“To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse…” – Sterling Hayden, Wanderer

Perhaps foolishly, we’ve both left secure employment for the unknown. The goal is to spend more time traveling Africa, and to have more time to dedicate to family, friends, and health.

That is all well and good, but what are we actually doing and how are we doing it? I write now from Kommetjie, South Africa, a beach suburb on Cape Town’s southern peninsula. We are here welcoming a new addition to the family, a Land Cruiser 78 Troop Carrier, aka a “Troopy”, so called because they are often used by the military or police to carry troops. Sadly, this means we’ll have to sell the Honey Badger, our long-serving 79 series Cruiser.

The Honey Badger has been a loyal companion for 120,000 kilometers through Africa, but we have learned over time that for long term travel, we’d benefit from the ability to retreat inside once in a while. Jenny and I have forgone dinner to sit in the cab reading books while wind and sand whip around the car in the desert, or have eaten a meal of cheese and crackers in our roof top tent while waiting out torrential rains.

The Troopy

A Troopy will also give us some modicum of privacy if we’re camping in more densely populated areas, or, if it’s been raining, the chance to get out of wet clothes before climbing into bed – a luxury not afforded by a roof top tent that you enter from a ladder on the outside.

To the uninitiated, a Troopy is a 78 series Land Cruiser, while the double cab pickup is a 79. This means that otherwise, the vehicles are pretty much the same. For those that hark for simpler times and vehicles that aren’t like rolling computers, this is the vehicle for you. Remarkably, this model year 2022 Troopy has features that are cutting edge. In 1990. Such as:

• Solid axles front and rear. The axle housings are the diameter of trees.
• No factory radio at all – just a plastic blanking plate.
• The 1HZ engine is naturally aspirated with a mechanical fuel pump.
• “Four on the floor” – a low-range gearbox with that second stubby lever down low, not a push button on the dash.
• Factory front and rear differential locks.
• Ash tray included.
• One cup holder. Clearly, this is a work vehicle and not designed for couples.
• No armrests.
• Some luxuries have been added; it has air conditioning! Power Locks!
• No audible beep when you don’t buckle your seatbelt, open the door with the keys in the ignition. We told a friend about this, and he looked at us in disbelief – “That is freedom,” he said with longing. He drives a Tesla.

There are a thousand vehicles more refined and more comfortable, but this simple workhorse is unfussy about fuel quality, road quality or pretty much anything else. Because of these traits, there are thousands of 70 series Land Cruisers throughout Africa, used by the safari industry, police, military, rebel forces and NGOs alike. A 70 series Cruiser is a bit like lingerie; you pay more to get less.

How are we doing this?

Enough of all that. How does one cast off the yoke of employment and jaunt around Africa in an expensive yet archaic vehicle for the heck of it? Family money? No. Stock options from high powered jobs in tech? No. Just the usual way, the boring way. We spent less than we earned and saved a lot of money. We were both fortunate to work in niche fields and had good jobs, and by buying less house than we could afford, we were able to keep our old condo and rent it out. While we’re over here, we have rental income, savings, and will also do some part-time/contract work for our old jobs. That’s the secret recipe. Let’s hope it works.

What is the plan

When we bought the 79 series Cruiser in 2017, we bought it used from a rental company, and it came all set up to travel and camp from day one.

In that car, we spent one night in a guesthouse and then drove away and camped for the next three weeks. This time around, the Troopy is a blank canvas. With only 25,000 km on it, basically a new car and more or less stock. The only modifications it has are a bull bar, rock sliders, and off road tires – BFG KM3s, 235/85/R16s. Not 285s, we’re not animals.

To buy it, I found the car online and had an agent check it out. They test drove it, had a 3rd-party inspection done, and made a final recommendation. We made the purchase via Wise (more or less a wire transfer, but with a better exchange rate. Referral link here), and our buyer handled the registration.

Last September I flew into Joburg, picked up the car and drove it straight to Cape Town to Alu-Cab to have the roof chopped off and a roof conversion installed. If you’re unfamiliar with these – think a Westfalia type camper van pop-top, as opposed to the roof top tent that just bolts to the top of the car. This is the critical feature that allows us to transform the Troopy from a utilitarian bush taxi to a small off-road camper.

South Africa is perhaps the best place in the world to get this sort of work on a vehicle done. Workshop rates are inexpensive, and some of the best 4×4 products are made here.

Arriving in Cape Town in late January, you’d hope that we had a whole plan in place to get the car converted to bush-ready ASAP. We didn’t. We have a good idea of what we want done, but this is a sizable project, and the vendors that do this sort of work here are not big on email and remote customers.

Walk through their door, and they’re great. But try to plan an overland vehicle build remotely – near impossible (we tried). A cottage industry of 4×4 vehicle consultants is borne out of this inefficiency, and you can pay a sort of 4×4 general contractor to manage this for you. This service is expensive and doesn’t always go according to plan, so we’re doing this ourselves.

Tales of vehicle builds gone wrong are many. We heard of people who dropped their car off at a reputable shop in April and it was still not done in October. Another went to a famous 4×4 outfitter and has had their vehicle there since October, and it is still not done in February, and what has been done has been sub-standard. Dangerous electrical installations are common, we know of one person who’s vehicle caught fire and burned completely, a total loss, due to an uninsulated wire installed without a fuse. Patronizing shop owners telling us what we want are many, and delays are near certain.

Not all adventures in Africa are elephants and river crossings. Instead, we’ll be navigating the scrum of traffic in Cape Town, haggling over build details, prices and schedule in the industrial part of the city and running a million errands.

Our daily lives look a lot different here than they do on our usual trips in the bush. We’re staying in a lovely cottage near the beach, courtesy of Jenny’s good friend Sarah. For the time being, we are house and dog sitting while Sarah is away. The two terrors that run our lives are Stan and Steve, two Jack Russells full of personality.

Kommetjie, our little beach suburb, started long ago as a small fishing village and spot for weekenders to visit from Cape Town. Now there’s no commercial fishing and it’s pretty much a surf and beach spot, primarily for South Africans, though some international tourists also find their way here. Here in the Cape’s “Deep South”, as it is known, there is a boho vibe behind the lentil curtain. It is a part of Africa very different from most of the country and the Africa we’re familiar with further north. Oat milk lattes and vegan menus abound. The Mediterranean climate is lovely, though the Cape’s famous blustery wind is common.

To get to Cape Town, where most of the 4×4 outfitters and vehicle shops are, it means a trip “over the mountain” via Oukaapseweg, a winding pass over a saddle in the Steenberg mountains. Going over the mountain is something of a commitment to leaving the bubble of the Deep South and diving into the grittier side of Cape Town. Instead of the haunts of pretty people and tourists at Sea Point and Camps Bay our stomping grounds have become Ottery, Brakenfell and Stikland, where suppliers, workshops and warehouses abound.

We landed on January 21st. We hope to be camping in a mostly converted vehicle by the end of March. Is it possible? Stay tuned to find out.

In the morning, a young man looking for his livestock stopped by. We exchanged some greetings but were otherwise stymied from communicating, the language barrier being too high. He asked for food, a request we would normally demur. But here we were, camping in his homeland and his space, and we did not want to be the tourists who come in and take over, resulting in resentment from the populace. So we offered a couple of potatoes, and he was very happy with this. Perhaps this is how the begging culture is started, perhaps we are suckers, or maybe he was just hungry. 

A little over two hours later, we arrived at the village of Iona. This outpost has long been settled, the seat of the chefe de posto, the local government representative. It’s a village with a couple of dozen buildings spread out on the scenic valley floor. We saw an ambulance, a water point and general trappings of an organized village. There were some power lines here and there, so perhaps there is a generator running at night.

There is a stretch that is quite steep, and Jenny spotted me as we crept down slowly. In the back of my mind, I’d wondered what we’d do on these steep sections if we got to a washout. Backing up a steep section would not be easy. At these tricky sections, Jenny scouted ahead to make sure we wouldn’t paint ourselves into a corner we couldn’t get out of. Finally, the land flattened out, and I was able to loosen my grip on the wheel a bit.

The land is parched here, no sign of recent rain, and we picked up speed as the road smoothed out. Across more sandy riverbeds, over more rocks, passed some abandoned huts, and finally, we approached the Cunene River. 

The road spills onto the riverbank just opposite the Okahirnogo River Camp that sits on the Namibian shore of the river. It’s an incongruous sight, having just spent days and days driving into the remote hinterland of Angola, with hardly more than the odd mud and stick hut to be seen, and, ta-da! Here was a lovely lodge. Mind you, this lodge is quite remote itself, way up in the very top of Namibia, but to us it seemed like the big city. 

We followed the track along the river, through some soft spots that had recently flooded and up onto a rocky plain. Here we could look over and see a handful of simple huts, and we got a startled look from some locals as we waved down from the top of a rocky hill.

The precise GPS coordinates given on the African Park’s map for this campsite seemed a bit oddly placed, on the top of a rocky rise (no road in sight here), exposed to wind and with no access to the river, as well as relatively near this settlement. We backtracked a bit and found a spot just where the road meets the river and settled in. 

She set to work and cleaned out almost all of the debris. With our fingers crossed and a bit nervous, we started the engine. To our great relief, the needle plummeted back to normal range and we were back in business. 

The views continued to astonish as we moved closer to the coast. Fairy circles pockmarked the landscape and hour after hour, we drove through the amazing landscapes of Iona. In the distance we saw a couple of ostrich, shimming black dots in the heat, and the odd springbok.

Picking our way along we saw our first real wildlife, a handful of oryx. They were handsome, but also skittish, and left us in the dust. To our surprise, a few hills later we saw a huge herd of oryx, the biggest we’ve ever seen, over 100 animals. They did not like the looks of us, and took off at pace into the plains.

On the banks of the Cunene, the river rushing by muddy and brown, we picked a spot to bush camp for the night and settled in. Rain threatened but never came, and the evening in camp was wonderful. Our day had been filled with adventure, and we sat by the fire, relaxing and wondering what the next day would bring. We were camped by a path, and twice a local passed by, only giving us a nod without stopping. 

Our last improvement was an upgrade to our camp kitchen box. This would be the 3rd generation for us. When we got the new canopy we decided to try a new kitchen box with a lift out floor, where we could stow the house battery underneath and get it out of the engine bay. The first version of this concept was a bit of a false start, I will spare you the frustrating details. This time around, we had the proper box installed by Safari Engineering, but we are particular and elected to do the inside ourselves. Jenny had made the various shelves, brackets and cutlery holders all at home, and we packed them all in our luggage. A day was spent at Urbancamp drilling, bolting and riveting all in place. It is not quite perfect, but a huge improvement from what we had before. 

Chitake Springs is within Mana Pools National Park, but it is an entirely different experience than the riverfront, where most visitors spend their time. The Chitake area is dry miombo woodland, comprised primarily of jesse bush and mopane, punctuated by fig and baobab trees. The springs themselves lie in bottom of the usually dry Nyadara riverbed are the only water source for many miles. 

Because of this, all the resident animals must come to drink from the springs, and a pride of lions and other sundry predators have set up shop, knowing that their prey must come to them.  Reportedly, there is a large pride of lions in residence who kill daily to sate the hunger of their large numbers. 

Chitake is raw African bush; hot, dry and infested with tsetse flies. There are four campsites in the area. There area has almost no roads for game driving. Instead, it is a place to go and be in the wild and see what you can see at the springs. We bumped into the guide we had met at the lions again, Stretch Ferreira, and when he heard we were headed to Chitake he advised us to find the fig tree on the embankment above the springs and to have patience and sit quietly there all day, to let the game come to us. 

