Zimbabwe

---

Crossing into Zimbabwe has been no easy task! After being stamped out of Mozambique, we moved forward to enter Zimbabwe; visas are USD30 for everybody except the British, nice one Tony! USD55 lighter each we attempt to pass through immigration; no problem. Until they send us back into No Mans Land. We have to cross awith our truck, but then nobody has the right bit of paper to issue the truck to go through; some hushed talking is done, some US dollars shift from one hand to another and then were allowed to proceed, but at the checkpoint were ordered off the bus again! We crossed again into Zimbabwe and eventually the truck was allowed to join us. Apparently there were new road tolls that had to be paid, though the receipt was not available; apparently.

After this early morning adventure we went to an orhanage on the outskirts of Harare where I donated the money from my ridiculous haircut, various activities occured, Rhian went on a tour of the orphanage with two of the girls and showed them how to drop it like its hot, while I learned to play netball against some pretty energetic kids who did not take well to us literally moving the goalposts.

From there we went to a campsite called "birdpark" where the owner relayed a story of how a crocodile had killed a local guy who was fishing, his wife found the story hilarious and cheered the death of this poor guy; because he was black. After a couple of nights with this lot you start to wonder if Mugabe was onto something. Anyway, the next day we went on a boat trip out onto the lake where we got to within a few metres of a family of Rhino (they were white rhino, so presumably safe from our host). The hosts friends turned up and took us on a ride in their speedboat whixh was great fun, though the non stop slating of all things black started to wear a little thin after a while!

We left Harare and headed south to the Great Zimbabwe ruins, effectively a castle from around 1000 years ago where the king used to live and also kept his 200 wives! Its a pretty impressive sight, no mortar was used and the walls are over 20 feet high in places. Theres a lot to see in Zimbabwe and its a shame that the country has been ruined by the man who at first built it up.

After the ruins we went to Antelope Park in Gweru, smack bang in the middle of the country, it was here that we decided not to sleep in our tent and splash out on a nice river cabin, it was also here that we got into a cage with two lion cubs, watched seven male lions tear apart a dead cow and then took two adolescent lions for a walk!

It was also in Gweru that Mannschaft Sheissenhause FC was formed, a ridiculous name for a ridiculous football club, but it consisted of Two Englishmen, Two Danes, an Aussie and a Scotsman, as a team we managed to beat the local Lion guides twice, they failed to turn up for a third mauling, taking their chances with the Lions instead.

After Gweru we travelled first to Bulawayo where we were under threat from bush fires and then onto Victoria Falls. At Victoria Falls we took a 12 minute Helicopter flight over the falls that cost around &à dollars a minute, but was well worth the money, the view was awesome, it was also at Victoria Falls that Rhian convinced me that we should definately jump off a cliff and so it was that attached to nothing more than a rope we dropped 70metres towards the rocks that raced up towards us at a pretty ferocious speed, fortunately, the rope did its job and we then swung across the gorge for the next few minutes.

After Victoria Falls we head to Botswana, and Ill try to update that a little sooner as were now in Morocco and well behind on documenting such things!

---