All too soon it’s time to leave the lovely Kande Beach and head towards our next sample of paradise. In between we have a couple of drive days and a couple of other changes.
Dickson has us up at 5.00am for his last day, driving to Chimmweme and it’s close to dusk when we arrive and pitch our tents, after which we have to clear out Kifaru and get dinner.
Our new truck is Eeyore and what an impressive sight he is. No canvas, drop down, roll up sides with scratched plastic windows you can’t see through. There are proper windows, which open and close individually. Yay. We will no longer have to choose between being suffocated in the stifling heat or being blown away by the wind and dust. There is space between the seats and the seats are more springy. Eeyore has a big, powerful engine to get us all the way to Cape Town and comes complete with his own driver, David, who might have dropped straight from the front page of GQ magazine.
But, as we move stuff from one truck to the other, we soon realise the benefits we had with Kifaru. Under truck storage space on Eeyore is more limited and accessing the food baskets a little more complicated. In the cabin, that feeling of spaciousness means we have a much smaller fridge (no room for drinks!) and only one set of seats has a table for playing card games, etc. Our secret safe for valuables is much smaller and more difficult to access. Even our on board library is much smaller. The door into the truck is much higher off the ground making it harder to climb in. I am grateful I no longer have my stitches in my knee. And although we will be grateful for the proper windows on long drive days, these smaller ones with proper frames will make game drive viewing and photography more difficult than with the big, open sides we had with Kifaru. In the Masai Mara and Serengeti these had proved invaluable with a truck full of people and cameras. We will need a little time for adjustment.
It doesn’t take us long, however, to appreciate the benefits of proper, opening windows or comfy seats as we drive along. That said, for anyone caught napping on the back seat without their seat belt, the improved suspension increases the risk of air time (time in the air when your bum and the seat are no longer connected) and finding yourself catapulted into the seat in front (or worse, the gap between the seats!) should we hit an unforeseen pothole, road hump or particularly bumpy road surface. Most of us learn this the hard way!
Today we cross from Zambia into Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean currency has devalued so much that the paper became more expensive than the note value. Now we have the opportunity to become instant billionaires or even trillionaires. But the accepted currency in use today is the US dollar so the notes have only a tourist value. Negotiations are undertaken, deals are done, full sets acquired to show the folks back home for the princely sum of 1 US dollar. As we complete the exit paperwork in Zambia, Kanyo sends us off to Zimbabwe saying he will catch us up later. Now, normally the transit from one country into the next is but a few metres walk, but little did we realise that here it means traversing a mountain. As we make our way along the narrow, winding mountainside road it seems like miles before we reach the next valley and the enormous dam that traverses the Zambezi and the 2 countries.
David stops the truck so we can walk across the dam and up the hill to Zimbabwe immigration. As we cross, Sally and John look down the steep walls calculating that this dam is as high as the bungy jump they have planned to do in Victoria Falls and trying to envisage jumping off a bridge that high with only a rope tied to their ankles. Why would you?, I ask myself. John looks pale at the thought.
Walking across with us are a group of ladies wearing bright red and white uniforms with white bonnets. They have been to a big church conference in Zambia and are making their way home. They are cheerful and chatty as we walk together exchanging views on the church and education in our various countries. Arriving at immigration, entering Zimbabwe proves more long winded than any other border we have crossed and it takes us some considerable time to get processed, causing some consternation to the representatives of Zimbabwe Farmers Trade Union, who are stuck behind us in the queue. Thank goodness we are still a small group.
Thank goodness too, that we only have a short distance to travel to the camp site from the border. David takes another small, windy road, hugging the mountainside and climbing steeply as it winds its way around the contours of the headland. He hesitates at a crossroads but we are on the right road. We know this because we spot the sign on the steep drive as we drive past it and on down the other side of the hill. But we have no way of communicating with him in the cab and, it is only when the road narrows to a track with heavily protected residential housing either side that he realises we have gone wrong. It looks impossible for such a large truck to execute a 3 point turn on such a narrow road with ditches either side. It seems equally impossible that we can reverse back up the same narrow windy road. But impossible is not in David’s dictionary so he successfully reverses and executes a perfect 3 point turn in a short entrance way.
Arriving at the camp site perched high on the hillside above Lake Kariba and the nearest village, we are lucky to have the whole place to ourselves. There is a bar and a swimming pool, which they are filling as we arrive. Kathryn doesn’t wait to get her cozzie out of her bag but jumps in fully clothed to cool off.
