The drive into Zimbabwe was beautiful. Yet again, I assumed my favorite
contemplative position of standing at the front of the truck with my iPod
in. This time I actually had my
head out the window for the 45 minute drive in. (I understand why dogs stick their heads out the windows now
needless to say). It was great :)
We arrived at our campsite for the next two nights – the infamous Adventure Lodge. After a quick turnaround, we were off
to Victoria Falls – potentially the most beautiful natural site I’ve even
seen. I wish I could describe how
breathtaking it was. The whole
experience was surreal. Within
five minutes of being near the falls, we were soaking wet because of the water
in the air. There were quite a few
viewing points so we got to see the falls from many different angles. There are some things that I’ll claim I
can do justice to in describing, but this is not one. I’m just going to let you see the pictures. While you’re looking at the pictures,
just imagine you’re getting soaked while the rumbling water pours over the
falls behind you. That’s my
attempt to make you feel like you were there too.
We spent a good amount of time at Vic Falls, but after a few
hours it was time to head back. As
Hannah and I led the way, we casually turned a corner to legitimately run into
a family of warthogs. From that
point on, we ran into a few impala and a group of baboons. I am scared to death of baboons
so it was really difficult (for me) to get past them. They’re just so humanlike and aggressive! I feel like if I were to get attacked
by any animal, it’d be a baboon.
Don’t ask why, I just really don’t like them. They’re too human-like for their own good!
On the walk back to our campsite, I got stopped by two guys
on the street who tried to trade my shirt (I was wearing a bathing suit top and
was holding my shirt so it wasn’t like he was asking for it off my body haha)
for a carved hippo. The one said
he wanted it for “his sister.”
I’ve learned that basically everyone who sells souvenir-like items in a
trading area “has a sister” and she always seems to wear the same size as
me. Hmmm… something’s fishy… Regardless, I chose to keep my shirt
(it was a UCT shirt so it’s memorable) and save the hippo for another lucky
tourist.
One of the interesting things about Zimbabwe is that they
use the dollar as a currency! Who
would have known?! It was so
bizarre to suddenly be somewhere where dollars are used again. Luckily I brought some with me! You might think that things would still
be less expensive than they are at home, but that’s totally wrong! It was like we were in Hawaii and
everything was marked up 5X the regular price. I’m sure it had to do with us staying in the town where
Victoria Falls is, but still. I
was shocked at a local restaurant serving $60 salads. Needless to say, I decided to stick to a smoothie and an
appetizer for that meal.
Once back at the campground, we came across an unfortunate
discovery – the place was infested
with ants. I don’t think you
understand what I mean by infested.
They were everywhere. The second you stepped on the grass,
tons of ants began crawling all over your feet and up your legs. We couldn’t even eat dinner at our
campsite because ants were all over the chairs.
Luckily, my tent mates were super smart (slightly sarcastic tone) and figured that as long as
we keep all zippers totally zipped and move them up high, ants won’t reach
them. I do have to say, we
probably did the best out of everyone else (it wasn’t our fault that it was
hopeless). By the time it was time
to go to bed the first night, four tents had already been “attacked.” It was so bad that those people had to
get rooms at the hostel (this place doubled as a hostel and campsite). Our tent has resorted to “fire drills”
every time we went in and out of the tent. Within a matter of about five seconds, the tent would be
unzipped, shoes would go off and stay outsides, all four of us would jump in, pile on top of each other in
the process, and frantically zip ourselves inside. I have to say the worst part about it was that we had to
keep the windows zipped shut and it was SO.
HOT. 4 bodies, 1 tent, hot
Zimbabwe air = uncomfortable sleeping conditions.
We had minimal ants by the time we went to bed, but come
sunrise, our tent was quickly gaining a few visitors (how that happened we will
never know). Once it was breakfast
time, Ty, Hannah, and I weighed our options and decided it would be best to
grab our food, eat it inside the tent (it was still better than sitting on the
ant infested chairs), then quickly evacuate everything.
The whole thing was hilarious. We made such a scene!
Quickly hopping out of the tent in our pajamas, zipping it up, running
with high knees through the grass to the food, grabbing it, sprinting back
(with high knees), and attempting to jump into the tent with our food. Within about two minutes of breakfast,
it was clear that we were too late.