The brave might muster themselves to do their own bush walk, but here the scrub is thick and visibility poor. A pride of lions might be behind any bush. In 2010 a camper was killed by lions here, memorialized by a small plaque on the fig tree by the springs. In that case, the victim went a short distance from his fellow campers to shower in privacy at dusk. Certainly, this story loomed in our minds as we camped at Chitake. We always stick close to the vehicle, particularly at dusk and darkness.

We couldn’t get this notion of seeing game on foot out of our heads, but we also weren’t confident enough to waltz up to anything, leaving us with this idea that an opportunity was passing us by. Clearly, walking with the Zimparks rangers was not going to get us there; Allan, our ranger from the morning bush walk, had studiously avoided going near any animals, and this echoed what Stretch had told us to expect as we had chatted the night before (he was one of the vehicles camped out at the lions in the grass the evening before). Allan had mentioned that some guides do close approaches, calling out Stretch by name, who we had learned was famous for getting his clients very close to elephants. Allan shook his head in disapproval, noting that Stretch’s luck would eventually run out, and either he or a client would get killed. 

I can’t comment on that, only that Stretch has been in the bush since the Bush War in the 1970s, and Allan has been a ranger for five years. I will say that upon hearing that, our first reaction was, “Well, I guess we better sign up for a Stretch safari before anything happens!” Thus, the seed took hold that perhaps we might try to join a professional safari after our time at Chitake. 

Driving out to Chitake is a routine affair, head back towards the gate and suffer through corrugations, continue inland at the Nyakasikana checkpoint and take the turnoff (perhaps even signposted!). 

About two kilometers of bush track brought us near the springs. The road was a bit rougher and went through a couple of dry dongas. As we approached the first campsites before the river, we saw a tragic sight: a single Land Rover being loaded onto a flatbed, no doubt with some terminal condition while there were two Land Cruisers parked in camp. 

We drove on, down a steep riverbank, across the dry sandy riverbed and up the other side, which seemed like it’d be rough going if you had a trailer. This brought us to the famous fig tree, and we stopped to peek at the springs and see if there was any action, scoping out our surroundings for the next few days. There was no action at the springs, so we headed up to our campsite at Chitake Baobab.

The Chitake Baobab site lies about one kilometer south of the springs themselves, on the top of a hill adorned with about a dozen mature baobab trees. There is no specific campsite per se, but plenty of logical spots to set up. The general lack of scrub and brush meant no tsetse flies, which is nice; I have heard others being terrorized for their entire stay. There are no facilities at all. 

We still had some time, so we continued to explore the area. Chitake No. 2 was reportedly booked, but nobody was there so we stopped in for a look. This camp is the closest to the springs but lacks the same atmosphere (and shade) of camp No. 1 and the baobab site. 

Given that it was pretty quiet on the game front, we found ourselves timidly cracking the door of safari on foot. From camp No. 2 we took a brief stroll along the embankment above the river. This area has a lot of scrub brush around, and we found ourselves on very high alert. Like a puppy let off the leash that won’t stray far from its owner, a magnetism drew us back to the vehicle in relatively short order.

Chitake Baobab is ideally located for sundowners, and if you camp here, you can expect to get a visit from the campers from the other sites that have no such view. The Land Cruiser guys from camp No. 1 stopped by and they were having a great time. The Land Rover casualty was the culmination of a many-year rivalry between friends, and they were triumphant that they’d finally won, with a token acknowledgment of their friend’s misfortune (and no doubt great expense) of having to get your vehicle recovered from Chitake Springs.

Camp for the evening was magical. We had Mexican mini burritos for dinner by the fire, surrounded by huge baobabs, it was wonderful. There was no sign of the famous Chitake lions yet.

The next day, we resolved to spend the day at the fig tree, watching the springs and lounging about. We made the short drive there and had a leisurely breakfast while sitting in our camp chairs at the riverbank. This spot is perfectly located, affording shade and good visibility of the springs while also being high up on the bank and set back enough to not disturb animals coming to drink. 

It was quiet for a long time. This is a different type of safari experience, and I can imagine that sitting around for hours isn’t for everyone. We did some birding and reading, took a couple of short exploratory walks nearby and drank a lot of coffee.

On the river’s opposite bank is a long ramp of sand that is well-trodden with animal tracks. This is clearly the favorite approach. It was still and hot, and by late morning, we had begun to see dust kicked up by something. Eventually, a large and extremely skittish herd of impala showed up. It took them a long time to work up the courage to come to the springs, and we imagined they had been traumatized by past encounters with lions here. They finally did drink and then were off quickly back into the bush. 

Another hour or two went by, and more dust was being kicked up. We could hear the lowing of buffalo, another famous resident of Chitake. The area supports huge herds, and it appeared they had come for a drink. This, too, took a very long time. They crept forward and peered down toward the spring. They’d stop, shuffle around, and then one or two would take a few more tentative steps down the bank and stop again. The whole process would repeat, with the rest of the herd working closer. When they were only 15 meters from the spring, the herd gave a collective, “to hell with it,” they threw caution to the wind, rushing down to the spring to drink. 

The herd was hundreds of buffalo strong, and it was exciting to watch. They hadn’t appeared to notice us, but we were in the shade with a little bit of scrub to obscure us. We watched a lot of interesting interactions as the herd slaked their thirst. Secretly we were hoping some lions would burst out of the bush to hunt, but instead after a while the buffalos had their fill and retreated back up the riverbank. 

Our last visitor for the day was a lone bull elephant. He, too, took his time making his way down to the springs, first posing for us alongside a baobab tree. 

It was another great night in camp. We returned to the springs in the morning, remembering Stretch’s advice that patience was required here and the game would come to us. We were a teeny bit disappointed; we’d heard from others who complained endlessly about how terrifying Chitake was, that they couldn’t sleep because of the lions roaring right next to their tent all night and how they felt they couldn’t step out of the car since there were lions all over the place. That wasn’t our experience thus far, but it was still a special place.

It was back to the fig tree to stake out the springs today. Not long after, we were joined by a father and son from New Zealand. The son had just completed his guiding certification and internship from the FGASA (Field Guide’s Association of Southern Africa) and was on a father-son trip to Zimbabwe. It was really interesting to talk to someone who had just gone to guide school, and Jenny and I spent the afternoon fantasizing about getting our guide certification. 

We were treated to another visit by a very large herd of buffalo. This time, I spent some time slowly working along the riverbank to get some photos from a different perspective. I was slow and stayed low, dressed in safari khakis, and even from a good distance, the buffalo had their eyes on me and were not happy. I was mindful that if they wanted to, they could easily charge. The advice from our Massai friend in Kenya returned to me, “The buffalo is not a friendly animal.” This is from a guy who would happily walk up to lions on foot. 

The father-and-son duo moved on, and we were then visited by a guide and his client, who were staying at the Chitake site reserved for tour operators.

The guide’s name was Steve, and he was extremely knowledgeable. He generously shared many interesting facts and thoughts with us, his non-clients. Though he was South African, it turned out he had his PhD from UC Davis, which is not far from where we live in California. He had guided in South Africa before but was drawn to the strict standards in Zimbabwe and had come here to test his mettle. 

He had quite a few opinions that we found fascinating. In particular, he smarted at the double standard that the rangers could act as walking guides from Nyamepi HQ, but as a certified guide, he was required to undergo years of training and rigorous tests. The ranger’s training is much briefer and has a different focus. He pointed out that the firearms they carry are not of a high enough caliber to stop a buffalo or elephant and thus serve no real purpose for a walking safari. 

We saw them again at sunset at the Baobabs. He told us that this didn’t used to be a campsite and was reserved as a sundowner spot. Then, the park started using it as an overflow campsite, and now it is a bookable site at Chitake. He shared a bunch of other interesting facts with us and was clearly excited about all aspects of nature and the environment.

After sunset, we were alone for our final night in Chitake and heard the first roar of lions. They were a long way off, but it was fantastic to hear them. 

As we sat around the fire we talked about what would happen after this. We had no more bookings but we both agreed we needed to stay longer at Mana. Guide Steve told us a couple of tales of wildlife encounters on foot and we got even more excited about the idea of being able to go with a proper guide on foot. It seems the only way to do this is by paying for a high end safari. Steve also had opinions about Stretch Ferreira, whom he knew well, and his stories got us even more excited about the idea of trying to join Stretch for a few days. 

The end of our trip was approaching; we had only three weeks before we had to be in Windhoek and catch a flight home. By now, we had confirmed that we did have jobs waiting for us upon our return (this was not 100% guaranteed when we started this venture), so we resolved to head back to Nyamepi the next day and see if we could blow the budget on a few days with Stretch Ferreira Safaris. 

It was a magical night in camp, the stars were out and we were dreaming big dreams of animals on foot in Africa, lions were roaring in the distance and all was right in the world. Jenny decided to head to bed, and I thought I’d stay up a bit longer and make some notes for the blog. 

After Jenny was in the tent, the lions started roaring more and were closer. Exciting! Another 20 minutes went by, and clear and loud, a hyena started whooping not far away. There was some action in the bush tonight. I moved my chair so its back was against the car so that nothing could sneak up on me. 

Then we heard the call of a leopard, like a rough-toothed cross-cut saw rhythmically sawing through wood. It was loud, much louder than we’d ever heard before. The roar of lions, whoop of hyena and now leopard sawing all felt like they were triangulating in on me. Jenny was making some commentary from the tent on me still being out of the car at this point, and that was it for me; time for bed!

Retreating to the tent, we could hear the leopard’s call traversing around us. It sounded like it must be walking around the baobabs. The lions, too, got closer. It was shaping up to be an exciting night.  

The lions kept getting closer, and when we shined our big flashlight around, we saw a couple of lions walking down the road only ten meters away, heading toward the springs. We counted 13 lions. Fantastic.

The next morning we hoped we’d find the lions on a kill near the springs, but no luck. We lingered a while, but then it was time to head back to Nyamepi HQ and see if we could swing the next phase of our Mana Pools visit.  

The wifi signal at HQ wouldn’t support much, but I found the phone number and we began WhatsApp’ing Stretch’s office. The rate was eye-watering, more than we had guessed. After some back and forth and a lot of agonizing on our part, we negotiated a last-minute price reduction and booked two nights with Stretch Ferreira Safaris, starting that afternoon. 

Wish us luck!

The Nitty Gritty

Bookings

Chitake Springs needs to be booked ahead of time; you’d have to be very lucky to get any walk-in availability. For bookings, you can try your luck with the Zimparks online booking system, or contact Noel Manyerere at nmanyerere@zimparks.org.zw +263 77 749 0390.

Payment will be by bank transfer or wire transfer. When we managed to get our walk-in availability for Chitake, we paid cash at Nyamepi HQ. I don’t remember if they take credit cards.

Campsites

Chitake has five campsites:

• Chitake No. 1 is adjacent to the river (normally dry) and well shaded. According to the booking page this site is $300 night (all sites are a maximum of 6 people).

• Chitake No. 2 is the closest to the springs and this proximity means it’s probably the most likely to get nighttime lion action, if there is a kill at or near the springs. This site is listed at $200/night.

• Chitake No. 3 and 3b are tour operator sites and can’t be booked by the public. These are on either side of No. 1 and are marked on T4A as “Road Closed” and “Picnic spot,” respectively. I have heard that occasionally they allow self drivers to stay at one of these if it is not booked by a tour operator, but it can’t be booked ahead.

• Chitake Baobab, which you have read about, is also listed at $200/night.

Jenny and I debated what we would do if we could come back to Chitake again and price was not a concern. How long would we stay? Which site would we choose? We’d go for No. 1 for seven nights in September or October. It’d be brutally hot, full of tsetse flies, but would maximize animal viewing potential. 

I’d be tempted to split it with No. 2, hoping for some nighttime lion mayhem, but the site has minimal shade, no view and no atmosphere. And it is surrounded by brush; if the lions come, you won’t know until they are on top of you. 

I’d take any site for any duration; it’s a really special place. If you go to book a visit to Chitake, don’t sweat too much about which site is available.

