We got up and walked to the bridge at the border to be picked up by a shuttle from Jollyboys backpackers in Livingstone. We were able to get a free visa by getting a deal with the Zambian lodge - saving me $50 or so. On the way over the bridge we met a Japanese couple who were really travelling the world... they had stamps from all over the east of Europe, Iran and the middle east, India, South and Central America. They were taking two years and must have had quite a pace. On the way over the bridge we [View Full Entry]

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The train to Vic Falls the next evening was pretty uneventful. One of the quietest sleepers I have taken anywhere - mostly because there were not really any stops I think, but if there were I didn't notice. We had a first class cabin for the two of us with just two beds in, and it only cost $5 each. It wasn't that luxurious though - the washbasin was a nice idea, but its use had been subverted somewhere along the years since the mirrors were made - the RR of Rhodesia Railways etched on them. In Vic Falls we arrived [View Full Entry]

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We left Gweru for Bulawayo the next day. The bus station in Gweru was great - and it looked like you could get everything the lodge told us was unavailable right now because of the political situation in Zimbabwe - bread, gas etc. I wonder if it was illegal to buy bread on the black market? We caught a very loud bus back to Bulawyo - loud because of the local music blaring out of the home speakers installed at the front of the bus. The bus got us 90% of the way to Bulawayo before stopping seemingly because it had [View Full Entry]

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I left you all last in Bulawayo and we were just heading to Gweru to Antelope Park to see the Lion breeding center in the park. We got there by local combi which was no problem. Quite a few of the passengers were drinking lion lager on the way, but the driver wasn't as far as I could tell. We arrived in Gweru and waited at a local hotel for the pickup to take us to the park. The site was very beautiful - with little huts on the side of a river. Just a few hours after arriving I spotted [View Full Entry]

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We got to the Translux bus station in Pretoria in plenty of time, but they didn't announce the bus over the tannoy, so we were left in the waiting room with a large Indian family from Durban who were heading to Harere for a brother's funeral. Their bus was very late and they were very worried about missing the event. We found out we had missed our bus about an hour after it had left and were told to get on the Harare bus and switch to our bus at the border. The Harare bus driver told us that the other [View Full Entry]

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We stayed at a great new backpackers in Pretoria where I watched a very poor Champions League game - Italian football can be so dull... and then we caught a bus to Bulawayo Zimbabwe the next afternoon. I had a bit of a cold from jumping in the pool at midnight at Sondzela I think, but we weren't doing much apart from buses now anyway. [View Full Entry]

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Mbabane was a quick stop since there didn't seem much to do there and the next day (after walking around town for the afternoon and watching some Champions League in the evening at a local bar) we caught a combi to Joburg (Johannesburg). On the combi we met a lovely, beautiful girl from Botswana who was studying in Durban and chatted to her for most of the way. That was very interesting. Arriving in Joburg we walked to another bus terminal through a large market and caught another combi to Pretoria. [View Full Entry]

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From St Lucia we took the Baz bus in preference to changing bus 5 times on the way to Sondzela backpackers in Mliwane Game Park, Swaziland. This was an amazing place to stay - right in the Park with a pool and lovely facilities. On the first day there we took a walk around the park and saw many Wart Hogs, Wildebeest, and bucks. We kept our eye out for Hippos once we got to the lake since we hadn't really seen any close up in St Lucia to our disappointment. We did see a group of 9 or 10 in [View Full Entry]

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The greyhound would only take us to Richards bay, and from there we would catch local shared taxis/combis to St Lucia changing in Mtubetube. It was great to finally catch a combi and be crammed into the back seat with the locals. Seeing the people at Richards Bay as we were waiting to leave (the buses leave when they are full) was great. We started to really feel like we were in a country that had much more for us to discover the way of local culture. St Lucia was a great stop. On the way in we saw in the [View Full Entry]

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From Cinsta we headed up to Durban. We considered staying around the Transkeii, but both of us were keen to get further north and into Swaziland and further north into tropical Africa. We had a great time in Durban where we were put up by Wayne and Crystal. We had met Wayne on Ko Chang in Thailand and he had wanted us to get in touch if and when we got to Durban. He has a lovely apartment backing onto a small private beach in Umslanga (that is how you say it not how it is spelt). Wayne and Crystal took [View Full Entry]

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