Abnormal Zimbabwe

Jessica:
Here is an update of our journey from Malawi to South Africa. Enjoy!

Leaving Cape MacClear.

Little boy from Malawi side asking for kwacha at the Mozambique side of the border.
We had 260 kwacha which is only about 50 cents USD.
He was so happy to get it but when i asked him if i could take his picture,
this is the expression I captured. 

Sunset behind a Baobob tree on the way into Tete, Mozambique.

We rolled into Tete at sunset. We were surprised by how cosmopolitan it was. We had read that it was a dusty small city with not much to do. They were right about there not being much to do, but the city itself was pretty interesting. There were new European brand shops and new banks with ATMs, all of which looked as if they had been built very recently. They speak Portugese in Mozambique so it has a slightly Latin feel to it, which I loved from spending so much time in South America and Spain. We found a small hotel to spend the night and then walked a few blocks for dinner. The hotel owner said walking in this part of the city at night was safe! A burger for Daniel and falafel for me. Neither was very good unfortunately...but takeaway was the only thing nearby to eat.

(Aside: I would really like to go back to Mozambique when we are less likely to get shot at. It's a fascinating country.)

Almost to the Zimbabwe border and we spotted this enterprising man.

I don't know if it was the food or something else, but I woke up feeling just not quite right. We took a walk around town and down to the Zambezi river which was beautiful. Bought some beautiful apples in a small market. They were huge compared to what you can buy in Nairobi and delicious! At about 9:30 we were back on the road headed to yet another border crossing and then onward to Harere, Zimbabwe. I spent the entire day in the car fighting a headache.

The border crossing went very smoothly. As we were going through the last gate Daniel asked the guard what the speed limit was in Zimbabwe. We had not planned on traveling through Zimbabwe so we had no idea what the roads would be like. The guard said 120km/h,  but that the police didn't have radar guns so we didn't have to worry. That did not prove strickly true after Harare, but we made it to our destination in good time all while staying within the speedlimits.

The most difficult thing about driving in Zimbabwe is not the other vehicles or pedestrians...its the cattle crossings.

We drove in circles around Harare, following GPS directions, looking for restaurants and then lodging that no longer exsisted, but they had not changed or deleted their entries on Track4Africa. Frustrating!!! My knight and shining armor finally decided we'd had enough and pulled into a Holiday Inn so I could sleep off my nagging headache in comfort. It worked and the next day the headache was history!

Daniel:

Abnormal, yes, that is what Zimbabwe is all about.

Zimbabwe is definitely abnormal in a number of ways. The first is the volume of Abnormal loads of vehicles with construction equipment. It was unreal. The second was how busses and pickups were overloaded. And the third was the amount of traffic police and police check points on the road between Harare and the South Africa border.

One of many overloaded busses on the road between Harare and South Africa.

We left Harare early Friday morning. We had no plans on how far we would go for the day and decided to maybe stay another night in Zimbabwe before we cross over into South Africa. The road south is where things got interesting. It was nothing like the quiet road between Tete in Mozambique and Harare. First was the traffic police. If you think Tanzania was a little strange with all the police checks, then you have not seen anything yet. We got our first taste of it when we went through about 10 police check points in the first 2 hours and the freqency did not change after that. Around midday we were pulled over AGAIN for another police check, but this time the officer wanted to also see my fire extinguisher.  I was told that I needed a 0.75kg extinguisher. Mine had no capacity indication so I had nothing to argue about and got fined $50!

(Aside: There are very few if any speed zone ending signs in Malawi, Mozambique or Zimbabwe. If you are lucky you will see the back of the speed zone sign for the traffic going the opposite direction, and that was more than often our indication that we are out of the speed zone. But when we did not see those, we would make a judgement call that we were out of the speed zone section if we have not seen anything but bush for a few kilometers.)

A little cranky about my fine, we continued further south and noticed a few more traffic cops with speed guns. This was not a concern as I have faithfully been sticking to the speed limits. About 30min later we went past  a "cane hauling"  sign. We were still laughing about it since we could not see any sugar cane around when I got pulled over again. This time for speeding in a 60 zone. I paid the $20 fine and was wondering if their speed guns were even calibrated.  We went a few kilometers, again with no speed zone ending sign but a lot of nothing so I started accelerating again. I saw another 60 zone and decreased speed, being careful to stick to the speed limits, but was promptly pulled over for speeding. I asked how this can be since I know I was going 60 by the time I passed the 60 zone sign. I was informed that i was not out of the previous 60km/h zone yet. I made the mistake by saying that if that is the case then I have just paid a fine for speeding in the same zone. Big mistake, because now I am considered a repeat offender without showing that I have learned my lesson, and will have to go to court for a bigger fine. Then why was there another 60 sign? Apparently it was a reminder that it was still a 60 zone. How kind of them!!! Well, if that is the case then lets go to court. I will happily explain to the judge that they dont have speed zone ending signs in 90% of their speed zones. 10 minutes later, and a lot of back and forth about the fact that i did not know it was one terribly long 60 zone, the officer finally decided to just fine me another $20. Three tickets in less than an hour!

That was the end of Zimbabwe for me so we made a run for the border and got to Musina in South Africa at about 5pm. A quick stop at the local supermarket and we were ready for a Braai (South African BBQ with ugali), but again tracks4africa let us down. Neither the Caravan park or the second options we checked out existed any more. We noticed a sigh for a small lodge called Siesta. We called them with the hope that they could tell us about camping places in the area.  Nothing close by, but we could camp on their premises.  We ended up with a swimming pool and very nice build in fireplace next to it, all to ourselves for the night. Luxury camping.

Awesome accommodations at Siesta Lodge.