I’m told that Chitake 1 and 3b have longdrops, but we did not see them. The longdrop at No. 2 is abysmal. Be prepared for no facilities; these are bush camps. 

Game viewing

Since our visit T4A has added a “No Entry” marker to the track on the north side of the river. When we visited you could drive a couple of kilometers of this before getting to a “do not enter sign.” If this is no longer accessible, it is a bit of a shame, but really game driving here isn’t the thing to do. The thing to do is to camp by the springs and see what you can see. At camp No.1, you are on the bank of the riverbed, and I expect you’d see wildlife traversing the riverbed to get to and from the springs. 

Depending on the time of year and strength of the springs, the water may or may not make it’s way as far as campsites 1 and 3/3b. Even if it does not make it this far, the animals will no doubt traverse the riverbed to get to the nearby water.

I’m told it’s possible to organize a guide to rendezvous with you to lead on a proper safari on foot, but I don’t know how to do this. If we do make it again we’ll try this, but I would try for a fully certified guide and not a ranger from HQ.

Day Visits

You can day visit Chitake. You need a permit, obtainable at Nyamepi HQ. It’s 56 km and about an hour and a half drive from Nyamepi, so it’s quite a commitment to go out there only for a day. I’m not sure it’s worth it, but on the other hand, if you weren’t able to get a campsite at Chitake and you wanted to experience it, you’d have a good chance of buffalo herds visiting the springs midday, and you’d get to scope out the feel of things and see what all the fuss was about. 

For more reading on Chitake and Mana Pools, I strongly recommend Stan Weakley’s trip report from 2010; still salient.

Today we’d finally go to Mana Pools, one of the most famous parks in Africa. From Warthogs campsite in Kariba town, we hit the road with great anticipation. Mana Pools awaited, where you can walk without a guide, where the great albida trees provide that iconic canopy, where bull elephants stand on their hind legs to reach the tastiest morsels and home to the wildest campsite in Southern Africa, Chitake Springs.

First things first, we headed to take a peak at the Kariba Dam and then off to the grocery store in Kariba. After six nights in the bush, it was time to top up on the provisions. At this well-stocked market, as in Victoria Falls, a local swooped in to pay for our groceries with their debit card in local currency. We paid them in USD cash to take advantage of the better exchange rate*. To find this service, we just asked the cashier at the checkout, and she waved him over without a word. 

*Note that in April 2024, Zimbabwe introduced a new currency (another one!), the ZiG. Rumor has it that the gap between the official and black market rates is quite close, and thus, it is no longer worth it for locals to take advantage of the price difference and pay for groceries on a local card. 

Leaving town, we topped up on diesel and wound our way up the escarpment and through the Charara Safari area, a hunting concession. This winding and scenic road is good tar all the way to the A1 junction. 

Checking in to Mana Pools

Checking in at Mana Pools is a little convoluted, but the short version is you have to check in three times. First, at the Marongora office, alongside the A1, then at Chimutsi Gate, just after turning off the tar and lastly at Nyakasikana Gate. Here a left turn leads to Nyamepi and the main part of the park along the river, a right turn takes you to Chitake Springs. Full notes in the Nitty Gritty.

Though you’re technically inside the park boundary before Nyakansikana, the gate is where the park rules are posted, and it feels like you are entering properly. The corrugations are consequential here, but driving through the miombo woodland was wonderful. Dappled shade through tall mopane trees set the scene as we rolled to the riverfront.

The main part of the park is often referred to as ‘the floodplain.’ The mopane trees and jesse bush thin out to a grassy plain, and in the final approach, this gives way to a forest of albida trees (aka ana, apple ring acacia or winterthorn trees). The albida tree can rise 30 meters, and the canopy of each is neatly trimmed flat by elephants and giraffes.

These trees make for the classic Mana Pools setting, where you can see wildlife among trees and in the forest, but the lack of underbrush and dispersed nature of the flora mean that you can still see quite far, unlike the dense bush of, say, Botswana.

Right away we saw elephant, impala and zebra as we drove our way to Nyamepi, the public campsite and site of park HQ. After the drive here we were keen to scope out our campsite and stop for lunch before exploring the park.

Nyamepi Campsite

We only had two nights at Nyamepi camp. There are also private special campsites in Mana Pools, and initially, we were disappointed when none were available, but also a little relieved because they are very expensive. Nyamepi turned out to be a wonderful spot, right on the riverbank, with well spaced sites, water, ablutions, and a stunning sunset view. What more can you ask for? 

As we arrived to scope out our assigned site it looked like the herds of the Serengeti were descending upon us, but instead of wildebeest it was a horde of vervet monkeys galloping our direction, excited for fresh victims to plunder. This put us on high alert and I got out my catapult (aka slingshot) and fired a few warning shots into the trees. This got them to back down a bit, obviously these campers would require a bit more effort on their part! Most lost interest, heading for easier pickings, but we had to stave off the few who had stayed behind. The occasional waving of the catapult at them usually got them to hesitate.

In another happy coincidence, we rendezvoused with another 4x4commmunity.co.za forum member, “Ortelius” and his wife. They have traveled all over southern and eastern Africa, renting 4x4s in each location, and he maintains a wonderful blog, safaribug.wordpress.com. Here, he recounts their travels, showing that buying a vehicle is not required for adventure in Africa.

We had been in touch online and knew our itineraries might cross here. After a stunning Zambezi sunset, we gathered around the fire in the fading light of dusk and shared a bottle of wine, travel stories and swapped notes. What a pleasure to meet up in person, it was a real highlight. 

Originally we had planned more nights at Nyamepi, but when we first arrived we checked in at HQ and asked if there had been any cancellations for Chitake Springs. And there had! Instead of one night at Chitake we ended up with three, one on either side of our original booking. To top it off, Zimparks charges only the same prices as Nyamepi if you are a walk in* for Chitake, instead of the much more expensive rate when pre-booking. We were delighted. 

*This is no longer the policy and now walk ins are charged at the normal higher rate.

In our two days on the floodplain we packed in a good number of adventures and sightings. On our first morning game drive we managed to spot lions on three separate occasions. 

The first sighting was a mating pair not far from the main road. Eventually, they wandered off, and we lost sight of them below a rise.

Before the second lion sighting we were driving down a track and saw clear lion tracks in the sandy road. We got excited and went down the track, stopping occasionally to confirm we were still following the tracks. Partway along, we saw a guide stopped, chatting with his clients while his tracker was walking out ahead. A dedicated tracker ahead of the vehicle is not the sort of thing we see in other national parks; normally, being out of the car isn’t allowed in a National Park, and this is the sort of thing you’d only see at a very high-end private reserve.

A note about guides in Zimbabwe:

Zimbabwe has the strictest standards for Safari Guide certification in the world. In almost every country, a body tests guides to ensure they have the skills needed to take tourists safely into the bush. Often there are tiers of certification, where a guide might first attain they basic guiding license, but not be certified as, say, a hunting guide, a walking guide, or a birding guide. I suspect that, quite often, tourists end up with uncertified guides.

In Zimbabwe, they take this very seriously. Guides must undergo rigorous training, apprenticeship, and then a field test where they go out on a safari, “guiding” a panel of experienced guides who will judge their performance. Don’t forget that guiding is not just identifying animals; it includes knowing their Latin names, as well as the names of the flora and birds, how to drive a 4×4, perform vehicle maintenance and repairs, handle a firearm safely, perform first aid and numerous other bush skills. In Zimbabwe, it is said that the pass rate for first-time test takers is only 10-30%. 

We chatted with this guide for a minute, sharing our mutual excitement for the lion tracks. The tracks confirmed what we already knew: Lions are reliably lazy and as such, they had kept to the road, plodding on for quite a while leaving crisp tracks in the sand. 

After a kilometer or so the track branched off, and following the lesser track a hundred meters or so we found three male lions. Ta-da! We were feeling pretty good about ourselves and Mana Pools, now having seen lions twice in the first hour of our first game drive, and having beat the tracker/guide combo we passed earlier.

The guide/tracker we’d seen earlier pulled up and congratulated us for finding the lions. The guide grabbed his rifle and hopped out of the car, waiving his clients to join him, as casual as can be. In Mana Pools you can get out of your vehicle, but we had never seen anyone do this near lions before. The three male lions were sitting in the shade, no more than 50 meters away.

As his guests got out of the vehicle, the lions perked up, evaluating this recent change. As the guide briefed his clients, the lions got up and moved off a bit, stopping and looking uncertain. The guide was immediately disgusted, that these lions were new and “Didn’t know how it worked around here.” He took an experimental few strides toward the lions, and they headed off for the plains, uninterested in being approached. 

The approach to lions on foot thwarted, the guests took a few minutes for a break and we chatted with the guide again. He was quite a character, animated and full of eccentric charisma. To our astonishment he said that he will bring his guests on foot right up to lions, sometimes on their hands and knees so as not to spook them.

We had read of walking safaris and that Zimbabwe is the true home of proper walking safaris, but this was something else. 

After we parted ways, we remarked to each other how funny that guide was, and what a roll of the dice it is when you sign up for an expensive guided safari. You might get those two, who seemed like quite a combo, skilled and a lot of fun, or you might get the guide that is tired, not that interested and barely qualified. Certainly in Zimbabwe this seems less of a risk because of the stringent guide standards. 

Further ahead, the plains morphed into mopane forest, looking pretty dry. We were about to turn around when we stopped to watch an elephant browsing for leaves. He stopped and pondered on a good sized mopane tree, about 10 meters tall. Then we were treated to the most remarkable behavior I’ve read about in books but never seen.

He looked high up into the tree, placed his chin on the tree, trunk upwards, and started pushing the tree. At first, I thought he was trying to shake the tree to get leaves or fruits to fall. But no. He shoved, pushed, and shook the tree, and after a great effort and cracking noise, he pushed the entire tree over! 

After this, he casually strolled over to the canopy, now lying on the ground and within easy reach, and began munching on leaves. After sampling these for a few minutes, he moved on, leaving the tree behind. We felt bad for the tree, brought to its end so that an elephant could browse upon its leaves for only a few minutes.

He moved on and appeared to be searching for another tree to bring to an untimely end, and we thought we might witness this incredible sight again, but he didn’t seem satisfied with his choices and wandered off into the bush. 

One morning of game driving in Mana Pools was incredible. On our way back to camp, we stopped at the Nyamepi HQ and booked a walking safari for the next morning. Here, we bumped into a couple we had met at Matusadona, and while we were there, Colin had quite a close encounter with an elephant at the office. By the time it was clear the elephant wasn’t going to pass by, it was too late for him to move. A steady nerve got him through. Not recommended and the park staff were not pleased.

After lunch and some camp time, we headed out for the evening game drive. We took different loops and saw many wonderful grazers in the unique setting. Eland, buffalo, impala, and elephants all looked really nice in the shade of the albida trees. 

As we made our way along, we saw more lions. A few younger lions and a lioness were lying in the shade of some scrub. We watched them for a few minutes, and deciding they were done with us, they got up and walked down an embankment out of sight. We were able to circle around for another view, just in time to watch the lioness stand at the bottom the bank, with about a 50 meter patch of grass ahead, and then she walked into the grass and melted away, presumably with the rest of the lions we’d seen earlier.

It was not so big a patch of grass, and we could see the entire perimeter, so we resolved to wait to see if they would come out. There was another vehicle already here, doing the same thing. We learned from them that she was the last of eight lions that had descended into the grass. 

Eventually, no less than eight other vehicles spent two still and sweaty hours watching a 50-meter long patch of grass, knowing that eight lions had descended into this cover. For these hot and boring hours, many eyeballs watched and watched yet didn’t even catch a glance of a lion, not a twitch of an ear nor flick of tail. So little was seen that we heard murmurings of the next car that doubted that the lions were there at all, and one guide came by and asked who had actually seen this firsthand to make sure he wasn’t making his clients wait for nothing.

