City Life

Spent a few days in Blantyre (Malawi) which was basically another dusty African city - missed being by the lake after only a few minutes! The highlights of being in a city here are things like nice cafes, real coffee and doing internet (actually that is more of a frustration since it so ponderously, patience-testing slow!!). Also treated myself to another pedicure as Africa has not been kind to my feet at all. Other than cook group shopping and cooking that was about the sum total of our city experience in Malawi!

Next day we headed over the border into Mozambique and really enjoyed the countryside, think it would a very interesting place to go back and explore. We were literally just passing through on our way to Zimbabwe and bush camping so really didn’t see much other than the passing scenery. Got a pretty visa in our passports though!

Before we crossed the border into Zimbabwe we hid all our valuables and extra money so that any official that searched the truck wouldn’t take anything for a bribe or make us change all our money into Zim dollars which are completely worthless outside Zimbabwe. The other interesting thing that happened was the currency changed two days before we arrived so all the notes are new and now you spend only thousands of dollars instead of bags full of millions... even though no-one has the correct change and prices are still inflated for certain things. For the money situation there is a very strong black market here which is more than twice that of the official bank rate, of course you just have to be very careful where and how you change it as it is illegal and you need to have a small amount of official money so that you can show receipt at government sites… it really is a completely crazy system. No wonder people are leaving this country in droves - nearly all people that have talked to are planning to leave if they can ever afford it.

We finally made our way to Harare staying at a great campsite called the Rocks, aptly named for the large rocks that look precariously balanced atop one another.. again we partook in city things of coffee, internet and movies… though this time the coffee was disappointing and the movie called Freedomland was absolutely atrocious – even though it only cost us less that 50 cents it was so bad that would still have liked a refund!!! Harare looked like an interesting place actually and would have been good to explore some more.

We said a sad farewell to Maria and Rafa and had a very big party at the camp which was well timed as also same day that we welcomed our two newbies Patrick and Caroline. It was a great night that included lots of dancing (including on the bar!!), singing, drinking and general hilarity. It is really sad to have members of our group leave us when we have been living in each others pockets for over 7 weeks.

From Harare we went to the Great Zimbabwe Ruins which are the oldest remaining stone structure after the pyramids. We had a tour around the ruins and through the museum though must say my enjoyment was dampened by a splinter in my foot which refused to come out, however stoically limped my way around but was glad to sit down afterward. Said splinter did not come out for 3 days but eventually got it. The other thing that you have to be weary of here is the many acacia thorns which are so long that they go right through your shoes! That night was Phillipa’s birthday so we had a few drinks for that and a funny brownie mixture in place of a cake – basically there was nothing available at the shops due to the flour shortage here (along with petrol and many other useful items).