We were under siege!!
Operation take everything out of the tent quickly followed our
departure.
Once we had stripped the tent of everything and brushed ants
off our stuff (some things we literally had to douse in water to get the ants
off), we were ready to begin our day.
Although it wasn’t the smoothest of starts to a day, Hannah and I
followed the ant ordeal (or should I call it ant ordeal #1…) with a one hour,
$20 full body massage!!
Apparently, this hostel realized they could make quite a fortune off
inexpensive massages and Hannah and I were all over it! It actually was a really great
massage. I fell asleep at the end
though and Hannah awkwardly had to wake me up. Also, it was basically a couples massage… So there Hannah
and I were on our massage tables in Zimbabwe… It was really funny.
Good thing we’re good friends so it wasn’t awkward.
After our great massage, we decided to go to Zambia for the
day! (Never thought I’d casually
decide to drive into Zambia for the day).
One of the guides for another group there was driving in and he kindly
offered a ride to six of us. It took
us about 20 minutes to get to the border so he offered to take five of us and
our guide Kristin for the day. I’m pretty sure we were the only white people at the border.
On the Zambia side of the border, the guide who had driven
us and our leader, Kristin, had to stay inside to register the car. Things started to get weird when they
were gone for 15 minutes… then 20… then 30… then 45… Unsure of what to do, we continued to sit in the boiling car. We saw them go into some back room with one of the Zambian
officials and they didn’t come out for so long! At least we were entertained with the random man who started
to preach to us through the window and yell at us about how he was a great
father to his daughter? We were
definitely getting worried, but luckily Kristin and the other leader emerged
and we were well on our way! Our
destination was a local market where we’d be able to trade things for Zambian
souvenirs. On the way we almost
got into an accident because of an elephant in the road. It was so close to our car!! We could actually see a whole family
behind the trees. This was by far
the closest I’d ever been to an elephant in the wild.
One of the things that I noticed right away was the extremely
poor quality of the roads in Zambia.
I asked the guy who was driving us about them and he said that Zambia
had made a deal with the Chinese in which the Chinese would bring in workers to
create the roads and Zambia would repay them with minerals/other natural
resources. The roads hadn’t been
maintenanced since they were made, which is why they were is such a bad
condition. I really wish I had
taken a picture of this! But it
basically looked like cars had driven on the asphalt while it was still
wet. There were pretty intense
grooves and waves in the road.
While I’m sure you probably have many images of what
“Africa” looks like in your head, I’m pretty sure that the tiny bit of what I
saw in Zambia would fit one of those images. Cars had a mind of their own, there were tons of people on the
streets, and the whole area was bustling with street vendors, bottle shops, and
grocery stores. We were on our way
to a local market that was known for its trading. I had a few successful purchases.
I traded a $4 tank top I had gotten in Cape Town and a few
Pula (we didn’t have any of Zambia’s currency, but they would take all
different currencies) for a really nice art piece made of wood and
bamboo-looking sticks. I also
traded a pair of flip-flops (one of which was broke), a half eaten pack of Ice
Breaker mints and some Pula coins for a touristy necklace that I sent to my
parents. I’d say that was a pretty
good trade.
After Hannah and I spent about 45 minutes wandering the
streets on the hunt for ice cream (we’d been eagerly craving it for about two
days now), we came back to the car empty handed. Nowhere took cards and we didn’t have any of the local
currency. Also in real stores they
didn’t accept Rand, Pula, or American dollars. It was time for our Zambian adventure to come to an end, so
we got back in the car for our return back to Zimbabwe.
The trip wouldn’t have been complete if we didn’t need to
pay off border patrol to get back into Zimbabwe. We did everything, had the necessary passes/visas and all
and for some reason she just would not let us go without paying her. She was asking for R20 to let us
through and no matter how much we argued, she just continued to shrug her
shoulders as if nothing could be done until we paid. We resorted to giving her $2. It wasn’t a bank-breaker, but still! It was just fascinating to witness
little bits of corruption like that (although I know things like that really
happen everywhere).
