Zambia and Zimbabwe

Leaving Uganda we took a flight to Malawi and spent a lovely week or so back at Butterfly space where we volunteered a few months ago. This was followed by long bus journeys to Lilongwe and then through the Zambian border and onto the capital; Lusaka. During the bus to Lusaka we were kept entertained by a man having a 9 hour conversation with himself. The humour stopped when the conductor had to take away the huge knife from the empty seat next to the man.

A few days spent in the British and Botswana embassies in Lusaka led us to the decision that I would have to fly home to change my passport. With all the pages full of stamps I wouldn't be able to sort it fast enough overseas to continue our travel plans. The three flights back to London were smooth and luckily my parents sorted most of the passport papers for me so that the next day I had a new passport. I stayed in London with a friend of Sammie's who was thoughtful enough to let me stay, but not so thoughtful when she locked me in the house to go to work. Instead of missing my flight I smashed the window above her front door and broke out of the house. All in all the new passport cost around £1500.

Once back in Zambia I reunited with a distraught and lonely Sammie and we headed straight onto a 7 hour bus for a relaxing couple of days in Livingstone. We then travelled through to Zimbabwe to start a couple of weeks travelling through the country.

We started this journey with a long bus trip to Bulawayo, where any plans to do anything were halted by a pretty intense stomach bug. So our time in the city was spent either watching football with a lovely old bloke who worked in our guesthouse, or sat on the toilet. Once recovered we travelled via Masvingo to Great Zimbabwe, the ruins of an 11th century city. It was a beautiful site with some impressive high walled structures. The final site was upon a hilltop overlooking the rest of the ruins, showing the scale of the settlement. 

A long trip to the far east of Zimbabwe was another classic African journey. The shared taxi we used for the last 100km saw 8 people squeeze into a 5 seater, 5 in the back and 3 in the front. This meant Sammie had one leg in the passengers footwell and one leg in the drivers footwell, meaning every time the driver changed gear he had to reach between her legs. Luckily it was an automatic.

The traumatic journey was completely worthwhile once we settled into a new hostel with the Chimanimani mountains set as a stunning backdrop. The next day we ventured on our first unguided hike of the trip, up the mountains. We were lost within 10 minutes and the ridiculous 'path' we ended up taking meant we never actually made it to the base of the mountain we were supposed to climb, but we had fun anyway. The next day we were back in the mountains but for a much more relaxed day chilling by the pools and waterfalls. $1 meals in the local village helped to make Chimanimani one of the best places we've been to.

The next stop was Harare, where we discovered Sammie had annoyed a blister beetle in the mountains and had some grotesque blisters down her arm. The doctor charged us $88 for the 30 seconds it took to tell us this information. This was about the only noteworthy thing that we did in Zimbabwe's capital city, although they did have a Nando's. From here we took the train back up to the Zambian border, where our mahogany vip sleeper cabin housed us through Zimbabwean countryside and past the elephants on the track. 

Back in Livingstone we had the much anticipated arrival of Mr and Mrs O'Connor, who had come out to visit their favourite child for a couple of weeks. Their first night was spent recovering from the 25 hour series of flights and getting a glimpse of Victoria falls via moonlight and rainbow at the Lunar moon opening.

The next day was quite possibly my favourite of the trip so far. We took a boat across the Zambezi to Livingstone island, then walked up to the slippery edge of the falls to overlook the 110m drop. We then swam across some surprisingly strong rapids to sit in Angels pool a few feet from the edge, an amazing experience. The stunning natural beauty of the falls and the overwhelming force of the water was only enhanced by the Brazilian model next to us wearing the skimpiest bikini I've ever seen. 

The rest of the day was spent walking around the falls, sliding across the bridge between the gorge and getting absolutely drenched by the spray of the water. The next day we explored the craft markets before playing football against some youngsters at a local orphanage. This was topped off at a local restaurant where a starter of caterpillar was followed by some amazing crocodile ribs.

The four of us then made our way across the Zimbabwe border alongside the baboons and warthogs who also seemed to be crossing. Here we spent another day walking around the opposite side of the falls which was equally impressive and had some wildlife to spot as we walked around. 

The next day saw us enter into the Zambezi river on a raft, going down the grade 5 Rapids within crocodile infested waters. The currents were strong enough to throw people out of the raft on 3 occasions and completely flip the boat on another. Despite his son nearly drowning at one point, my dad claimed this to be the best thing he's ever done.

This was the end of our time in Zambia and Zimbabwe, so we left Victoria Falls in a taxi to the Botswana border.