, impala, ostriches, sables, some hippos and a couple of crocs. There are lions in the park but we couldn't find any. We went back to camp at nightfall for dinner before departing in the Jeep again for a night tour. We didn't expect to see a lot but figured it would be fun anyway (especially with a few beers on board to consume as we went).

We were driving along with the spotlight and the guide thought he saw some eyes shining back at him so we stopped the car and turned off the lights and engine. The guide found the eyes he saw and told us that it was a bush baby. However, in the darkness, we could hear the crashes of branches and heavy footsteps. The noise came closer and then, out of the foliage, emerged a herd of elephant, walking directly toward our vehicle. There were about eight in total, the large ones female and then there were some juveniles and babies. They walked literally to within 5 feet of our car and stopped. The matriarch elephant raised her truck to within 2 feet of the car and smelled us. Our guide made the noise of a baby elephant requesting food from a mother just to inform the elephant that we were there but posed no threat. The herd then slowly started moving around our car and vanished off into the darkness. During this time we were all silent, but smiling from ear to ear. It was an absolutely incredible experience, one I'm not likely to forget.

The next morning we awoke early and went for another game drive within Hwange. It was quite cold out and to start with, we didn't see many animals but as the morning warmed up, we started to see more giraffe, elephants, impala and wart hog. Perhaps the best thing we saw was a snake eagle swoop down and pick up a mongoose and fly away. That was pretty cool. We left Hwange NP after lunch for our final time in the truck as we headed to Victoria Falls. Upon arrival, we went straight to the falls, which I must say are rather impressive. It's high water time so there is a lot of mist/spray, which meant you got very, very wet when viewing the falls from certain places but the shear volume of water going over the falls makes it spectacular viewing.

After walking around the falls, we took our guide, cook and driver on a sunset river (booze) cruise. We all sat back and cruised up the Zambezi with a few drinks and looked out for wildlife. We saw two hippos chasing each other and I can tell you honestly that those things are fast! Almost every hippo we'd previously seen were barely moving but these ones ran out of the water, across the land and back into the water and they weren't too sluggish, despite their stature. After the cruise we shared a final dinner before hitting a local nightspot to ensure the night/trip ended on a (drunken) high.

That's it as far as this blog entry is concerned with respect to our Intrepid Travel tour. I can highly recommend them as a travel company. No one got sick, everything went well and they offered us flexibility, suggestions and assistance. A further blog entry will follow for our post tour adventures.

Zambia: Lilongwe – Lusaka

This will be a short update as there isn't much to say about Zambia as we didn't really do anything in country. We had two nights/three days in Zambia, with all of our days being spent in the truck crossing the country from Malawi to Zimbabwe. Our days entail getting up at ungodly o'clock (about 4:45am), having a quick brekky and then hitting the road by no later than 6am. Then driving through Zambia until about 5pm, at which point we'd set up tent, have a few drinks, crash and repeat the next day.

One highlight of Zambia was that at our campsite for the second night, there was a fenced off nature reserve just outside of camp that had zebra, giraffe, impala and warthogs in it, which we went and explored by foot, looking for the animals on foot (as we were assured there were no predatory animals about). We found several giraffes which we followed through the bushes for an hour or so, which was quite cool. We got quite close to them which was pretty exciting.

Day 3 in Zambia and we headed for the border of Tanzania, which will be our final country visited as part of our tour so I'll post a separate update on Tanzania. Sad to think that our travels within Africa are coming to an end, with just under 10 days remaining (at time of writing this).

Malawi: Chitimba – Kande Beach

We departed Iringa in southern Tanzania and headed for the Malawi border, which took us about 1.5 hours to pass through, without any dramas. Apparently the foreign exchange bureaus are useless/non-existent in Malawi so our guide organised a money man to exchange our Tanzanian Shillings into Malawi Kwacha during our roadside lunch stop just before the border. The rest of our day was spent heading to our campsite at Chitimba, which we got to early evening. Amanda and I upgraded into a real room, as opposed to our tent, as Amanda wasn't feeling well.

The next day we packed up (in the rain) and headed further south into Malawi to our next campsite, at Kande Beach. Along the way we stopped at a town called Mzuzu to pick up some supplies. Here we found a coffee shop that did real coffee so most of us indulged in a cappacino. You would think with a lot of coffee sold around the world being African in origin, they would have great coffee over here but the reality is that coffee is a luxury that few can afford so (bad) instant is usually all that you find. On the way out of Mzuzu, we came to a bridge which seemed to be swarmed by locals. Which quickly discovered that the road leading up to the other side of the bridge had started to wash away with the flood waters. It was about ¼ gone. Our guide went and sussed out the remainder of the road and determined that we should try and pass. We all hopped off the truck (very quickly) and our driver crossed the bridge slowly and then gunned it over the remainder of the road leading off the bridge. I swear you could see the road dip a little and I wouldn't be surprised if that road didn't make the end of the day.

