Garda Lodge Bulawayo

... pretty much bare. Well bare for us anyway, I'm sure they were fully stocked compared to previous times. In desperate search of meat pies we wondered the streets until we came upon a Bakers Inn....yipppeeee pies. On the way we discovered a rather drunk S&M yelling out to us "where's the truck?" our reply "totally the opposite direction". Hahaaaaa Saw the other Oasis truck coming up the street so Jamie took the opportunity to stand in the middle of the road ...

Ian is quite possibly the tallest and skinniest man we have ever met, but somehow he has managed to muster up the courage to spend his entire life "playing" with Rhinos in the Zimbabwe bush. He is an expert in the Bushmen and Zim history. His family had been in Zim since the 1890's, or according to him "pretty much since the first people came over here". We arrived in Bulawayo in the early evening and found our hotel without power, but ...

... to the other & then stand up & nose dive back in. Elly was screaming in my ear the whole time. It was hilarious but pretty scary at the same time when you got pulled under. Just my luck aswell I got the most playful elephant so we spent more time under the water then above it. Our handler was loving it - the more we screamed, the more we went under. Fantastic! I forgot to mention it is freezing here - so I know how you're all ...

... Finally it was decided that we should jump back in the truck and try to catch up and flag down a bus that had already left. The boys zigzagged across Harare until we caught up to the bus, hauled out my backpack, and I finally dropped in a seat and was on my way. In Bulawayo, I was met by Auntie's daughter and son-in-law. They drove me around town looking for train tickets or buses running to Victoria Falls that day. No luck. After a quick lunch, it ...

... especially when they seemed to get a bit agitated and nervous. Hmm. luckily, no-one was charged or ended up with any horn related injuries, and we got some pretty cool photos. It was also v interesting talkignt o wally about the state of the country. He's a white zimbabwean who has always lived there, and you could see how in despair he was. The inflation there is 1600%, and unemployment is 90%. People often wont go to work cos public ...

... of the complex of great Zimbabwe were built as a royal palace over a period of a few hundred years around 1100 and 1400. The place was really impressive! A hilltop fortress and huge stone enclosure in the valley below were certainly the highlights of the hundreds of structures in the area. Because tourism has slowed down so much in the recent past, for much of the day we were the only people at the site! Today we saw Matopos National Park. The park has rather ...

... moral eels, parot fish, trigger fish... the list goes on and on. It was a great day and well worth the effort to get there. We even got to eat fresh baracuda our boat guy caught and cooked over a fire for us. What a day. From there I headed to Chomoio which is north of Vilanculous towards the Zimbabwe border. I spent a night there staying at this crazy lady's hostel. It was called the Pink Papaya and literally everything was pink... everything. She was wearing a pink ...

... through. After our little cultural excursion, we headed for the national park - home to Zimbabwe's largest population of black rhino, but most well known for its rock formations and caves containing San wall paintings dating back 2000 years. Philippe was a fantastic driver - not only did he successfully stay on the left (wrong) side of the road, but he was able to negotiate very difficult unpaved roads, getting us up and over boulders, through sand, and ...

... and the history behind the place was unreal! It was a pity that the lady that gave us the tour of the place had a severe body odour problem. We hit the road again and we reached Chipangali at about 17.00. We met the co-owner of the place, Nicky, and she gave us a walking tour of the orphanage. They have everything here from birds to lions to rhinos. When we were in Kruger we didn't see a rhino in the wild, but when we came here we were able to touch the rhinos and rub them... absolutely ...

We were here at a camp for one week of debriefing. We met up with the "Safari South" team for a time of classes and fun as we wound down from our summer experiences. It was fun to dress up at the end of the week for our farewell banquet - we broke out all the African clothes we could muster.