Having booked Kirsty on a flight out of Harare on Saturday, we sadly had to leave Zambia today and start our journey south into Zimbabwe. We woke early, to pack up, as we were unsure how long the 360km journey would take.
We left Mvuu at 8am and headed along the dirt road to the pontoon. The pontoon was on our side of the river and we wasted very little time crossing the Kafue River. We could have crossed the border into Zimbabwe at Chirundu, close to our connecting with the main tarred road. This is, however, a major truck crossing and the area is filled with trucks and tankers waiting to clear customs. We decided to travel another 100km to the border post on Kariba Dam. The road was in great condition and we encountered very little traffic. We have become seasoned African border crosses and we arrived in the Zambian office, one of the most modern ones so far, armed with pens, passports and Carne Insurance papers.
From the Zambian office we drove along a road with a heavily barbed wire fence to the dam wall. Kariba Dam is massive and it was exciting to cross the concrete wall that holds back millions of litres of water. The Zimbabwean border office took a little longer as they requested to see our police clearance papers and the inspector took a while to get to us. Fortunately, we had organised this in S.A. because apparently we would have been held up for a long time without one – it was the first time on our travels that one had been requested from us. All in all, we had a wonderful and friendly experience from all the border officials.
For our first 20km in Zim, we wound our way through a beautiful, mountainous area with the dam below. There were a number of little harbour areas, filled with house boats, the place looks idealic – I would love to do a house boat trip on Kariba; another item to add to my list of places to visit and things to do in Africa.
We have been so impressed with the condition of the roads and towns in Zim. Certainly going by today’s experience, these are the best roads (besides Namibia) we have encountered. Our destination for today was Chinohyi Caves. We would have liked to have spent the night on Kariba but being unsure of timing, we wanted less distance to travel to Harare on Saturday, as Kirst needs to be at the airport by midday.
As I have said previously, our places to stay are based on word of mouth, web sites and travel books, such as the Lonely Planet. The problem with Zim is that we have had trouble getting information from any of our sources and so we are travelling blind, as it were. We stopped at the first accommodation we came across – The Chinhoyi Caves Motel. I had joked with Graeme that it was about time I had a lodge night in a bed – be careful what you wish for. The rooms were US$20 per person per night for bed and breakfast and US$8 for camping in the cave grounds with a smelly toilet and no hot water – so I got my bed, a very hard one, in a very tired family room that had seriously seen better days.
Just as we had settled down for our evening drink we heard an almighty explosion that rattled the windows and almost had the 5 of us diving for cover. The staff had a good giggle at us, clearly used to the frequent explosions, they explained that it blasting from the nearby mine.
We had a fairly decent dinner and retired to our hard beds.
Chinhoyi Motel
No comments:
Post a Comment