Several cars gave up. Instead of watching an uninteresting stand of meter tall grass, not unlike watching paint dry, they went on to watch another glorious Zambezi sunset, which we missed. 

A growing seed of doubt set in. Perhaps there were no lions and we had imagined that lioness walk down the bank, and this was a big waste of time and we could be off game driving in more serene and scenic locals. As these thoughts went through my head, the first lion materialized. Illustrating what incredible masters of camouflage lions are, a second lion took shape, then a third, and then a whole pride. The dull chatter ceased, and all of us, at this point, were surprised that the waiting had paid off.

The last whisperings died off completely when a gray sandy coated lioness started stalking the nearby impala. She stalked and froze, stalked and froze, making a bold head-on approach to a herd of grazing impala in the open. The impala sensed something was up, gazing alertly in their direction, but each time, the lioness froze until they relaxed, and then she took a few more steps. This time an undisciplined tail flick gave her away, and they bolted. She made a half-hearted rush, I suppose hoping for a lame impala to give up easily, which none did. After this excitement we headed for camp for the evening. What a day!

On Walking Safaris and being out of the car

Mana Pools National Park is famous for many things. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is the premier wildlife destination in Zimbabwe. Here live the only elephants that have learned to stand on their hind legs to reach the seed pods of the albida tree. It is wonderfully scenic, the wildlife plentiful, the lions numerous. 

There are of course many excellent wildlife destinations elsewhere in Africa that can claim similar superlatives. Perhaps the biggest distinction Mana Pools has from other parks and wilderness areas is that individuals are allowed to conduct their own walking safaris, unguided. Yeah, that’s right, knock yourself out and feel free* to wander into the bush on foot, risking being charged by an elephant, gored by the deadly buffalo or perhaps stalked and eaten by lions. 

*permit required, $15 pppd

This flies in the face of all other advice and against the rules of all other parks, which stand with uniformity on the “do not get out of your car” party line. Granted this laissez-faire freedom, one would assume that tourists are dying like flies on a near daily basis while Zim Parks sits idly by, pondering whether this will affect revenue streams. 

In fact, this is not the case. Though there have been fatalities at Mana, there have also been at other parks. That people are let off the leash without an apparent rise in mortal danger makes me call into question all the previous advice. I’m not advocating flaunting the rules in other parks, but it does beg the question: How should one conduct oneself on foot in the African Wilderness? Where lies the dividing line between real and perceived danger? 

One assumes the real reason you shouldn’t get out of your car in parks is to err on the side of caution, for many tourists don’t know when it is appropriate to disembark and when it is unsafe. The line between those two things is decidedly murky. 

Under this context, we peered into the opaque blank space of freedom, the old rules having been cast off, wondering what to do and how to conduct ourselves. 

In our eyes already some doubt had been cast on the ironclad “don’t get out of your car” line. After all, we’ve visited many parks that allow unfenced camping by anyone savvy enough to make a booking and get themselves there in a 4×4; totaling a great number of bush novices. For example, in Botswana, there are many campsites like this; for the most part, thousands of people have spent thousands of nights in the wilderness perfectly safely.

On many nights in Africa, we have camped with dangerous animals as our neighbors, and every time, we’ve accorded them respect, and they have left us alone. Hippos have munched grass inches from our friend’s tent as we watched from ours, elephants have wandered through camp, and a leopard made a casual inspection, coming close enough to be illuminated by the light of our fire. Lions have announced their presence loudly and firmly with calls that reverberated in our chest, and buffalos have driven us to retreat to the cab while they grazed by the front bumper. 

To dip our toes in the waters of this newfound freedom, we arranged a walking safari with one of the park rangers. At 0600 we picked up Allan, a Zimbabwe Park Ranger, and we drove to the flood plain between two of Mana’s four pools. Here we disembarked the vehicle and set out on foot. Before setting out he checked his rifle, chambering a bullet and telling us, “This is to scare, not shoot, any animals that give us trouble.” 

With this, he led us out into the wide open ground between the towering winter thorn trees. He explained that one reason it’s allowed to walk alone in Mana Pools is that the visibility is much better than in the other parks, allowing you to spot danger early. The ground is nearly barren of grass, and we can see more than 100 meters in most directions, save what is obscured by some large trees and the occasional shrub. 

This all sounds great, except that much of the park is dense bush, thickets of thorny shrubs and mopane forest that has poor visibility, where you are also welcome to walk unguided, though a sense of self-preservation prevents most from doing it.

For the next two hours we walked with Allan and he pointed out facts about various trees and animals. At one point, we saw an elephant quite a distance away, and he said that we would stay well clear and that, in any case, if you were to approach an elephant, you should do so from downwind so that they don’t detect you. This seemed odd to me. I’m no ranger, but sneaking up on an elephant seems like a good way to startle it, and then perhaps this might lead to an undesirable conclusion. Later Allan told us that he sometimes is assigned as a ranger with hunting groups in hunting concessions, and then this made more sense as advice to approach an elephant undetected. 

Allan was mediocre as a safari guide*, but he was fascinating to talk to and learn about how the park works and life as a ranger. As we walked, we noted that the impala were giving us a wide berth, and he casually remarked that was because until fairly recently, the park service didn’t provide meat for the staff, and instead, they were encouraged to hunt their own. 

*Note that rangers are not guides. They work for the park and do not undergo the same rigorous training that a certified guide has.

This practice is now banned and Zim Parks brings in meat from outside. I took this opportunity to ask what we have been told many times: Do waterbucks actually taste bad? Guides and guidebooks tell us that the meat of the waterbuck is not particularly tasty, and thus, lions only feed on them as a last resort. On top of this, while you sometimes see game meat for sale like kudu, zebra and springbok, you never see waterbuck. He disagreed, saying that waterbuck tasted just fine. 

Our walk concluded. Similar to our walking safari in South Luangwa months before, we did not see much in the way of animals, or not up close anyway. It seems walking safaris are more like nature walks, in an area where animals might be present. It’s not quite the experience I had in mind, silently watching a lion hunt on foot or that sort of thing. Later, we would learn that this is possible, perhaps more so in Zimbabwe than anywhere else, but not when guided by the park rangers. Instead, you need to be with specialty walking guides who train for and seek this sort of thing out. 

After our walk we did get an elephant encounter on foot. In camp! We gather there are a few elephants who frequent Nyamepi. He was very relaxed. With this very modest introduction to safari on foot, we were off to Chitake Springs for three nights. 

The Nitty Gritty

Bookings

We organized our bookings through the very efficient Christine Mhuriro, but she has moved on to another assignment and been replaced by Noel Manyerere, who I hear is also very good. Contact info is: nmanyerere@zimparks.org.zw +263 77 749 0390. We were able to do some back and forth on WhatsApp which made things much faster. We paid by wire transfer, which is inexpensive through our US Bank (Chase) and can be done on our mobile phone.

Checking into the Park

The check-in process for Mana is confusing, and though I’m tolerant of this sort of thing, it feels overly complex.

First, you must stop at the Marongora National Park office, just off the road on the A1, 8 km south of the turn-off to the park. If you’re coming from the south, this is easy, but if you’re coming from the north, you do need to bypass the turn-off to the park, drive to Marongora, then double back. 

There is a sign at Marongora, but unless you’re expecting it, it’d be easy to miss it and think to yourself, “Was that it? Whatever, I’ll just check in at the gate.” However, once you produce your booking (or explain that you don’t have one), the Marongora office provides you with a crucial slip of paper that you must produce at the Chimutsi Gate. Without this, you’ll be turned back and have to drive the eight kilometers back to Marongora.

From Marongora, descend the escarpment to the park’s turnoff, signposted, and arrive at the Chimutsi Gate. Here, produce the slip provided by Marongora. Air down your tires for dirt and head into the Hurungwe Safari Area (remember, in Zimbabwe, “safari area” = permitted hunting area). 

Partway along this next 31 km stretch, you’ll cross the boundary into the park and then arrive at the Nyakasikana Gate. Here you again check in for a third time, producing your booking, slip, etc. Enter your details in the book and head on. A right turn here takes you to Chitake Springs, left to the floodplain and Nyamepi, the main area for Mana Pools. 

Lastly you arrive at Nyamepi, park headquarters. You don’t need to stop at the park office, you can proceed directly to the Nyamepi campsite, a short distance from the park office. 

Nyamepi Public Campsite

The campsite has 36 sites scattered along the Zambezi river. The riverfront sites have a higher fee. There are four sites for people without bookings. Pretty much all the sites are good, even the non-riverfront sites are only 50 meters from the river and you can easily walk over to watch the sunset or take a look. 

There are occasional water taps scattered around the camp. We’re told the water is potable, buyer beware. There are a couple of ablution blocks with washing basins for laundry. 

The fee structure has changed since our visit. Non-river sites are $100 per night for the site, a maximum of six people. Unlike almost everywhere else in Africa, they charge per site and not per person. Riverfront is $130 pn, and exclusive campsites (BBC, Mucheni, Chitake, etc.) are $200 pn. They have a new booking system, but I have no idea if it works.

Before coming we had managed to get a one night booking at coveted Chitake Springs and we stopped at HQ to see if we could catch any last minute opportunities at Chitake. We talked to Brighton, the man in the office who organizes the bookings and we lucked out, with an open day at Chitake on either side of our original booking. 

At the office, you can also buy firewood (very generous portions for $5/bundle), get a walking permit for $15 pppd (required for any walking safari, self-guided or not) and ask for changes to your booking. There is very feeble wifi available at the office, ask nicely for the password. 

Aug 10 – 13th, 2022

On our way into Matusadona National Park we pulled off the road for a break. As we lunched, we were also lunched upon by tsetse flies, a reminder that we were back in the tsetse belt. This is an unpleasant but invigorating experience that leads to short lunches! 

We retreated to the safety of the vehicle and began the descent road into Matusadona. The road is well known to be rough going, but the beginning is a typical single lane dirt track, full of bumps, ruts and rocks, but nothing too formidable.

Matusadona National Park is just shy of 1500 sq. km., gazetted in 1975 and once formed a stronghold for black rhinos and other wildlife. Over time the park declined and rhino were poached out. In 2019 the NGO African Parks signed a 20 year agreement with Zimbabwe Parks And Wildlife Management Authority (aka “Zim Parks”) to manage the park. Early reports are that African Parks is hard at work; we were excited to check it out.

This park is another, like Chizarira, that is far less visited than Zimbabwe’s headliner parks, Hwange, Mana Pools and Gonarezhou. The rugged entrance road in particular is a well known deterrent. We bumped along at a leisurely pace. It was one of those roads that is not really a technical 4×4 track, but also cannot be rushed. The 75 kilometers ended up taking us 3.5 hrs. After crossing the rocky dry bed of the Ume River, we came to the relief of the flatlands at the bottom of the escarpment and zoomed (relatively) along freshly graded roads.

This brought us to Tashinga, where HQ for the park is, along with an airstrip and campsite, all spread apart on a broad peninsula. Headquarters was bustling with workers, bakkies, heavy equipment and workshops. African Parks was indeed hard at work.

Here we found the tourism manager, Chris Chiparaushe, who was checking in other guests. This guest was a fellow member of the 4x4community.za.co forum, “La Leona,” and her family. Having followed the blog, she recognized us, and we agreed to meet up later at camp. What a small world. 

Chris was incredibly welcoming. We had emailed him a week before, and he had responded promptly. He greeted us like old friends, shaking our hands warmly and thanking us for visiting. He insisted we wait just a minute so he could lead us down to our campsite himself.

Our experience thus far, over many national parks, has never been as welcoming as this. We’ve met many professional and cordial parks staff, and a few less so, but none seemed so appreciative of our visit. Chris hopped in his park vehicle and led us the two kilometers to Tashinga Campsite. 