We were in a bit of a rush to get back – we had a sunset
cruise down the Zambezi River at 5:30!
On the way back, we stopped at a Zimbabwe market where I got a really
cool tapestry! After a quick
wardrobe change, our whole bus headed out to the sunset cruise (or as we
started calling it – the booze cruise).
The Zambezi River is the 4th largest in Africa and it flows into
Victoria Falls. This cruise was
another safari cruise and we were able to see quite a few crocodiles and
hippos! The cruise combined with
the sunset was absolutely stunning.
The reason we called it the booze cruise was because we got unlimited
alcohol for a flat fee. Just being
the resourceful college students that we are, this meant we wanted to get the
most for our money. Needless to
say, we just had a great time and had quite a few laughs. When cruising on the Zambezi River….
We got back right in time for dinner. Norman made an awesome shepherds pie (I know, Mom. I liked shepherd’s
pie. I don’t know what’s happening
to me!) and we all relaxed and reminisced on the ridiculous events of the
previous booze cruise.
At this point, we had taken all our tents down and the
Adventure Lodge had so kindly put all of us into hostel rooms because the ant
situation was so bad.
Unfortunately, they put us into rooms by tent. So 1 tent got 1 room. Most people had 2-3 people to a tent, but us being the wild
bunch that we were had 4 to our tent.
Meaning 4 people (me, Hannah, Ali, and Ty) to a small 2 twin bed
room… Slight issue at hand. We figured we’d work it out later.
Our chef, Norman, was from Zimbabwe and wanted to show us a
“night on the town” Zimbabwe style.
So although we were exhausted from the day of activities, we rallied and
headed out to a local bar. I felt
pretty safe because Norman knows the area very well and we were with him the
whole time, but let me tell you – this was quite
the experience.
We rolled in, about 10 girls and Norman, to a bar full
completely of black guys. Maybe
there were four Zimbabwean girls there? Maybe. Moral of the story is sea of black men and a few random
white girls walk in. Needless to
say, we got a LOT of attention. We
danced a lot and laughed as we aided each other in basically running away from
Zimbabwean guys who wanted to aggressively dance. One guy was asking us where we were from so I briefly told
him we were studying in Cape Town.
His response went something like: so can I get your number because I
want to see you and be with you. I
told him I had a boyfriend to make him leave (in which case I responded by
going somewhere else) which resulted in him seeing me right as we were leaving
about 10 minutes later saying he could fly to see me in Cape Town. Umm ok Mr. Zimbabwe man… no? Although I’m sure my dad is panicking
right about now in reading this, I promise it sounds a lot sketchier than it
was. We were in good hands with
Norman and Kristin. Hey, I
would’ve missed out on the most questionable club/bar experience of my life if
I hadn’t gone out that night!
Also, we were laughing because that is by far the only time in life we
would ever wear headlamps and camping clothes with no makeup to go out.
Once we got back to the Adventure Lodge, we were faced with
our sleeping arrangement situation.
Ty and Ali had both stayed in so they were each occupying the respective
beds. Hannah and I were pretty
much at a loss for what to do. So
we did the logical thing, which was to postpone figuring it out. We were pretty sweaty from the bar/club
so we showered. Neither of us had
a towel so that was a funny situation.
Oh, and in the process we broke the bathroom door. Well, it actually fell on top of me but
was stopped by the wall behind me.
I’m guessing I’m not strong enough to pull a sliding door off its
hinges, so I’m going to assume it was already broken before the hulk that I am
ripped it off the wall. After we
had silently showered, dried off using our pajamas, and broken a door, we
figured we’d go to bed. It’s not
like we were waking up in 2 hours for a 4am departure or anything. I decided to sleep in Ali’s bed and
Hannah slept head to foot in Ty’s bed.
It was quite the makeshift situation. After about 30 minutes (I’m guessing) of getting in bed, I
hear Ty and Hannah all of sudden slapping themselves – they were covered in ants. THEIR BED HAD BEEN INFILTRATED BY THE
ENEMY!
Somehow, Ali and I had gotten lucky enough only to have a
handful of ants on our bed.
