I’ve just returned from one of the best trips of my life and I’m struggling to claw myself back to reality, the computer, the office and mundane routine.
An epic nine-day 2400-kilometre road trip through Zimbabwe with 14 friends in three cars that took in lush landscapes of baobabs, hills and fertile valleys, the fascinating ruins of Great Zimbabwe, some magnificent sunrises and sunsets, the wildest New Year’s party ever on a houseboat on Lake Kariba was pretty much non-stop fun.
The best trip organiser in the world, Getaway journalist Christie Fynn, took it upon herself to get together 14 people and plan our holiday. In the crew were Christie, Alison Westwood and I from the Getaway digital team, my boyfriend Joe Lawrence (web wizard and Africa-addicted Pom), Brian Masters from Open Skies Wilderness Expeditions (team comedian, owner of The Beast and expert bush guide), bubbly bush-lovin’ sisters Taryn and Andrea Campbell, Nick Catto (cool musician dude and bass player of Cape Town band Fox Comet), Derek Pollard (fisherman extraordinaire and well-travelled McGuyver type), Tristan Owen (magician web designer and expert cigarette-roller), Richard Good (holder of engineering phd, lover of tartrazine and driver of the lesser beast – the Subaru) and Jacqui Stephenson (climate change warrior of note).
After months of planning, emails back and forth and a couple of pre-trip drinking sessions, the group met up at OR Tambo on the 26th of December.
We did a bit of last minute booze shopping (love that you can buy alcohol on a Sunday in Joburg) before piling our numerous bags and camping accessories onto the roof racks of our safari Landcruiser (aka The Beast).
We hit the road, music blaring and full of ebullient beginning-of-the-holiday energy. A thunderstorm, nap and a couple of chapters of our books later, we stopped to stock up for supplies at the Checkers in Polokwane. Note to readers: Boxing Day is probably the worst time to shop at the Checkers in Polokwane – it looked like there had been riots in the aisles, particularly the one with all the braai stuff.
As dusk fell over the cicada-sodden Limpopo landscape, we pulled into Forever Resorts in Tshipise, our first pit stop. While setting up camp we managed to work our way through a coolerbox (or two) of much appreciated cold beers and then descended drunkenly on the resort’s dining room before ending the night sitting around a torch polishing off a bottle of whisky (which actually was a lot more fun than it sounds).
The next morning saw us get up at the crack of dawn, pack up camp and probably wake up the entire campsite as we drove to the gates blasting Christie’s Kurt Darren CD and spraying rusk crumbs everywhere (or maybe that was just me).
We reached the border in an hour, and had a surprisingly speedy and friendly crossing. A couple of donkeys on the road over the other side was the first indication we were in another country, but before we got too homesick, we spotted a Wimpy sign.
Generally, great toilet stops are few and far between in African countries. The Lion and Elephant Motel 80 km from the Beitbridge border post is just such a stop. The team indulged in much-needed coffees and ate cheese, tomato and avo sandwiches under a sprawling fever tree.
A couple of hours on the road later, we pulled into the Great Zimbabwe Hotel for a couple of beers before finding a campsite for the night. A couple of beers turned into an afternoon of beer, chicken umbrellas, swimming, games of cricket played with a dried palm frond, and lazing about on the hotel’s manicured lawns.
The hotel’s rooms were too expensive for our meagre budgets, so we headed to the campsite just outside the Great Zimbabwe ruins for the night. The guy at reception was so happy to see us that he gave us a discount. We ended up camping outside the rondavels on the property, as Alison and Brian decided to take a rondavel for the night (weenies).
Just as we erected our tents a massive storm rolled in and unleashed itself over Derek’s flysheet-less tent (the result of which saw Derek camp out on the floor of Alison and Brian’s rondavel). We saw out the rainstorm under a thatched boma by passing around bottles of red wine (couldn’t make it to the glasses in the car parked 10 metres away) and were rewarded with a beautiful double rainbow and soft pink sunset.
Simon (from conservation organisation Wildlife ACT) and Jon Morgan (a freelance bush guide) joined the crew that night, taking the team up to 14. They added a bit of adventurous flair to the group – Simon and Derek were sent to scout for ice at the hotel, only to return drunk, hours later, having met some locals who took them for a night out at the shebeen.
The next morning we wandered down to the Great Zimbabwe ruins and had a great tour with a guide we hired from the entrance for $3 a person. It’s quite sad that we were pretty much the only people exploring the ruins – they really are fascinating – but it was nice having them to ourselves.
After a sweaty pack-up we piled into The Beast and the Subaru for the next leg of our journey – Antelope Park in Gweru.
