New Ambassador Hotel Harare

... around my asking for it massive handbag. Supermarkets were a little more full than those we experienced elsewhere. Things quite expensive though, a large pack of crisps US$1.50, medium pizza $7.50, coke $1, small block of cheese $5. You can get things in London cheaper than that. Really don't know how people manage to survive out here. Once picked up by the truck we drove straight back to the campsite where I swiftly grabbed a cider and locked myself ...

... it was also perfectly acceptable to use Pounds, Pula or anything else that had a known and stable value. The last time I was home 18 months ago, the shelves were literally empty, this time everything was available, just really really expensive. It was actually more expensive than London at times! Its still difficult to get the basics in life such as fresh milk and decent bread but if you want good wine, imported chocolate, etc etc etc, its easy, as ...

... Catch Zupco (government owned buses) to Malawi; bus leaves 2 hours late. The seats are ratty and there is trash all over the floor, but you adjust pretty quickly. What was originally supposed to be a 7 hour bus ride ends up taking 2 days after we spend 2 hours wandering around Harare, pciking up and dropping off various government officials, then are sidetracked in Mozambique by highways that would not pass as a driveway in most of the US. Huge ...

... back of their mothers, tyres and desert gas stations decorating artistically this whole organized mess. I eventually found a combi (little bus) at the "Entumbane bus terminals" which went straight to the Falls. The principle is that there should be as many people in it as it could possibly contain and even more if possible. This took us more than 6 hours included the tyre problem, the fuel supply and the several stops for people to go in or go out. Even when it as ...

... for example, when I am already treading water, watching water go over the edge, and I'm being told to "swim hard" across the rapids I'm thinking "Well I can swim but I'm not the best swimmer! Am I going to die?!?!?"). When we made it to the spot we got to lay on the edge as the guide loosely held our ankles. This spot was discovered by the brother of our guide, who is a fisherman. He learned how to "safely" cross ...

... Falls had been full to bursting just three months earli**, only a magnificent gorge was to be seen. It is just unfathomable that such volumes of wat** could simply 'disappear'. In the aft**noon I went to the market selling ev**y shape and size of African animal imaginable. Aft** hours of negotiating I bought a huge smiling hippo with a big bum, and a mum with baby elephant. The following day I made a final attempt to negotiate the iron wood elephant eating a ...

... a softball question; the type of question asked to break the ice before launching into a question of greater significance. In the North American culture of brashness and informality, it was not an unexpected one. Mandela looked at the reporter and said "Young man, how old are you?" The reporter, a bit flustered, replied "I'm 32 years old." Mandela peered at him and said, "Well, in my culture, a man who is 32 years old does not ask a man who is 82 years old such questions." He ...

... of Simba and absolutely bloody freezing having woken up in our tents to frost on the ground every day. Next stop Bulawayo, via the Great Zimbabwe Ruins. The ruins are an old city strategically place on a hillside, after which former Rhodesia was renamed (it means something about a house, but I can't remember what). They are the oldest and most complete ruins in Africa - dating back to between 1100 and 1500 - about the same time as the Incas in South America with ...

... cubs or 'n's' this afternoon but apparently one of the scouts who worked near the horses had been hit by a Buffalo!! Obviously they needed to sort this out as the guy was pretty badly injured by all accounts with a broken leg, internal injuries and head injuries. Pretty scary stuff on my first day in the bush! It certainly embeds into you that we are working in a natural habitat and a dangerous one at ...

... at the surface, to be poorer than Malawi. The people lived in very simple huts, often entirely made from grass or straw, thatched around a timber frame, with plastic sheeting under the thatch to keep the rain out. Rain, however, appeared to be a problem for all the wrong reasons here - the land was scorched yellow with drought, and fields of failed maize showed that the rains had not been generous this year. Nearly every river we passed through was either completely dried up or ...