The campsite is located at the end of the peninsula, dotted with big trees, with a dozen or so sites set wide apart. There is little foliage besides these old trees, the rest being grass trimmed by hippos and other grazers.  All the campers are within view of each other, but the disbursement of the sites makes this entirely pleasant. I appreciated the sense of “we’re all here together,” a little camping community.

There are two newish ablution blocks in good fettle. As seems to be the rule in Zimbabwe, there are braai stands but no fire pits. We like to cook on the fire when we can, but we also appreciate sitting around the fire before and after the cooking. These braai stands stymie this; their raised profile is suitable for cooking but not good for the pre/post-cooking hangout time. We usually just ask the park staff if it’s okay to make a fire on the sand and abide by their ruling. Some places are understandably trying to limit piles of ashes all over the place, whereas in others, it is easy to bury the ashes, or there is a place to dump them nearby. 

Tashinga somehow seemed to turn down the volume of life; we felt relaxed and at ease here. Some elephants were grazing some distance away, and occasionally we heard the wheeze-honk of a hippo, all was well.

A classic Matusadona sunset

Lake Kariba is fed by the Zambezi River, forming the largest man made lake in the world, at 223 km long and up to 40 km wide. The Kariba dam holds back the water at the eastern end of the lake, capable of producing 1626 megawatts of power, which is split between Zimbabwe and Zambia. 

The lake was calm all around us. The water’s glassy surface was punctuated by the silvery trunks and spiky branches of many dead trees that had drowned when the lake formed, now revealed by the reduced level of the lake.

While watching the sunset, we struck up a conversation with some South Africans with an interesting story, having abandoned corporate life to be safari guides. Now they work in the area between, consulting on the business end of the safari world.

The sunset came and our conversation lapsed into silence. The trees were silhouetted by the great orange ball of the sun as it sank below distant mountains. The elephants wandered into the bush and evening set in. Sublime.

An Elephant Incident

The next day we decided to savor a relaxed day in camp. Early in the day, we received a bit of foreshadowing. One of the park staff came by and asked us if an elephant had been through and visited our vehicle. We responded that we’d had no elephantine visitors. She explained that someone with a rooftop tent had recently camped with a box of vegetables strapped to their roof rack. This had been discovered and eaten by the elephant in question, and now that elephant associated vehicles with roof top tents as worthy of investigation. 

The idea that one would keep vegetables on the roof was absurd; who would do such a thing? We assured the park staffer that we had received no visitors and had no vegetables on the roof. 

Sometime later Jenny headed off to the shower, and I lazed under our awning reading a book. And lo, an elephant was slowly working his way across the camp in my direction. He picked his way across the grass, grazing here and there, continuing toward me and looking like he might come quite close. I closed the canopy, not wanting him to investigate the food in the back.

Why hello friend (Tashinga campsite)

Elephants have walked past our car fairly close many times and it didn’t occur to me that this one would be any different. After closing up, I moved back, giving him plenty of distance.

All was well until he decided to inspect our vehicle. To my horror, he became interested in the rubbish in an old charcoal sack we had strapped to the roof rack. 

We had been diligently sorting our waste, abiding by the ‘pack in/pack out’ rules in these parks. Our waste management is multi-part. After provisioning we try to dispose of any excess packaging before leaving town. For example, unpacking meat and repacking in reusable Ziplocks, disposing of the plastic wrap and styrofoam in town. Cardboard we burn in camp, and we try to burn any excess food waste. We separate our trash into food, burnables, plastic and other non-biodegradable waste.

Some food waste does not burn well; the next morning I’ll pull out anything that did not fully combust. These nonburnables are combined with any plastic or cans we have, which we cart around until we find a place to dispose of it properly. Sometimes we keep it in the canopy, but we were pretty full up, not knowing what provisioning options lay ahead, so to save space we strapped this to the roof rack. This did not seem unusual to us, many people keep their trash in a canvas bag that hangs off the spare wheel.

Our curious elephant was using his trunk to dexterously extract the rubbish sack from the ratchet strap that was securing it to the roof. The whole cruiser was rocking as he leaned against the vehicle working on this problem. 

Shit!

By this point in time I had retreated near the ablution block, some 50 or 60 meters away and wasn’t sure what to do. In all likelihood, I could go over there and wave my arms and shout and the elephant would back off, annoyed. On the other hand, people are killed by elephants with reasonable frequency and I had no interest in being one of the statistics.  

A small crowd of other campers had gathered and Jenny had come out of the shower, surprised by the scene before her. We all pondered the situation indecisively. Then the elephant thought maybe he’d move to the other side of the cruiser, to better approach getting the trash bag. In moving around the back of the vehicle he brushed against the awning, which collapsed with a tearing noise and the sound of twisting metal. A collective groan from the crowd.

Now he was rocking the Cruiser pretty aggressively, pulling at the straps. A camper offered to approach the elephant slowly in his vehicle. This seemed like a good idea. He got in his vehicle crept toward the elephant, and it worked. Our elephant did not appreciate the proximity of the other vehicle and he finally moved off, leaving us to inspect the damage.

I suppose we are lucky, it could have been much worse. The awning was badly damaged, with several large tears in the canvas and one of the metal arms twisted and bent. One of the jerry cans on the roof was dented but not punctured, but otherwise all was intact. 

Our adrenaline was pumping as we rehashed the event with fellow campers and dissected what we could have done differently. I unpacked our trash to see if we had left anything in there that might have triggered the interest of our elephant. In our trash I found we had overlooked two stems of cilantro and an empty jelly jar, admittedly unwashed. Did our elephant friend smell these? Or had his previous experience driven him to dissect the bag regardless? 

I’m going to have to talk to Alu-cab about there elephant warranty

Straightening awning arms

After calming down from this adventure, we spent the afternoon socializing with other campers, and having a particularly good time talking with forum member La Leona and her husband. With similar interests, we discussed various topics, from destinations and camps to the merits of various models of Land Cruiser engines; it was very enjoyable. We also spent time with our South African guide friends and a couple from Harare, Shumba and Brenda.

Later in the afternoon, Chris, the tourism manager, showed up, having heard about our elephant incident. He was incredibly apologetic, as if he were somehow responsible for the behavior of a wild elephant. He generously offered to have us come by the workshop the next day to see if they could fix the awning. We politely declined, wanting to spend the next day game driving. Instead Colin convinced Chris to join our group for a beverage, and we had a wonderful time hearing Colin and Chris swap stories from various adventures as safari guides.

Later the senior park official came down and also wanted to apologize for our elephant experience. This was gracious but also ridiculous. We were the ones who had stupidly left something interesting on the roof, and I sincerely hope that our actions don’t contribute to action against that particular elephant. Chris said that they were going to keep watching that one.

Wanting to explore the park thoroughly, we dedicated the next day to an all-day game drive. We had read a few reports of poor game viewing in this park. I submit that perhaps people were not in the best portions of the park for wildlife. As was recommended, the game viewing in the NE part of the park, along the lakeside tracks on the way to Spurwing and Fothergill Island was very good. We found large numbers of antelope, elephant, zebra, buffalo and hippo. We didn’t see any predators, but they are around. 

These lakeside tracks were generally just below the tree line, with a broad grass expanse between the trees and the lake. I don’t know what a normal lake level looks like, but we read that the fluctuating lake level dramatically affects how much grazing is available to the animals. Because of these wild fluctuations in fodder their populations can be out of sync with the food available. 

This touches on what we found to be the crux of Matusadona, that you can not escape the fingerprint of humans in this park. Of course, no park is “natural.” The very act of preservation is an action that affects nature, but this enormous lake, created in the 50s, is a massive change for the local environment that cannot be forgotten. At every turn there is a huge swath of empty land, and even though impala might be happily grazing upon it, we couldn’t help but think that the whole scene seemed abnormal.

You can’t forget that this is a man made lake

The whole day was spent wandering various tracks. We explored some more unmapped roads (now on the recent update to T4A), all the way out to Senyati West, which is a ranger station and nearby some old bandas that have fallen into neglect. I don’t know if they would let you book this as a wilderness camp now, I suspect African Parks will wait until they get a chance to tidy it up before allowing visitors here. 

This is a fairly long drive that was interesting, but we didn’t see much in the way of wildlife after we left the lakeshore. The roads were all in excellent shape, the African Parks road crew has been busy! 

Before we’d left Tashinga we’d organized an elaborate plan for our last night in the park. Chris had let us know one of the wilderness camps was available, so we planned a night there and then to depart Matusadona by ferry to Kariba. This wasn’t our original plan, as the ferry is quite expensive, but Chris told us that the ferry was already scheduled to drop off some other visitors, and if the ferry is already making a stop at the park you can take the return trip at a reduced rate. 

Chris was worried we wouldn’t be able to find the ferry landing, as it was a new site not on any map. He insisted that a couple of his team escort us. He organized them to meet us at our wilderness campsite and take us to the ferry landing.

Mhukadzapela wilderness campsite

With this plan in place, we settled into our wilderness campsite, Mhukadzapela (details in the Nitty Gritty). Wanting to savor this undeveloped bush site, we arrived early. This spot was fantastic, in the shade of a few big leafy trees on the sandy bank of a dry riverbed. 

After setting up camp we noticed an elephant grazing on the leafy foliage behind camp. He was taking his time, and we checked on him occasionally to make sure he wasn’t too close. As night fell we started a fire, occasionally hearing noises in the bushes. This kept us on alert, but we never established if this was elephants or perhaps buffalo. Later on, a hyena came to inspect us but kept their distance.

The moon was up and it was a fantastic night, we slept well with the sounds of the bush all around us. After an early game drive we rendezvoused with our escorts at the campsite.

The Ferry to Kariba

I felt a little silly getting an escort, I didn’t want to trouble the staff who no doubt had things to do other than hold the hands of tourists, but they insisted. They arrived at the appointed time and we set off.

They took us on the main track and then turned off the lakeshore track towards Fothergill Island. On some maps Fothergill and Spurwing are shown as islands, but with the lake level down, there are established tracks to drive out to both.

At the end of the drive I saw the wisdom of insisting we had escorts, for there was no track for the last few hundred meters. We were led off-road to the new ferry landing site, just a piece of sandy shore. 

We chatted to our guides for quite a while as we waited for the ferry. One was a university student on an internship at Matusadona, and one of his assignments was to go and confirm all the GPS coordinates of the wilderness campsites. What a great job! The other was a veteran African Parks ranger, we had a really nice time talking with them.

The ferry was late and eventually they left for more important duties, instructing us not to go down to the shoreline because of the hippos and crocodiles. We waited in the hot sun, and in due course the ferry appeared on the horizon. They made their way to our exact spot, nosing the ferry onto the shoreline. 

One of the travelers hopped off the ferry with a camera in introduced himself. He explained they were on a grand tour of Zimbabwe, dubbed “Expedition Zimbabwe,” to promote Zimbabwean tourism. The ferry crew set up the steel ramps to offload their three vehicles with practiced efficiency. After unloading it was our turn, and the crew told us we needed to back the Cruiser up the ramps, so that when we offloaded we could easily drive off. 

Backing onto the Kariba ferry

This is easier said than done, as the ramps are steep and slightly wider than the land cruiser, leaving little room for error. A mistake would allow a tire to slip off a ramp, a possible disaster. Jenny drove, putting the car in low range for maximum control, while the captain directed her. 

My heart was in my throat for a moment when one of the tires was only half on the ramp, the other half hanging in the air, but the captain and Jenny recovered and all was well. In short order the ferry backed off the bank, and we were off, steaming across the smooth surface of the lake. It was fantastic. 