Theirs, however, was swarmed
with ants. Naturally, they decided
to go in search of a place they could sleep instead. While I wasn’t there to witness, the story goes as follows:
Our hostel was having a big party at the bar that night so a
lot of people were still there and there was loud music. Also at the bar are a bunch of
cushioned lounge chairs. So they
each found chairs and literally sat down trying to sleep there in the middle of
the party. Needless to say, that
didn’t work for long. Next, Hannah
was under the assumption that ants wouldn’t leave the grass for concrete
(wrong.) so they tried to sleep on the cement next to the edge of the pool. That didn’t work. Finally, they went to reception where
there were two couches and two reception ladies watching TV. Of course, by the time they finally
fell asleep it was time to get up.
At 4am, we all packed up everything and headed back to Kurt
(our truck). We had a long drive ahead of us and we all took
it amongst ourselves to go right back to bed. At this point, I just decided to sleep on the floor. I’d come up with a pretty good setup in
which I’d sleep in my sleeping bag, using my neck pillow and sweatshirt as a
pillow, and wrap my shirt around my head (in a turban-esque style) to keep the
rising sun out of my eyes, with my iPod in to drown out the noise of the
truck. After about 5 hours of
driving, we were all awake so we killed the time with a few mafia games
(classic mafia). We arrived at our
final destination (or should I say near our final destination) around 2. Unfortunately, the camp site was
through a ton of trees and had a really small driving path so good ole’ Kurt
struggled through. Our windows
were open so we kept having to avoid getting smacked in the face with
branches. Eventually we just
decided to close the windows instead of ducking and covering.
We had a quick lunch of leftovers on the truck (nothing like
frozen shepherd’s pie and plain noodles doused in Sweet Chili Sauce to satisfy
your lunchtime needs! We were
running late for our last safari so we jumped out of the truck and got into our
lovely safari cars. We were
heading into Matobo National Park that is known for its rhinos. It was a nice combination of driving
and walking and we got really close to the animals!
The park had the most breathtaking rock structures. This one is a picture of the Mother and
Child rock. I didn't take this picture, it's just from Google. It’s incredible how
these things form naturally! After
the safari, we headed back to our campsite, had a fabulous steak dinner, and went straight to bed. The 4am mornings were brutal.
On to the final day!
We got up early yet again. It was Easter morning and Kristin had surprised us with
lollipops inside of our lockers!
Although it doesn’t beat the Easter bunny’s Easter basket, a really
early church service, and some type of family gathering, it was nice that it
was at least acknowledged.
Needless to say it was an anticlimactic Easter. I repeated my sleeping arrangement and
by the afternoon we arrived at our last destination :( . This was a huge campsite where
many families had had the idea of camping as well. And the best news?
THERE WAS A HOT POOL HEATED FROM A LOCAL HOT SPRING! Aka my dream come true.
We spent hours in
the pool and had a really great time.
We enjoyed a great final dinner and spent the night in the pool,
drinking wine, and relaxing.
Obviously, our tent had to take things to the next level so we made a
last night bucket list including some of the following activities:
1) Worm
fights
2) Tell
2 truths and a lie
3) Discuss
highs and lows of the trip
4) Think
of the ultimate April Fools joke (we got Ty muahahaha)
5) Take
a human pyramid selfie
The list went on, and sadly we didn’t finish everything, but
we put up a good fight! My new
mentality is that it’s good not to finish everything so I have something to
look forward to when I come back.
I guess next time we all share a tent together we can finish our
list? Who knows. It could happen.
We drove into South Africa and made it in time for our
flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town.
It was an incredible trip and we were all bummed it was over! Well, here’s the end of the spring
break saga! It was quite the
journey.
I only have 2 weeks til I’m
home and although I’m super excited to see my family (and Agathe) I’m so
incredibly sad to be leaving.
South Africa’s been too good to me! I just finished my first final exam (South African History)
and felt pretty good about it. It
was a two hour, three essay exam.
I wrote all about the Xhosa cattle killing, Tiyo Soga and his role as an
African Nationalist, and the interconnectedness of Cape colonial society –
probably all things that sound like gibberish unless you’ve been in a history
class for the past semester. My
next exam is a week from tomorrow so hopefully I’ll have a bit more time to
catch up on this past month on my blog!
