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Beyond Fawlty Towers
Nyanga was the Zimbabwe town set in beautiful countryside ravaged by wildfires, our hotel nestled in woodland with neat lawns and its own trout pool. Apart from a suspiciously empty car park there was at first nothing to tell us that we were about to step into a place so badly run that its comedy of errors would lead us to dub the place “Beyond Fawlty Towers”. Just how many issues can one hotel cram into three nights? It begins in reception, where for the first time in all of Africa we are met with straight faces instead of welcoming smiles. Having confirmed in advance that we could pay by…
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Westward To Botswana: Dirty Shoes And Itchy Feet
Before we start this next post, a shock update. A first for us, we’ve decided we’re not going to complete this trip and we’re going to head home early. There’s a variety of reasons, maybe we’ll detail them when we do a “trip conclusion” post later. We’re cutting the adventure short, which means not doing Namibia, nor, regrettably, Cape Town – but those places remain very much on the wish list. So we’ll be heading home to England in early October rather than mid November which was the original plan. Well maybe that way we’ll have time for another trip before Christmas…. Ever since we began travelling together with a…
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Don’t Look Back In Nyanga
A couple of weeks back when we were first experiencing Zimbabwe in the town of Victoria Falls, I made the comment that the cash crisis was driving the country towards a cashless society and that Visa is accepted everywhere. I so regret saying that now – it turns out to be a completely misguided statement based on a tourist driven micro economy in one single town, and not in the slightest bit true of Zimbabwe as a whole. In fact it’s probably the biggest load of bo***cks I’ve ever written. We’re finding this out the hard way. The near six hour drive from Great Zimbabwe to Nyanga first takes in…
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The Lost City Of Great Zimbabwe
We make our way along the dusty path from the sparsely populated car park having read something of the history and importance of the place we are approaching, but with little idea of just how engaging Great Zimbabwe is going to be. Listed by The Guardian newspaper as one of the world’s great lost cities and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1986, this is a place of mystical charm and fantastic workmanship from centuries back. Such is the importance of this site that is from here that the newly independent Zimbabwe took its name (Zimbabwe = houses of stone). It’s not uncommon when entering a lost city to let…
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Bulawayo #2: The Blue Whale And Three White Rhinos
In attempting to describe Bulawayo, or even the part of Zimbabwe we have seen so far, it’s difficult to know where to start. Away from the hectic centre, the long roads out of the city are bordered by a suburbia filled with those who are clearly doing okay, big houses in large plots surrounded by security fences and filled with decorative plants. Yet the roads themselves are pitted, potholed nightmares evidencing lack of both maintenance and investment, many of the vehicles on them equally badly cared for. The neighbourhood where we visit Dave who provides Michaela’s much needed haircut (Michaela: one of my best travel haircuts EVER, if not THE…
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Travelling Back In Time In A City Called Slaughter
You know how sometimes a place name captures your imagination and sounds and feels exotic? For some reason Bulawayo hits those notes for me, though with no real reason – we don’t know much about it and it doesn’t exactly have the ring of a Kathmandu, a Timbuktu or even a Casablanca, yet somehow it’s been calling. Which is how we come to be being driven by the ever reliable Kenny to Victoria Falls airport to board a small but smart Air Zimbabwe plane to the country’s second city. One thing we have learnt about it is how to say it, and it’s definitely not the “Buller-way-oh” pronunciation that the…
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Across The Border: From Zambia To Zimbabwe
All we ask Caroline at the lodge for is a taxi to the border. What we get is a driver named Steven who does that bit, but also chaperones us through the slightly confusing Zambian exit system and then drives us over the Victoria Falls Bridge as far as Zimbabwe immigration where he points out a smiling guy in a blue T-shirt. The smiling guy is Kenny, and before we know it we’ve skipped the line, got the obligatory stamps in our passports and been driven to the very door of our next stay. Expert courier service for the price of a taxi. It’s how it is here: service repeatedly…
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Livingstone: Thrills And Adrenaline At The Victoria Falls
We arrive in the town of Livingstone with high expectations and an even higher level of excitement, yet as we are welcomed into our digs by the ultra friendly staff we have no indication of just how many thrills the next few days will bring. Once in a lifetime experiences are, unbeknown to us, lurking in the trees. Our first glimpse of the waters of the Zambezi is as the mighty river swings around to come alongside the road, its calm waters feeding lush greenery on either side in total contrast to the surrounding tinder plains. The surface looks solid, glasslike, mirroring the cloudless sky, serene enough to kid the…