This discounted ferry ride was still not cheap, at $200 USD. It is not a scheduled affair, really you are chartering the whole boat. Initially, we had been quoted $350, but since this was part of an already scheduled trip, we got the lower price. We had penciled out that the drive would have cost about $100 USD in fuel and justified the rest by convincing ourselves it’d be another $100 USD in wear and tear, both psychological and to the cruiser.

A wonderful ferry ride

The boat ride was a lovely two and a half hours, then we were deposited on the shore outside the town of Kariba about an hour before sunset. We made the short drive to Warthogs, a simple lodge looking out over the lake offering cheap camping.

Warthogs have safari tents and chalets to rent, but if you ask to camp they’ll also find a spot for you. When we arrived there was a herd of elephants wandering through camp, but by the time we’d checked in and paid for camping the elephants had moved to a nearby clearing. 

Given that we had just spent six days in the bush and had a week in Mana Pools planned next, we treated ourselves to dinner at Warthog’s restaurant. I got the grilled bream with chips, which was excellent. 

Tomorrow would be a big day, heading into the big Kahuna of Zimbabwe’s parks, Mana Pools. 

The Nitty Gritty

On the northern parks of Matusadona and Chizarira – We enjoyed our visits to both, but I don’t think they are in the same class as the more famous parks. That said, they are definitely worth visiting if you have the time, particularly if you are traveling between Mana Pools and one of the popular western destinations of Hwange, Victoria Falls or Kasane/Chobe. 

There are few choices of places to stay if traveling east/west between Mana Pools and Victoria Falls, so stopping at Matusadona and Chizarira works very well, if you have the time. I would not suggest these parks for one night stops.

If you decide not to stop at Matusadona or Chizarira the Binga-Karoi road is not fast and you can’t make the east-west transit between Victoria Falls and Karoi/Kariba in one day, you’ll have to stop somewhere. I read an old report of Musumu Lodge near Binga being very good, but I don’t know if they are still operating. Alternatively, you could travel from Kariba (Warthogs or similar) to Victoria Falls via Zambia. However, unless you were fortunate with a swift border crossing you’ll almost certainly have to break the trip somewhere in Zambia.

Matusadona Notes

You can book ahead by contacting tourism manager Chris Chiparaushe at chrispenc@africanparks.org or +263773541138| Skype: chris.chiparaushe1 – but mobile signal is intermittent there, I would go with email. 

Chris said that the park was the busiest it had ever been, again because of the holiday, but in this case, busy is very much a relative term. You can safely arrive without bookings and pay cash USD on arrival. 

Fees: 

Public campsite (Tashinga), $15 pppn

Wilderness campsite, $25 pppn

Entry is $8 pppd if you are staying in the park, $15 pppd for day visitors (common for visitors from the various Kariba houseboat tours)

Vehicle: $10 (one time?) + $10 for a trailer

Rate sheet:

Wilderness campsites:

Moronga, we heard was very good, but it was booked. Location: S16° 57.762′ E28° 27.882’

Makuzapela, where we camped: S16° 47.110′ E28° 30.968’ Highly recommended

Kanjedza, S16° 46.000′ E28° 38.799’ 

There may be others. Changa, for example, is booked for the season by a tour operator. Other sites need to be cleared. My impression from talking to the staff was that more wilderness sites were planned.

Other useful Matusadona Files:

Kariba Ferry

“Ferry” might imply regular service, but this is not the case. You are, in effect, chartering the vessel. It is owned by Sonya and Dave McMaster; you can organize the ferry by contacting them directly at +263 77 873 3784 (WhatsApp) or sonya@zol.co.zw

Since Expedition Zimbabwe had organized the ferry to Matusadona we did not have to pay the full price and were instead charged $200. Full details of the ferry here:

We were happy with our ferry experience, but I am still curious about the road through the Charara Safari Area to Kariba. No permit is needed for this road, and it might have been an interesting drive. By all reports, it is no faster than the longer route to the A1 and down the tarred road to Kariba.

For a tour of the northern circuit of parks you more or less have to stay somewhere between Mana Pools and Matusadona, it isn’t practical to make this trip all in one day. Particularly when you factor in that you’ll need to refuel and provision. 

Camping options between these two parks are limited, though there are several lodges in hotels in Kariba town and surrounds catering to people staying before and after the popular Kariba overnight houseboat tours. Warthogs, Gache Gache and Lomagundi Lakeside are the only camping options I’m aware of.

During the first night at Chizarira we heard the faint call of lions. In the morning, I rose early and surveyed our surroundings by daylight for the first time. We’d arrived in the dark the night before, and I was curious to get a look at Chizarira.

Here at campsite Kaswiswi No. 1 we were undoubtedly in the wilderness, but at the same time, it didn’t really impress. A recent burn had left the trees in fine enough shape, but the grass was scorched and the channel adjacent to the camp, an offshoot of the modestly larger Luizikukulu River, was dry. There was nothing particularly wrong here, but it lacked a certain ambiance. A drive to explore the park was on the day’s agenda and on the way we’d scope out alternative campsites. 

Chizarira is not of the same caliber as Zimbabwe’s more famous wildlife parks such as Hwange, Mana Pools or Gonerezou. That said, the great Stan Weakley disagrees and holds Chizarira in very high esteem, read his excellent report here. Regardless, we felt less pressure on game viewing. First, we made a leisurely drive via the Manzituba Vlei platform and saw impala, a few very skittish and annoyed elephants, and a lone waterbuck. The birdlife had a lot of starlings, hornbills and doves. Unfamiliar birdcalls fell on our ears, but we had difficulty spotting these new species. Fauna here was much shyer than in other parks we’d visited, and birds flitted away as soon as we picked up our binoculars.

On our morning drive we checked out the Kaswiswi No. 2, Mabola and the Mabola Platform campsite at the Manzituba Vlei. This reconnaissance done, we headed to HQ to ask about maybe switching camps, having more or less decided that Kaswiswi No. 1 was the least desirable of the lot. 

The campsite at Mabola

At HQ, we met Zim Parks Officer Clifford. He was incredibly helpful and said it was no problem to switch to another site, though the coveted Mucheni sites were all booked due to the holiday weekend. We planned to spend three nights here, and our last night was booked at Mucheni View, so we’d still get to experience the reportedly stunning view on our last night.

Clifford also gave us some intel about the wildlife in the park and what roads were open. Chiefly, the Busi area had approximately 75% of the park’s 800 elephant population, and the resident lion pride’s typical range was from the Platform campsite to the Katanza Gorge area, which by no coincidence is where the majority of the wildlife in the park is also. We had seen lion tracks near the Platform campsite, so we hoped we’d luck out and find some lions.

There is good potable borehole water at HQ, so after topping up, we decided to retire to our new campsite, the Mabola Platform site. It has an elevated viewing platform that views a grassy vlei below, and we waited patiently to see if any wildlife would come to us.

Our leisurely afternoon watching from the platform bore no fruit. In the afternoon, some other visitors to the park drove by, and we had a friendly chat and a beer. They were from Harare but had never been to Chizarira before, which gives you an idea of how little visited this park is.

The Mabola Platform campsite

Sometime in the afternoon, I realized that I had lost my binoculars. This was a disaster. A relationship, even one as amicable as ours, on safari with only one set of binoculars risks marital strife. We wandered all over the campsite and up and down the road with no success. I have a bad habit of setting my binos on the hood when we are out of the car, and it seemed possible that we’d driven away with them there, and they’d slid off onto the roadside.

An hour was spent slowly driving our previous route, thoroughly scanning the soft sand at the roadside. After I had given up hope, we ran into another group of visitors at the Mabola campsite (not to be confused with the Mabola Platform site). We mentioned that we were looking for binoculars, and they said they had found them. What luck! We thanked them profusely, disaster averted.

An evening at the platform campsite was enjoyable and relaxing, but our wildlife sightings were restricted to a few skittish waterbuck. I was surprised we didn’t see more, but such is safari. It was still a wonderful place to camp.

Our wildlife sightings in Chizarira consisted of bushbuck, elephant (few. annoyed.), impala, waterbuck, dik dik or maybe steenbok, warthog, hyena (spoor only), lions (distant roaring, spoor) and that is it. 

There wasn’t any pressure to get a crack-of-dawn start at Chizarira, and instead we enjoyed the morning in camp. Eventually, we got our act together and started a drive towards Katanza Gorge, noted on our map. On T4A, the road dead ends, but we saw a clear track ahead heading towards the escarpment, and we thought we might get a nice viewpoint by pushing on.

This turned out to be an incredible drive. It is rough in parts, and 4×4 was required, but eventually, the track wraps along the rim of the escarpment. The track is set back from the edge, but we wandered around rocks and under the dappled shade of Miombo woodland. The road treated us to glimpses of expansive vistas down toward Lake Kariba, and it was a beautiful drive. 

I’d read that the name Chizarira is rooted in the local Tonga word, “Sijalila,” which means “Great Barrier.” Certainly, looking down towards Kariba from the top of the escarpment it is appropriately named, the cliff is formidable and drops precipitously down to the hazy valley below.

We were in the blank space of the GPS, but the track was established, and we hoped would loop back into the main road of Chizarira. As we drove further east, was saw someone who had a prime campsite right at the rim of the escarpment, with a cliff just a few meters from their tent and a stunning view. This was an established campsite that wasn’t on the map.

Later we learned this site is called “Kariba View.” The parking is set back from the braai area, and the tent site is for ground tents. There is certainly room for a vehicle equipped with a rooftop tent, but it wouldn’t be quite in the prime zone that the ground tent is in. There are no facilities at this site.  

At Kariba View

Happily, our mystery track did eventually rejoin the main route; it would have been a long way if we needed to double back. (Note: we sent our GPS data to T4A; this track is now on their map, and the camp is marked “Kariba Viewpoint”). From here, we went to the highly regarded Mucheni View campsite. The road climbed up towards the rim of the escarpment, and we bumped over roots and rocks, kicking up dust in the dappled shade while savoring the anticipation of seeing this camp that had been so strongly recommended to us.

There is pretty good signage in the park. Note Kariba View sign – this is why I think this is a formal campsite

The campsite is a short left turn off the road, and we rolled up to park. There is a water tank and ablution block, along with a braai stand and a lapa perched right on the edge of the cliff. There is a suggestion of safety; two thin wires stretched across some token fence poles form the only barrier between camp and oblivion. Sleepwalkers, beware. The view is marvelous, set right on the edge of a canyon that cuts south from the face of the escarpment. It seemed the whole of Africa stretched before us. 

This was a happy place to spend a day, and we made no plans other than to enjoy the camp. We did head the last hundred meters up the road to the viewpoint, where the road dead ends. Here there is a short trail from the road, about 10 meters, which leads to a spectacular view of the canyon below. 

At the viewpoint

The vista from Mucheni View campsite

Returning to camp for the day, we gazed out on the vista and watched birds soaring on the thermals from the canyons. You can’t see the sunset from this spot, but as the sun dropped behind the escarpment to the west, the light turned pink and cast beautiful shadows on the canyon and valley below. What a spot! 

Not wanting to waste our limited time in this camp, I got up for sunrise and enjoyed coffee and the view for as long as possible. Today we were headed to Matusadona National Park, and with a fair drive ahead, we decided not to dally too long. 

After packing up and heading off, we checked out at the gate and had the interesting experience of driving out of Chizarira on the road that we’d only driven in total darkness. As is no surprise to anyone, arriving during daylight is recommended, the views are excellent, and I’m sure it’d heighten the anticipation of any first time visitor, climbing up this track into the escarpment. 

Back on the Karoi-Binga road, we made our way east and reached the turn to Matusadona National Park. Turning left, we rattled down an increasingly narrow track and pulled off in the trees for lunch. Here we were attacked by tsetse flies for the first time in months, a harbinger of things to come? 

Next time: An elephant gives us an education, and we have a significant change in route to what we planned.