Dickson has us up at 5.00am for his last day, driving to Chimmweme and it’s close to dusk when we arrive and pitch our tents, after which we have to clear out Kifaru and get dinner.
Our new truck is Eeyore and what an impressive sight he is. No canvas, drop down, roll up sides with scratched plastic windows you can’t see through. There are proper windows, which open and close individually. Yay. We will no longer have to choose between being suffocated in the stifling heat or being blown away by the wind and dust. There is space between the seats and the seats are more springy. Eeyore has a big, powerful engine to get us all the way to Cape Town and comes complete with his own driver, David, who might have dropped straight from the front page of GQ magazine.
But, as we move stuff from one truck to the other, we soon realise the benefits we had with Kifaru. Under truck storage space on Eeyore is more limited and accessing the food baskets a little more complicated. In the cabin, that feeling of spaciousness means we have a much smaller fridge (no room for drinks!) and only one set of seats has a table for playing card games, etc. Our secret safe for valuables is much smaller and more difficult to access. Even our on board library is much smaller. The door into the truck is much higher off the ground making it harder to climb in. I am grateful I no longer have my stitches in my knee. And although we will be grateful for the proper windows on long drive days, these smaller ones with proper frames will make game drive viewing and photography more difficult than with the big, open sides we had with Kifaru. In the Masai Mara and Serengeti these had proved invaluable with a truck full of people and cameras. We will need a little time for adjustment.
It doesn’t take us long, however, to appreciate the benefits of proper, opening windows or comfy seats as we drive along. That said, for anyone caught napping on the back seat without their seat belt, the improved suspension increases the risk of air time (time in the air when your bum and the seat are no longer connected) and finding yourself catapulted into the seat in front (or worse, the gap between the seats!) should we hit an unforeseen pothole, road hump or particularly bumpy road surface. Most of us learn this the hard way!
Today we cross from Zambia into Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean currency has devalued so much that the paper became more expensive than the note value. Now we have the opportunity to become instant billionaires or even trillionaires. But the accepted currency in use today is the US dollar so the notes have only a tourist value. Negotiations are undertaken, deals are done, full sets acquired to show the folks back home for the princely sum of 1 US dollar. As we complete the exit paperwork in Zambia, Kanyo sends us off to Zimbabwe saying he will catch us up later. Now, normally the transit from one country into the next is but a few metres walk, but little did we realise that here it means traversing a mountain. As we make our way along the narrow, winding mountainside road it seems like miles before we reach the next valley and the enormous dam that traverses the Zambezi and the 2 countries.
David stops the truck so we can walk across the dam and up the hill to Zimbabwe immigration. As we cross, Sally and John look down the steep walls calculating that this dam is as high as the bungy jump they have planned to do in Victoria Falls and trying to envisage jumping off a bridge that high with only a rope tied to their ankles. Why would you?, I ask myself. John looks pale at the thought.
Walking across with us are a group of ladies wearing bright red and white uniforms with white bonnets. They have been to a big church conference in Zambia and are making their way home. They are cheerful and chatty as we walk together exchanging views on the church and education in our various countries. Arriving at immigration, entering Zimbabwe proves more long winded than any other border we have crossed and it takes us some considerable time to get processed, causing some consternation to the representatives of Zimbabwe Farmers Trade Union, who are stuck behind us in the queue. Thank goodness we are still a small group.
Thank goodness too, that we only have a short distance to travel to the camp site from the border. David takes another small, windy road, hugging the mountainside and climbing steeply as it winds its way around the contours of the headland. He hesitates at a crossroads but we are on the right road. We know this because we spot the sign on the steep drive as we drive past it and on down the other side of the hill. But we have no way of communicating with him in the cab and, it is only when the road narrows to a track with heavily protected residential housing either side that he realises we have gone wrong. It looks impossible for such a large truck to execute a 3 point turn on such a narrow road with ditches either side. It seems equally impossible that we can reverse back up the same narrow windy road. But impossible is not in David’s dictionary so he successfully reverses and executes a perfect 3 point turn in a short entrance way.
Arriving at the camp site perched high on the hillside above Lake Kariba and the nearest village, we are lucky to have the whole place to ourselves. There is a bar and a swimming pool, which they are filling as we arrive. Kathryn doesn’t wait to get her cozzie out of her bag but jumps in fully clothed to cool off.
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