Antelope Park turned out to be the perfect place to chill out for two days. There was a bar that served cold gin and tonics with ice, three delicious buffet meals a day (welcome relief after two days of dwindling padkos), a peaceful setting of expansive lawns overlooking a still river, and some cool activities. The group went on bush walks, a lion walk (with two of the park’s lions from their breeding programme) and I headed out in the reserve on a three-hour long horseride with Andrea, Tristan and Joe, which was an amazing way to see wildlife (zebra, warthog, wildebeest). However, most of the time we sat around drinking G&Ts and sleeping under the trees on the lawn.
After our last day at Antelope Park, Brian had a bit of the military man in him when he rapped on our doors to wake us up at 3.30 am to get to Lake Kariba before the houseboat we were booked on set sail at 11.00 am. A sleepy crew sang along to the Beatles as the sun slowly rose, turning cottonwool puffs of clouds nailpolish-pink.
We munched on our packed breakfasts of toasted cheese sarmies while the beautiful Zim countryside rolled passed us. A toilet stop at Mulichi Stores about three hours from Kariba ended up with us drinking beers (at 8 am), and buying the awesome CD the shop was blasting (Hot Zambian Mixes) for $1.
The perfect Zim soundtrack having been installed in the beast, we headed towards the awesomely windy and scenic road to Lake Kariba. Over a rise we caught our first glimpse of expansive blue and excitement levels rose to a pitch, only to find their peak when we finally got there, unpacked the cars and were sitting on the deck of the 50-sleeper Zambezi Trader with beers in hand as we headed out into the middle of the lake.
The next three days were some of the most relaxing and fun of any trip I’ve ever been on. We filled them with fishing trips, wildlife and booze cruises on the tender boats, chilling out on deck with books and good conversation, card games, suntanning, swimming in the houseboat’s pool and of course drinking (mainly pink G&Ts, the only drink to have on a houseboat in Kariba).
New Year’s Eve was a wild night of partying on the boat – a blur of 50¢ shots, vodka and berry juice and bucket loads of sparkling wine (most of which was poured all over us), and skinny-dipping in the pool. The party officially ended when Brian, who had stayed up all night and went fishing with Derek at 5 am, finally went to bed with his rather seedy-looking Bloody Mary (made with boiled up fresh tomatoes) at 11 am.
After our three nights on the boat, we said some sad goodbyes when we got off the Trader and headed back for Harare. Christie had to catch a plane back to Cape Town for a wedding and speeding to get there, we garnered a $20 fine and narrowly missed another 200 metres down the road, when a friendly cop told us to ‘take it slowly’ instead of fining us.
Christie’s flight was supposed to take off at 17.15. We got her to the airport (taking a detour past Bob Mugabe’s heavily armed house and getting lost in Harare for an hour or two) at 17.30 but in true Air Zim style, the flight was delayed for two hours so she actually made it.
We stayed at one of Christie’s friends houses in the chilled suburbs of Harare, and headed out to an Irish pub with him for dinner that night. My stomach was grumbling and I started feeling a bit ill, but I thought I was just hungry. An hour later I was throwing up uncontrollably in the parking lot. I finished off the night in a clinic in Harare on a drip with suspected food poisoning. (The clinic was really decent, by the way – clean and modern with friendly and helpful doctors and nurses).
The next day, too sick to get in the car for the long drive back to Joburg, I flew back, bidding tearful farewells to the rest of the team as they headed off in the Beast and Subaru. The rest of the team made it back to Joburg safely, despite hitting a cow enroute (the cow was fine; the Beast’s indicator lights weren’t), and now we’re all (sadly) back at work, reminiscing over Facebook photos, songs from the trip and all the funny stories and trip jokes.
There’s nothing better than a road trip with friends – every moment of the trip is part of the adventure. For my first time in Zimbabwe, I couldn’t have asked for a better holiday.
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How we did the trip:
In Tshipise we camped at Forever Resorts. It’s a great campsite – large, grassy and shaded by trees with clean ablution blocks – on a huge resort with hot springs, a restaurant, shop, bar and tennis courts. In high season it costs R155 a site and R50 a person a night.
Contact: Tel 012-423-5600, [email protected].
The Lion and Elephant Motel, 80 km from the Beitbridge border post (find it right next tothe highway) has clean loos (for R2), coffees and teas and toasted sarmies and is a good place for a pit stop or to spend the night. Camping costs R25 a person and a double room is R350 a room.
Contact: Tel +44-127-331-1608, [email protected].
The Great Zimbabwe Hotel, just down the road from the Great Zimbabwe ruins, was a great place to spend an afternoon drinking beers and swimming in the pool. (The hotel kindly let us cool down in the pool and take over the lawn with our cricket game). The hotel also the best option for accommodation near the ruins if you’re after something more comfortable than camping or basic rondavels. Rooms cost R960 a person for a double room. The hotel has a lovely settting on expansive lawns (with great views of the valley) under shady trees, with a swimming pool, tennis court, restaurant and bar, and very friendly and helpful staff.