After the excitement with the road, the rest of the trip to Kande Beach was unevntful and we arrived early afternoon for a stay that would be over the next two nights. We all upgraded into private rooms, although none had en suites. The Kande Beach camp was right on the edge of Lake Malawi, which looked more like an ocean – it's huge, you can't see the other side, it takes up roughly 1/5^th of the whole country's area and the water was rough with swell, rips and waves. We chilled out for the rest of the day as it was blowing a gale so no good for swimming. Beers went for 400 Kwacha which is about 1 AUD and the “local” beer of choice is Carlsberg! That night, our guide organised a Karaoke session, and mixed up some very potent “punch” to help ease our stage fright. It was a great night with lots of laughs.

The next day Amanda was hoping to go diving in the Lake but the wind had not died down from the day before so it was still very rough and she couldn't go. Instead, she and I went for a walk to the local village. Being white people, we stood out and quickly found ourselves with a couple of local children (it was a Sunday so no school) who accompanied us on our walk, eager to practice their English and show us around. They spoke good English and were very helpful so we gave them a few dollars each for their efforts. The rest of the day was spent lazing in the hammocks, drinks in hand, chilling out before another day in the truck.

The next morning, we awoke early and got on the road again facing another 12 hour day, which included a border crossing into Zambia. As this is the end of my Malawi update, I'll stop this here and post again for Zambia. I should also point up that I've not had Wifi internet for about a week now so there will be multiple posts put up once I finally find some!

Tanzania (pt2): Zanzibar – Dar Es Salaam – Iringa

We left Dar for the early morning ferry across the harbour, which took about 7 minutes, before getting onto a bigger ferry to take us to Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania. The larger ferry ride to Zanzibar took 2.5 hours and the waters were quite calm. Upon arrival in Zanzibar, we checked into our hotel in Stone Town, an older section of Zanzibar, grabbed a quick bite before jumping onto a smaller boat and heading out to “Prison Island”, which is a 30 minute ride in a very underpowered local boat. On Prison Island we saw giant tortoises, which early rival those I've seen in the Galapagos for size, with the oldest one that we could see being 155 years old.

After visiting the tortoises, we got back in the boat and headed out for a spot of snorkelling. We were all dying to get into the water because it was very hot and humid – about 30 degrees and about 90% humidity. The waters were very clear and we saw a good variety of fish, however, the coral looked a bit dead, which we were told was due to fishermen using nets in the area (illegally). We met our guide later that afternoon for a drink. It was supposed to be a sunset drink but our boat ran out of fuel on the way back to Zanzibar so we were a bit later. We ate that night at the local markets, which Amanda and I enjoyed a seafood feast. The vendor tried to overcharge us – commonly known as a “Mzungu Tax” or “White Person Tax” (we get called Mzungu's everywhere we go), but we threatened to get the tourist police over and they changed their pricing by over 50% down.

The next day we visited the site of the slave markets from the 1800's. We got taken down into one of the chambers where they kept the slaves, which wasn't high enough to stand in, would regularly get flooded with high tide and where the centre corridor also served purpose as the toilet. The room didn't have a good feeling about it and most of us got out quite quickly. We also visited a church built by a priest who had a good deal of influence in ending the slave trading. After the slave market site visit, we drove north up the island for a bit before stopping to visit a spice farm. Here we got shown many types of spices they grew on island, along with other fruits, before sampling some different types of tea infused with various local products.

We enjoyed lunch at a local family before heading further north to our hotel for the next two nights, called Sun Set Bungalows. Our room was easily the best hotel we've had since being on tour and our hotel was right on the beach. We did a bit of shopping in the afternoon before going for a several swims, enjoying happy hour drinks and grabbing some dinner. The next day Amanda headed off early to go scuba diving off a local island called Nmemba while I enjoyed a day of leisure, not really going any further than from my beach side sun lounge into the water, over to the bar and back again. The weather was sunny and warm so perfect day to lounge at the beach. Amanda joined me in the afternoon and we had more happy hour drinks and more dinner rounded out of day.

The next day we headed back to Stone Town for some quick shopping before getting back on the ferry for the mainland. It was a little rough on the way back and I felt a bit seasick, probably as a combination of too many happy hour drinks the nigh previous. Once we got back to the mainland, we hopped back on the local ferry and back to the hotel we previously stayed at in Dar Es Salaam. We all upgraded because we were due to have a very early start and a long day in the truck the next morning.