The Nitty Gritty – a brief visitors guide to Chizarira National Park

Chizarira is a beautiful park, and we will certainly be back. It is a different park than Chobe or Mana Pools, it is not where you would go if great herds of animals are your prime agenda. This park, perched on the escarpment, is wild, remote and prime African wilderness. And there certainly will be no crowds! On another visit, I am excited to push deeper into the park, to Busi and beyond, perhaps even trying to depart via the southern road. 

Bookings

I think you are safe visiting Chizarira without bookings. If you are coming on a holiday weekend, then book ahead. If you want one of the Mucheni sites (you do), then book ahead, but if you don’t manage to and it isn’t school holidays or a weekend, then I’d guess your chances are still very good that one of them will be available. 

Theoretically, you can book on zimparks.org.zw. However, the website doesn’t always work. We booked at Chizarira and Mana Pools by contacting Christine Mhuriro at +263 7 72432148. We used WhatsApp and found Christine to be extremely helpful! We paid by wire transfer. I will say that the process takes a small act of faith, as it isn’t clear how the confirmations will come and that the park office will get the same confirmation, but for us, it all worked out in the end.

Campsites

Kaswiswi 1 – As described in the blog post, on a small channel off the river. The channel was dry when we were there, but I suppose if flowing, you’d get some good birdlife. There are several structures around the site, a sort of raised thing that I’m not entirely sure what it was for, an imposing ablution block full of baboon excrement and debris (we didn’t use it), and a dilapidated lapa. This site is fine if you need a place to camp, but it isn’t the sort of site that is an attraction on its own. 

Kaswiswi 2 – Is a clearing on a small rise above the Luizikukulu River. Good birdlife and a great spot. No facilities. A ford crossing the river goes to the Busi area to the southeast. T4A had this marked as “impassable by 4×4” or something like that, but this is no longer true and has been updated.

Mabola Camp – Just east of the Manzituba Vlei, along a dry channel with good trees and a nice clearing. There is a relatively derelict ablution block here and an otherwise nice grassy clearing. Not to be confused with the Mabola Platform site.

Mabola Platform – Overlooks the Manzituba Vlei. There is a simple long drop here and a wooden platform with a view of the vlei. The site is on a hill, and we used some rocks to level the vehicle, but there probably isn’t room for more than two vehicles here. 

Kariba View – Marked as “Kariba Viewpoint” on T4A, I think this is an official campsite. Very tidy and has a braai stand and a cleared spot for a ground tent just a few meters from the edge of the escarpment. This is a really excellent spot and maybe my top pick if you have a ground tent. No toilet facilities or water.

Mucheni Gorge Campsite – We didn’t view this camp as it was occupied. It faces east, and I gather it is almost as good as Mucheni View; we would happily camp in either.

Mucheni View – Already described in the blog above. If any criticism can be made of this camp, the facilities are haphazardly sited around the camp, making it more utilitarian than need be. There is a braai stand but no place to make a fire on the ground. I’m really splitting hairs here; it is a fantastic spot.  

Mucheni View Campsite – the ablutions are behind me

Viewpoint of Mucheni Gorge (as marked on T4A) – This is at the end of the road past the Mucheni sites and is intended to be a place to park and look at the view. However, in the middle of the turnaround is a fire pit, and if you ask the rangers, they will let people camp here. It is not an official campsite, cannot be booked ahead and has no facilities. A barrier of some 10 meters of bush separates the site from excellent cliffside views.

The unofficial campsite at the Mucheniew lookout

Busi – Noted on T4A as Busi Wild Camp. Clifford did say that you can camp there and that this is the area most of the park’s elephants prefer. I would like to visit this spot on a future visit, but I don’t know anything about it.

I also asked Clifford about the road out of the park’s southern gate. He said the park staff has recently repaired this road, and it is good until the gate, but beyond the gate and outside of the park, it is in terrible shape for about 10 kilometers. He said, “It is not recommended.” This might mean that it’s not recommended, or it might mean it’s totally impassable. I have found that understatement is the rule rather than the exception when getting advice in Africa. 

Note: This post might not be for everyone. It is long, and only covers two days! And I didn’t take many pics on these days, so it is mostly text. These days were packed and among our most interesting. If you’re pressed for time I recommend the section about money changing, it’s bananas. I have provided quick links below if you want to skip ahead.

A Primer on Zimbabwean Politics

It is time for us to go to Zimbabwe, but before we do, a small preface. It would be a disservice to skip over any mention of Zimbabwe’s politics, race, or unpleasantness. These are sensitive and complex topics. I hope, even in my brevity, I do them justice. If I offend you, I apologize, but I feel it’s better to mention these things rather than not. Visiting all these places isn’t just about nice sunsets and elephants; it’s about trying to understand and untangle the most complex mammals, humans.

A few days earlier, we were camped at Savuti in Chobe National Park and Jenny had a conversation with our South African camp neighbors. During this chat, they mentioned, “Well, since you can’t go to Zimbabwe right now….” This naturally piqued Jenny’s interest since we were headed there in a few days. Jenny asked why and the woman explained that, as South Africans, they know that Zimbabwe is corrupt, that travelers are hassled, that police solicit bribes and that it’s not safe.  

This is not our impression. But it is the impression and belief of many white South Africans we have met. Brutal crimes have punctuated Zimbabwe’s past. Particularly vivid in the memory of the white African population are the land grabs and farm murders of the early 2000s. 

The origins of the farm seizures are long simmering and complex. The forced takeover of farms motivated many of the white population to flee the country, and those who remained lived under Mugabe’s specter, wondering what he would do next. Of course, black Zimbabweans experienced oppression and violence at the hands of Ian Smith’s white government before independence in 1980.

The land grabs and later hassling of travelers by police with small-level shakedowns branded Zimbabwe as an unwelcoming place for travelers. The farm takeovers also turbocharged the loss of productivity of Zimbabwe’s impressive agricultural capacity, contributing to the currency’s collapse. This resulted in the second-highest rate of hyperinflation in history (see Hungary, post WWII for the highest), at a very impressive 98% per day. Today inflation is a little more under control, year on year around a mere 95%.

Recent events in South Africa have returned these memories to the fore. The South African government has moved to enact a law allowing involuntary land expropriation by the government, an attempt to follow through on an old and long unfulfilled promise by the ANC to increase black land ownership. This reignited concerns by some white South Africans that South Africa is headed the same way as Zimbabwe.

Not all Africans, white or black, think it will go that far. The new South African law, yet to be passed, is explicit in what land can be taken without compensation, namely abandoned land, state land and land held for speculative purposes. The big question, and I cannot emphasize this enough, is how the new law would be applied in practice if passed. 

This is all to say that a vocal segment of the white South African population views Zimbabwe with skepticism, fear and anger, as a harbinger and prophetic example of their future. 

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s current economy is so sluggish and without opportunity that many Zimbabweans are immigrating legally and illegally into South Africa. The fear that Zimbabweans are taking South Africans’ jobs is pervasive among the black South African community and has led to xenophobic attacks against immigrants. 

This history is much more knotty than I have described, but suffice it to say that Zimbabwe and South Africa’s histories are intertwined and messy. Any African, black or white, has something to say about Zimbabwe, South Africa and politics. 

Against this backdrop, we entered Zimbabwe. 

Kasane-Zim Border Crossing

Our day started in Kasane, Botswana. Our friends Gerry and Ronda were with us for their last day, and we wanted to take them on the classic day trip to Victoria Falls, just east across the border. It was 8 o’clock when we drove away from our campsite at Chobe Safari Lodge towards the border, justa 10 minute drive away.

Just before the border, there is an intersection where if you go straight, you end up in Zambia in a few hundred meters, and if you take a right, you end up in Zimbabwe in a few minutes. Don’t make a wrong turn! 

There is always a swarm of day trip visitors to Vic Falls, herded in tour busses and shepherded by guides who organize these trips every day. We were just ahead of the crush. This was Gerry and Ronda’s first border crossing, and we had briefed them the way a coach briefs a sports team, with urgency and detail. 

Top tip for any African border crossing: bring a pen; they are always in short supply. 

Armed with four pens, we sailed through Botswanan immigration and customs in just a few minutes. The officers are used to the swarm of day visitors and didn’t ask any questions or care to inspect our vehicle. 

On the Zimbabwe side, the typical border “agents” or runners spotted us and wanted to help. Once we told them it wasn’t a rental vehicle, they relaxed their attack, and we managed to start the process unassisted. The first stop was health, where our covid cards were scrutinized, then onto immigration. 

Moments after our arrival, a line of day visitor tour groups formed behind us. Next time, we’ll leave Kasane at 7:45 instead of 8:00, when the tours seem to depart. Jenny and I got our visas first, but then one of two immigration officers wandered away for 15 minutes, leaving Gerry and Ronda marooned at the window. I was almost happy they were getting a classic border experience, a delay with no explanation. This was their first time in Africa, and their Botswana experience had been entirely too smooth. 

I received my visa and was freed to go to customs to clear the vehicle. After a security guard managed to find the customs officer, things went pretty smoothly, and we chatted while he filled out all the paperwork. $20 USD paid the road and carbon tax, and right around when the rest of our party finally got their visas I was done at customs. We were through.

The drive from the border to Victoria Falls town is about 45 minutes, through scrubland and dry forest that is a hunting safari concession or further along the Zambezi National Park (not to be confused with Zambia’s Lower Zambezi National Park). This drive was a chance to catch our breath from the border crossing and relax before heading into the fray of touristy Victoria Falls on a holiday weekend.

The town of Victoria Falls is a land apart from the rest of Zimbabwe. Many visitors on safari in Zambia and Botswana tack on a short visit to Vic Falls at the end of their safari, never venturing further into Zimbabwe. The government knows this and has invested heavily. The town is very safe, with tourist police all over the place on foot patrols. After covid vaccines became available, Zimbabwe focused heavily on vaccinating the citizens of Victoria Falls, hoping to restore at least some tourist revenue. Here the vaccination rate rivals western countries, whereas the rest of Zimbabwe languished, like much of Africa, in the low double digits. 

We drove straight to Victoria Falls National Park and snagged the last parking spot inside the gated parking area. Immediately upon stepping out, we were swarmed by hawkers. Under this press we managed to establish who would watch the car, a Mr. “KGB” (best to get this over with, as it’ll happen one way or the other), and we agreed to have our car washed while we visited the park, settling on a price ⅓ of his initial offer.

The line into the Park was long; one ticket kiosk was out of order. It took a long time to get in, but it was worth it, the falls are fantastic, and we were excited to show our friends this wonder. As with our previous visits, the falls really impressed. Jenny and I hadn’t visited during this season, having previously seen peak flow and the falls at their lowest flow, so it was nice to see them at this mid-level, where water is spilling across the entire 1.7 kilometer face of the falls, yet not so much water that the spray obscures the view. 

After a morning of wandering around the various viewpoints along the face of the falls, we retreated to the Victoria Falls Hotel for lunch. I’m sure this isn’t the best lunch available in Vic Falls town (as we say, “you can get better, but you can’t pay more!”), but the hotel’s long history, very colonial in feel, is interesting, and the hotel is a tranquil break from the hustle and bustle of town. 

In the afternoon, we splurged on a helicopter flight over the falls. It was incredible to see the falls from the air, particularly the deep clefts of the canyons zig-zagging downstream of the falls. These gorges were the locations of the previous falls tens of thousands of years ago. In another 10,000 years the Zambezi river will have carved yet another face to the falls, leaving the one we saw today dry and dormant.

After the flight, we said goodbye to Gerry and Ronda, who took a shuttle back to Kasane, where they’d continue to Cape Town for the last leg of their African trip.

We camped at the N1 hotel that night, which allows camping on the lawn next to the pool ($10 USD pppn). It’s right in town, but even on this Saturday night, it wasn’t too loud. There were a couple of other international overlanders camping here, and we all had a friendly chat for a while, swapping notes and travel stories.

