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Victoria Falls
Entry 44 of 65 | show all | print this entry |
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Go to the following link for more photos to go with this section - you may need to cut and paste it into your browser to get it to work:
http://picasaweb.google.com/tree2222/VictoriaFallsZimbabweSi de
After my eventful evening with Jerimiah I retreated swiftly to the dorm and met my Aussie room-mate, Sarnia. We had a short chat before heading to bed....but had no chance of sleeping....Shoestrings backpackers hostel is not exactly quiet of an evening - our room was more or less next to the bar and the music was soooo loud, but thankfully it was switched off at midnight (blimey - how old do I sound!!?!!)
Thursday - had a bit of a lie in, waited for Sarnia to get back from 'walking with Lions' and we went into town to check out the markets. We got well and truly harassed - all the local boys wanting to swap their wares for our sandals / sunglasses / clothes....basically everything we were carrying or wearing, and also wanting to 'come back to our country' or 'be our boyfriends' etc etc as usual!!!
I had so many offers of wooden or stone game animals to swap for my sandals....but I don't reckon walking around with rhinos or giraffes strapped to my feet would be too comfortable!!!
I quickly realised why the woman at Jollyboys had told me to go get some US dollars. If you use your credit or debit card in any ATM machine or to pay for anything, you are charged the 'official' exchange rate which is really really bad. Most places accept US dollars, but stuff can be cheaper if you buy in Zimbabwian dollars so most people change their cash illegally on the black market. The black market rate is roughly 1US dollar to 220,000 Zim dollars. It's easy to be a millionaire here, but easy to blow a million in 2 minutes!!! I was trying to get rid of some small notes and managed to spend 8000dollars on 1 piece of bubble gum!!!
It's totally bizarre what's going on here....most days there is almost no food on the supermarket shelf and all the other shops are open but there's nothing in them - there's a huge clothes shop downstairs from this internet cafe with only around 20items in there for sale!!!
In the local 'Spar' there is really not much on the sheves either and you are not allowed to 'bulk buy' which basically means that you can't buy more than two of the same item!!
After our mission at the markets we went back to the hostel which despite the food shortages seems to be able to provide pizzas, sandwiches and baked beans (hoorah!!) pretty much constantly.....mainly depending on whether there is electricity or water!! It seems that both are turned off regularly for a few hours at a time in rotation around the areas - so one area will have it for a few hours, then another area, etc etc. This is not just a Zim thing, in Zambia they were always switching the water on and off willy nilly too!!
We spent the evening at the bar and I was hoping to meet some other people on my truck which was due to leave the following day....or even the driver who, according to the trip itinery, was supposed to be arriving and making himself known to me.....when noone appeared I asked the hostel manager if she was expecting the Bukima truck in ....and she said no!!! Apparently the Bukima truck which I'd seen in town earlier had been sold and was on it's way to Nairobi!! .....after the nightmare with the last overland truck I got in Africa when they left me and Greg behind, why was I surprised by this??!!
Friday - I spent most of the morning trying to track down my overland truck tour. Sarah at Shoestrings was really helpful and sent me down to the 'Backpackers Bizarre' tour place and the lady there tryed to figure out what was happening. I went back to the hostel and hung around waiting for news....eventually Gavin, the Aussie driver from another overland truck company, came and found me - hoorah!! It seems that Bukima had decided to off-load me onto another truck, but couldn't be bothered to let me know....or give Gavin my name or pick-up point, so he'd been hunting around town for 'someone' he was supposed to collect!!
There are only 8 people on the truck and 2 are bailing out in a week's time which is a bit disappointing - it would've been a bit more fun with a few more people, but there are 2 Irish lads who love to drink on board so I'm sure there will be some interesting moments!!!
There's Aussie Gavin driving, his American girlfriend Summer, a Scottish couple called JD and Ashley (who will be leaving soon), an Aussie guy called Daniel, Irish Chris and Ben, and me.
So, after I finally met my fellow passengers.....we went on a booze cruise :o)
....then we watched England get thrashed at the rugby in the campsite bar.
I spent my first night in the tent - the ground is soooo hard it's really flippin' uncomfortable - will need to go buy a matress of some sort.
Saturday - I think I arrived at Vic falls a bit too early, I didn't realise the truck was gonna stick around here for a couple of days.....not much left to do here so I just spent the day by the pool after I'd made some breakfast.....
Breakfast and dinner are included in the price of the truck tour but on days when you're parked up and everyone is really doing their own thing you just grab whatever food you fancy off the truck for breakfast......so I looked for something for breakfast....and found fish fingers, eggs, corn flakes, but only disgusting long life full cream milk to go with them, and some really not very fresh looking veg!! So, fish fingers and a fried egg for breakfast then!!!
The truck has been in Zimbabwe for a week or two so the supplies were a bit low!!
In the evening Gavin had managed to locate some sausages so we had sausages and mash which took nearly 2hours to cook on the charcoal stoves.
Sunday - Some of the other guys on the truck booked to do the gorge swing, abseiling and a zip-wire across the gorge up from the falls so myself and Summer went along to watch and take photos.
The abseiling and the zip wire didn't look at all scary, but the gorge swing looked horrendous!!! I was really happy with my decision not to throw myself across a 60 or so meter deep gorge on a piece of old rope!!
Just chilled out by the pool all afternoon, went to the internet cafe and went to help out with cooking dinner. We managed to sort out some relatively edible veg from the truck (stuff you'd definitely have chucked away days before at home) and made veggie soup, then Gav came with more sausages and we had sausage and mash again!! I'm sure the variety of meals will improve slightly once we're out of Zimbabwe......(fingers crossed!!)
......off to Botswana tomorrow morning :o)
Latest Comments (1)
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Colonial travels (reply)
Sep 28, 2007 05:05 EST by pepeelgordo
Hello Cat,
Would ask how things are, but they are clearly really rather good, non existent trucks not withstanding. Reading your travelogue is encouraging me to go to Africa again at some point in the future, but also reminds me that I need to save a bit first.... Where are you now?
I am back in England, and back in my apartment (which feels great), and of course searching for ... show all
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