Contact: Tel +263-392-62274, [email protected].
Two hundred metres from the hotel are the Great Zimbabwe ruins and the campsite, rondavels and family rooms. At Great Zimbabwe we camped and stayed in a rondavel. Camping costs $5 a night a person and the rondavel (just a simple hut with twin beds and electricity) is $15 a person. You won’t need to book ahead – it’s unlikely to be full.
Entrance to the Great Zimbabwe ruins costs $15 a person a day. It costs $3 a person to hire a guide to take you around the ruins and the museum. It’s well worth getting a guide, because otherwise you don’t really know what you’re looking at. Our guide, an archaeology student, was incredibly interesting and informative. You hire guides at the entrance gate.
After Great Zim we stayed at Antelope Park, which is 8 km from Gweru in Zimbabwe’s midlands. Home to the African Lion Environmental Research Trust (ALERT) and the world’s first Lion rehabilitation and release into the wild programme, Antelope Park offers a whole lot of fun activities, like walks with lions, feeding lion cubs, swims with their elephants, game viewing in the private reserve on foot or on horseback, fishing, canoeing, boating and sundowner cruises. Antelope Park proved to be a great rest stop for us after a couple of days of long drives – we had a break from camping (we stayed in standard twin rooms with shared bathrooms for $25 a person including breakfast), swam in the pool, chilled out on the lawn under trees, chilled in the bar and ate lots of delicious wholesome food. Antelope Park also offers camping, river and island lodges and river tents. Contact: Tel +263-54-251949, [email protected].
We stayed on the Zambezi Trader in Lake Kariba. It’s the lake’s biggest houseboat (a 50-sleeper), with a large dining room, pool, two decks, two bars and lounge area. It costs $135 a person a night in a twin-bedded ensuite room with air conditioning. This includes three meals a day, fuel, fishing trips and game-viewing trips in tender boats.
Contact: Tel +263913021203, [email protected].
Brian Masters of Open Skies Wilderness kindly offered his car for the trip and drove a lot of the way to Kariba and back. While he wasn’t on a trip in a professional capacity, he ended up being a fabulous guide whenever we went on a boat trip or walk – his knowledge of the bush appears to be limitless. He’s also incredibly funny and an all-round great guy to travel with. His company offers tours in Kruger National Park and its surrounding reserves, and Brian leads walking safaris in Klaserie Game Reserve.
Contact: Cell 082-563-6210, [email protected].
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Budget for the trip
Accommodation:
Night one – camping at Forever Resorts: R310 for two sites and R50 each
Night two – camping at Great Zimbabwe: $5 each (Alison and Brian paid $15 each to sleep in a rondavel)
Night three – staying in a standard room at Antelope Park – $25 including breakfast. $15 for buffet dinner, $12 for buffet lunch.
Night four – Antelope Park – $25
Night five – On the houseboat -$135 each
Night six – Houseboat – $135
Night seven – Houseboat – $135
Night eight – Sleeping at Christie’s friend’s house in Harare
Night nine – Camping at Forever Resorts: R310 for two sites and R50 each
Total accommodation – R3559
Petrol and tolls – we budgeted R930 each (between 12 of us)
We budgeted about $150 each for the trip for booze and extras
Total cost: R5539
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Travelling in Zim
Despite what you may think of Zim, it’s a fabulous country to travel in. It feels totally safe, people are incredibly friendly and it’s mind-blowingly beautiful. Our border crossings were hassle-free, and the police on the check points on the road generally just waved us on. Apart from a couple of legitimate $20 speeding fines, we didn’t have any problems at all.
There wasn’t petrol available at all petrol stations in Zim, but we took two full jerry cans with us so we never got stuck.
Rands and dollars are accepted in Zim, but you’ll get a bad exchange rate on rands so use dollars if possible. We took all our dollars with us – not sure how easy it would be to change rands into dollars once you are in Zim. There’s not much change available, so take as many small notes ($1 and $5 bills) as you can.
Malaria
Kariba is a malaria-area. Joe and I were on Malanil, which is the most expensive of anti-malarials (around R500 covers the pills for four days in a malaria area). It’s not supposed to have any side-effects, but I had terrible headaches (although those could have been due to the G&Ts). Most of the other people on the trip took Doxycycline, which is a lot cheaper than Malanil but can make your skin sensitive to the sun; none of the Doxy people reported any sensitivity though. Only Richard took Larium (crazy man). He reported unpleasantly vivid dreams on each night he took the pill.