At 4:45am, everyone emerged from their mosquito infested room upgrades and we hit the road for a long day as we endeavoured to beat the traffic in Dar Es Salaam and head about 570kms to our destination of Iringa. On the way, we passed through Mikumi national park where we saw giraffe and a family of elephants. Other than that, there wasn't much to report – just a long day of driving and getting passed by a lot of local buses, whose drivers have a complete disrespect for human life as they hurtle up hills on the wrong side of the road around a blind corner over the speed limit. In fact, a bit later in the day we passed one such bus on its side on the side of the road. Our driver was pretty sure that bus had earlier passed us. That night, we set up our tents for the first time in four nights and prepared for yet another day in the truck, which will include a border crossing into Malawi so I'll finish this post here and update again from Malawi (internet depending).

Tanzania (pt1): Karatu – Serengeti – Mto Wa Mbu – Dar Es Salaam

We left Nairobi early with our new group and headed straight for the border of Kenya and Tanzania. After another uneventful border crossing, we headed for the city of Arusha, where we stopped for lunch and got some local Tanzanian Shillings. Our stop for the night was supposed to be Mto Wa Mbu but there was a threat of not being able to access the Serengeti due to the amount of rain the area had been getting so we pressed on for another town, Karatu. The trip to Karatu was slow, with single lane road in places, and roads awash in others. At one point, we watched a bus get swept off the road and end up on a very precarious angle, absolutely chock a block full of very scared people. We went through that section anyway, with our overland Intrepid truck negotiating the heavy flowing waters much better than the local bus had. Was a wet night in the tent that night.

The next day we got up and headed for the Ngorongoro Conversation Area in 4WD landcruisers. We entered the caldera (i.e. the Ngorongoro Crater) and started a game drive, spotting herds of Wildebeest, Gazelle, Flamingo, Hyena, Hippos, a couple of warthog, two sleeping lions (right by the side of the road) and some Elephants off in the distance. We ate lunch by a watering hole inhabited by hippo before exiting the caldera and heading for our campsite in the Serengeti NP. On the road between Ngorongoro and Serengeti, we saw the start of the southern migration, with hundreds of thousands of zebra, and wildebeest in particular, all amassing for the trip south. It was truly an incredible sight. We arrived late due to rain and bad roads but fortunately our tents were already set up for us.

Our first day in the Serengeti started off sunny and we were supposed to be going for a hot air balloon ride but the company lost our booking and we had to delay a day. Instead, we went for a game drive out in the Serengeti where we saw our first Leopard (along with a couple of cubs), lots more lions (including a pride of about 15), more gazelles, hippos, babboons, topi, impala and hyena. We came back to camp and chilled out for a couple of hours, before heading out for another safari drive, this time in pouring rain. We hoped this afternoon rain wasn't a sign of a wet morning for our balloon ride the next day. More big 5 spotting was done in our afternoon drive, with several giraffe spotted in additional to the usual stuff aforementioned. Unfortunately, the elephants were proving elusive, which is a shame because they grow bigger in Tanzania than other parts of Africa due to the amount of phosphorous in the soil. As a result, they also have bigger tusks.

Another wet night in the tent but woke up (very early) to another lovely morning. We were picked up from our camp site in the dark and taken to the hot air balloon launch site. A total of 14 people were to go up in one balloon with our pilot, Jason, being the present Canadian Hot Air Balloon Champion. We had an awesome time ballooning over the Serengeti as the sun rose. It was very peaceful and we spotted quite a few animals, including a herd of elephants that had three baby elephants amongst them. We came to quite a wet landing with the basket tipping over on landing, which we were prepared for. We were greeted with champagne shortly after – it was supposed to come out to the balloon but the 4WD got stuck. We later got stuck ourselves trying to get out of the thick muddy roads. After touch down champagne, we were taken to breakfast, which was a full English breakfast with silver service and more champagne. The table was set up in the middle of the Serengeti, about 100m from where we passed a pride of sleeping lions. It was a magic start to the day.

We met the rest of our group after breakfast and headed back out of the Serengeti, on our way back to Mbo Wa Bu, our camp site for the night. On the way out, we spotted more elephant (although too far away to shoot with camera), more impala, gazelle, zebra and wildebeest. We even spotted three Cheetahs enjoying a fresh kill. We also got another chance to see the animals preparing for the migration. I previously said there were hundreds of thousands but I think realistically there were millions. The countryside was filled with animals as far as the eye could see in every direction. It was simply amazing to witness. We arrived at camp late afternoon and chilled out, with everyone taking the chance to have a warm shower after two days in the Serengeti without hot water.

