Category: Africa

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

I left The Old House jut before 8am after the owner rescued the girl from faffing about on her ancient Windows PC trying to sort the bill out.

The day started with a brisk headwind as you can see from the flags image and a climb of cause. Reaching the main road I came across a huge queue of trucks waiting to get into Zambia. I turned of and went down the remarkably quiet road to the Zimbabwean border post, passing large troops of monkeys at the roadside.

At the border there was a queue of 3 trucks 🙂 so I just biked straight to the office. I must say I love these border crossings on a bike! No queues ultra friendly guys and all very civilised I handed over my $55 and in return my passport page was filled with a bright sticker (I later learnt that for $10 more you can get a visa that admits you twice).

So on I cycled I was surprised to see several trucks carrying loads of refined copper cathodes obviously from Zambia. Another interesting thing was no trucks were carrying containers. Lots of elephant dung on the road which I wasn’t expecting. I didn’t see any but an oncoming car stopped to warn me of a herd crossing the road 1km away so they are close. The only animal I saw apart from a dead snake was a poor tortoise in the road, I chivvied him up to get to the verge before a truck got him!

Finally I made it to the Shoestrings Lodge/Backpackers must say it was quite a bit worse than I expected with an uncomfortable bed and need of maintenance 🙁 Plus  decidely expensive since Zimbabwe lost its currency to hyper inflation in 2008 (Ten Trillion notes are sold by the pesky touts in the street) they now use the US dollar.

I discovered it was $30 for entry to the falls but you could get a glimpse from the railway/road bridge so I walked there followed by a group of touts offering banknotes/carvings/bowls etc Maybe the train at $120 for a 3km ride and dinner would have been better 🙂

The Strava shows I rode 53.3mi with 1,152 feet of climbing.

My pics of the day are here

Sat 2 April 2016 to Sun 3 April 2016

The larger than life character KG (Kgaga) appeared with his Toyota Land Cruiser to take me and my bike to the camping place near Savuti. We had an instant rapport especially since he is a carnivore and I a vegetarian but both Leo’s 🙂

Strange to be sat in a vehicle all day and Moves scored the lowest step count ever for me 1,302 🙁 although bad old Fitbit made it 9,149 due to the vehicle bouncing around so much.

It was a splendid drive once in the National Park to see dazzles (not herds) of Zebras was excellent and several  journey’s of Giraffes. We came to the campsite as KG was errecting the splendid safari tent  I suddenly thought why not sleep in the tent I’ve been lugging around for 7 weeks. Talk about bad decisions it became literally a sauna! sweat poured of me for the first hour or two and condensation was dripping everywhere 🙁

Once camp was up KG said we were now going on a 3 hour safari around the park, a big surprise for me, my own personal safari with a leading guide 🙂 see the photographs for what we saw, humungous elephant with a stunning ending, a lazy full, lion who yawned in front of us like some house cat 🙂 I learnt from KG that if you are camping and hear a lion or other animal nearby do not open the zip! To a lion a tent is an inanimate object not worth attacking whereas a worried face certainly is. 🙂

I then cooked my pasta and sauce over the fire whilst KG had his steak and beef sausages (no pork here). and so to my sauna 🙁

At 5.30a, after a night listening to lions shouting at each other,  we were up again for another 3 hour safari with not that much wildlife to begin with although it was interesting to see other homo sapiens and guessing how much they had paid for the night according to their dress and photo equipment 🙂 KG saw the leopard tracks but alas no leopards. However, we did meet another couple of lions who just couldn’t be bothered to chase the nearby wildebeest and chose to do a bit of brotherly love instead.

Amazing tours and then we were off down the worst sand tracks, where we had a confrontation with a Honey Badger snarling and screaming at me, way more frightening than lions or elephants 🙁 thank goodness we were in the car, although the window was open. KG said it was because the car had become between him and his mate 🙁

At Muchenje I felt bad bombing down the tarmac road in the car 🙁 we finally made it to my previously booked b&b The Old House in Kasane on the banks of The Chobe.

Lots of pics here and here 

We did a total of 480km! (300 miles) and poor KG had to drive all the way back! although I guess it’s probably 2oo miles without the game drives.