The next day we had a guided tour around Mto Wa Mbu (translates to Mosquito Creek), checki8ng out the local artists (source of the Tinga Tinga paintings), wood carvers and tried some of their banana beer (nasty stuff) and banana wine (potent but not as bad). We then headed back to Arusha before heading further on to Marangu, which is where many people leave from when they start their ascent of Mt Killimanjaro, which we could see the top and bottom of as we drove past, but the middle was covered in clouds. Our quick overnight in Marangu included an upgrade out of the tent and into a proper room with ensuite.

The final part of this section of our trip involved an early departure from Marangu and just over 12 hours in the truck driving to Dar Es Salaam. We didn't see much of Dar, other than the traffic. We arrived at our campsite, which was right on the ocean's edge. The next day we are due to depart to Zanzibar, which we'll cover in our next update.

Kenya (again): Eldoret – Nairobi

Not a lot to write here. We left Jinja and headed for the border of Uganda and Kenya. Border crossing was relatively straight forward with our guides doing most of the hard work. The rest of the day was spent in the truck making our way ultimately back to Nairobi. However, road conditions mean we couldn't possibly do the distance between Jinja and Nairobi in one day so we stopped back at Eldoret for the night. We'd previously stayed at this camp site so knew it had hot water and western toilets to use, which is always welcomed, especially by the ladies in the group.

The next day is officially the end of the first tour we're doing (Gorillas, Chimps and Game Parks – 16 days). We left Eldoret and had essentially another full day in the truck heading to Nairobi. Upon arrival in Nairobi, we had a few people staying, a few people continuing on different tours and a few people departing. We exchanged contact details and said our goodbyes to those leaving and to our guide, driver and cook for the tour.

That night, we met our new group for our next tour (Kenya to Vic Falls – 23 days). This group is 12 people, including Amanda, Hayley and myself from our Gorillas tour, plus 9 other Aussies with a new tour leader, Victor. After our initial meeting, we had a final dinner with those of our old tour who were still left at the hotel, said our goodbyes and prepared ourselves for our next adventure.

Next update from Tanzania, internet depending....

Uganda (again): Lake Mburo - Jinja

Our second day in Rwanda was a very rainy day which saw us doing not too much. Mostly hanging around at the hotel while the other half of our group trekked the (very wet) gorillas. We checked out a local textiles market but couldn't find anything we liked. The next day, we departed Rwanda and started our journey back to Nairobi as this part of our tour winds down. We spent most of the day in the truck as we crossed the border back into Uganda and headed for our camp for the night at Lake Mburo. Here we went on a two hour walking tour to look at the wildlife, including more Zebra, Impala, Topi (like an antelope), Buffalo and lots of Warthogs.

Another day in the truck saw us drive to Jinja, which is located on the River Nile right by Lake Victoria. Nine of the 15 people on our tour elected to do a full day white water rafting the next day, which saw us depart (after a few false starts and troubles with EFT machines) about 9:30am. We would negotiate 4 rapids in the morning and another 4 in the afternoon. On the third rapid of the day, our raft guide intentionally flipped us out. Most people ended up drifting down the river to be picked up by the safety kayaks and rafts that accompanied us. I managed to cling onto the raft as it went over and helped the guide go and get the others, including Amanda, who ended up on the safety raft with three other ladies.

The rapids were pretty gnarly – much worse than I'd experienced in Bali. On the fifth rapid, we lost two people who got thrown out and put through quite the turbulent ride through the rest of the rapid. On the next rapid, we discovered that our raft wasn't perhaps as inflated as it otherwise should have been as it folded on itself as we hit one of the waves and all of us, bar one lady who was sitting right at the back with the guide, were ejected into the water. We eventually got everyone back on and continued without too much fanfare to the last rapid, where I jumped onto another boat for a “hardcore” angle through, while the rest of our boat took the “chicken route”. About half way through the last rapid, our guide told us all to jump out and experience the “Nile Special”, which is basically negotiating the rapid wearing only your life vest as floatation. I got hammered as I “floated” through the rapids but it was quite the unique experience.

In between rapids, we were able to swim around in the Nile a bit, which was quite warm and refreshing, especially given it was a very hot day and we were all getting quite burnt, despite liberal application of sunscreen at every opportunity. We bought all of the professional photos taken of us digitally as keepsakes of the day. We wound down the evening in the bar (fancy that!). This was our last night in Uganda, we cross back into Kenya tomorrow.