Before departing, one of our chores was getting a local SIM card for our phones. Because it was Saturday Econet shop was closed, ostensibly the only place to get SIM cards. 

As anyone who has been in Vic Falls for more than five minutes will have experienced, when you walk on the street unaccompanied by a guide, you’ll be endlessly approached by hawkers trying to sell either small wood carvings or defunct Zimbabwean dollars of tremendously high denominations, now worthless except for souvenirs. “I will make you a Billionaire my friend.” is a common refrain. 

We’d been declining these offers all day while pondering how to get a SIM card. After chatting with George, who had tried to sell us both some billion dollar notes and a small carved hippo, I said, “George, you know what I really need?” He froze, instantly recognizing this was not the standard denial of his services; he had a fish on the hook! He looked on expectantly, ready to fulfill any requirement. “We need SIM cards for our phones, but the shop is closed for the next three days. Can you help us get them?”.

He agreed to try to get two SIM cards and return in half an hour. Sure enough, he brought one Econet SIM and one Netone SIM. After haggling, we settled on a price and installed the cards to ensure they worked before paying. We paid a premium for this SIM concierge service, but it seemed worth it, given the alternative. 

The Murky World of Zimbwean Economics 

In the morning, we decided to leave for the long drive to Chizarira (342km) no later than 10:00. This turned out to be too late a departure, but we didn’t know that then. Before leaving we had to provision, which would also be our indoctrination into a byzantine system of Zimbabwean currency and financial transactions. 

In brief, Zimbabwe has had four currencies, each abandoned after hyperinflation rendered them worthless. It’s now on its 5th series, with moderate success. Perhaps this time, under the new president, it’ll stick? 

The currency now in use is the Zimbabwean dollar, ZWL, also known as “bond notes” or occasionally colloquially, “Zollars.” The problem with the bond notes is that there isn’t enough actual physical currency circulating in the country to do business with any practicality. Without enough paper notes, there isn’t anything to trade with. 

Enter the RTGS. The RTGS (real time gross settlement) is the electronic form of the bond note, used from cell phone to cell phone, like mobile money and Mpesa in Kenya, described in previous blog posts.

The US Dollar is also used, so all goods can be bought in either USD, bond notes or RTGS if you have mobile signal and an Ecocash account on your phone. The official exchange rate for bond notes to USD is lower than the street value, in large part because the ZWL is not an internationally recognized currency. This means that typical economic factors do not determine the exchange rate. The street value fluctuates, even in the week I watched it, at something like double the official rate. Check zimrates.com for the latest actual rates.

What happens when you go into a store and buy something with an international credit card? Remember, there is no practical way to arm yourself with enough physical bond notes to do business, so changing USD cash on the street for bond notes to get a better rate is impossible. We didn’t have an Ecocash account, so we couldn’t get the black market rate with RTGS sent to our phones. 

The discrepancy between the official and street rates is so significant* that stores that accept foreign credit cards offer a “mid rate,” something in between the two rates. Thus there are three exchange rates for a currency that nobody recognizes outside Zim, and you can’t get anyway, even if you want some. Welcome to Zimbabwe! 

*I’m told the rates are now much closer.

I had read online that a curious industry had popped up due to all these fiscal shenanigans, and I went to investigate. Jenny headed into the Pick n’ Pay supermarket, and I started by first going to top our diesel. Fuel shortages are another conundrum in Zimbabwe. While in Zim we’ll abide by Jenny’s maxim, “When traveling in Africa, never pass up a shower or a fuel station.” Unlike the previous fuel station we’d been to that morning, this one had diesel. 

At the pump I asked the attendant if anyone here would pay for my groceries for me. 

If this sounds ridiculous, it is. The attendant didn’t bat an eye and said, “Yes.” Pointing at a plump woman on the street corner. She yelled over to her in the local language and introduced us. 

I met Anna and asked how it works. She said she would give me her local debit card, and I could go in and use it to purchase groceries. When we came out with the receipt in ZWL, we’d convert it to USD and pay her cash. Because she’d give us a better rate than the Pick n’ Pay rate, we’d get a discount on our provisions. I asked her what rate she’d give me, and she said 650. The official rate at the time was 458. 

Now we were at four exchange rates: the official rate, the street rate, the mid-rate and the Anna rate. Effectively Anna and I would be splitting the profit, the discrepancy between the street rate and the official rate, enabled by our US Dollars and her Zimbabwean bank account.

As I wavered, she thrust her debit card at me and said, “The PIN is 2034. I will wait outside for you. No problem.” 

Money and economies are strange things. They only work based on trust. Money has value because we believe it to have value. A dollar bill can’t perform any actual work or service other than as a medium of exchange; it’s just paper. Here I was, in a country where a lack of trust in the currency and the rule of law had driven the country’s economy into the ground with hyperinflation, yet a woman I’d just met gave me her bank card and PIN without hesitation. Trust. 

I headed into the Pick n’ Pay to rendezvous with Jenny. On the way in, I asked a cashier about the rate for a foreign credit card; she responded, “511.” We were at five exchange rates, and it wasn’t even 10 AM. 

After shopping in the exceptionally well stocked and spotlessly clean supermarket, we checked out. Anna’s debit card worked fine, and we got our receipt indicating some 72,000 ZWL. Outside I wandered around until I found Anna and showed her the receipt. We did the math together on my phone, and I handed over $111 USD, earning us a 26% discount on groceries. 

More than the discount was that it felt fun and very interesting to participate in this curious corner of economics. I had a great time. Feeling the spirit of Zimbabweanhustle and knowing that Anna was clearly a woman who could make things happen, I asked her if she could sell us some airtime. Yes, she could do that too. We made another deal. 

This was made in a group of five or six ladies hanging out on the street corner. These women are a small cartel of money sellers, changers and debit card lenders, making their living in this complex world of dealing. 

I thought having a few physical bond notes might be handy and fun, and Anna introduced me to another woman who dealt in physical cash. I wanted to exchange $40 USD for bond notes, and she looked at me like I was an idiot. “How much can I get?” She said 2000, at 400:1. We haggled over the exchange rate and I got her to 500:1. $4 USD got me a fist full of blue-green $20 bond notes. I was beginning to think the street rate I’d seen on zimrates.com of 800:1 was not for a dumb tourist like me. After all this, we hit the road, excited to dive into Zimbabwe. 

A Breakdown

Heading out of town the road is in good shape and the tarmac lead us easily over long rolling hills. The land here, mostly woodland, looks dry as we leave the green banks of the Zambezi River. As soon as we passed the Victoria Falls Airport the condition of the tar took a turn for the worse, but it still wasn’t too bad. The only police roadblock so far just waived us through.

At the town of Hwange, we entered coal country. There are signs in English and Chinese for collieries and coal coking plants. The roads are in terrible shape due to all the heavily loaded coal trucks heading back and forth. In the distance, we saw tall towers of processing plants flaring, burning off excess gas. There was a fuel station here, and we topped up on fuel at the cost of $1.85 USD a liter. Yikes.

Top tip: Fuel stations are one of the few places that are likely to be able to make change in USD.

Along the roadside are occasional stacks of firewood, baobab seed pods and sacks of something we could not identify. Needing firewood, we pulled over. As usual, someone materialized to make the sale, and we loaded up on heavy mopane wood. While stopped, Jenny asked about the thing we could not identify, a sack of what, on closer inspection, appeared to be dung. The man confirmed that it was. 

He explained that this indicates that the seller has charcoal for sale, but if they leave charcoal on the road to sell, they get hassled by police. We supposed that charcoal is a regulated business. In other countries, this is done to control deforestation; I don’t know the rules in Zimbabwe. The bag of dung was a thinly veiled screen against regulatory control. 

After coal country, we turned onto a road marked on the map simply as “road” and found ourselves on gravel in proper rural Zimbabwe. We put on an audiobook of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, The Long Walk To Freedom. Driving through the backwaters of Zimbabwe, rumbling over the dirt roads, and listening to Mandela’s tales of boyhood in the rural Transkei of South Africa was transportive. 

Initially the road is steep and hilly, with some hair-raising bends if taken at too much speed. There were also numerous bridges over mostly dry riverbeds, and each bridge seemed more dilapidated than the last. They were narrow one way strips of concrete, hardly wider than the vehicle and with no guard rails or curbs whatsoever. 

In a particularly empty stretch of straight gravel road, punctuated by potholes and corrugations and amongst scrub mopane forest, we saw a car broken down in the middle of the road. Drawing closer, we saw it was a Toyota Hilux with a rooftop tent, missing a front wheel, with two chairs set up in the shade. 

Two lanky young men got up as we arrived, and we asked if we could help. They were from Holland, on a month long trip with a vehicle borrowed from a friend in Cape Town. This rough road had taken its toll, and the front wheel had come off while they were driving, which in turn had caused damage to the front left ball joint of the Hilux. 

They had very little in the way of tools. As we started to see if we had anything that could help, a minibus approached, heading in the opposite direction. They stopped, and the passengers poured out for a break while a few guys from the bus surveyed the situation. 

One passenger from the bus turned out to be a mechanic, who introduced himself as Sylvester. After assessing the situation, he thought he could help. He told the minibus driver to continue, he and his brother would stay to help the tourists. 

Over the next two hours we labored on the Hilux, trying to devise “an improvisation,” as Sylvester put it. The best we could hope for was a repair enabling the Dutch tourists, Tom and Simon, to limp to the nearest workshop.

There were missing nuts, damaged threads, sheared cotter pins, a bent stabilizer bar and sheared lug nuts. We were missing the crucial tools, a key wrench size that would have made the job relatively practical. In the end, using three jacks, our tools and parts, baling wire, and several of our spare fasteners, the progress reached a place where our resources were no longer needed. The sun was sinking low in the sky, and we were anxious to get on the road to try to reach Chizarira before it was too late.

Sylvester did all this work wearing his Sunday outfit, a blindingly white t-shirt, clean dark jeans without a blemish and fashionable black leather shoes with pointed toes. I remarked that he was doing an admirable job of staying relatively clean, and he responded, “My wife will beat me.” And we all laughed.

They planned to divert to Binga, about 40 km away, where Sylvester lived and had a workshop. Sylvester said more than once that you must help people broken down on the side of the road because it could be you the next time. It was a great introduction to the Zimbabwean spirit; he and his brother stopped and derailed their afternoon to help stranded travelers. No doubt Tom and Simon will compensate them one way or another, but this was never brought up when we were there. 

Simon felt bad that we had stayed with them so long and urged us to go, thanking us for our time, tools and help. They were getting the tire on the hub as we left. We drove off and made the turn to Chizarira at dusk, driving the ascent into the park in darkness. 

The road was narrow and bumpy, but we kept it slow and had no problems, wondering what we’d find at the gate. Would the rangers let us drive into the park in darkness, or maybe we’d have to camp at the gate? 

The guards at the gate didn’t seem fussed about our late arrival, particularly after learning that we had a prior booking. After signing in, we were allowed to proceed to our booked campsite, Kaswiswi 1, in total darkness. I drove slowly, blindly following the GPS. Partway along, we heard the angry trumpeting of an elephant close by. This got my blood pumping; I half expected to feel the Cruiser lurch as a tusk punctured the canopy. 

We’d been warned that Zimbabwe’s elephants are much less friendly to people, being more persecuted by poachers than in neighboring Botswana. This warning was driven home when we were shown photos of a Toyota pickup destroyed by an angry elephant. Its occupants had retreated to another car behind them, abandoning their vehicle and looking on as the elephant took out his aggression on the empty Hilux. 

No elephants charged us, and we rolled into Kaswiswi No. 1 in total darkness. The campsite looked to have been recently cleared of high grass, with scorch marks from brush fires in camp. Given the late hour, we dined on a simple dinner of quesadillas (comprising the two most important food groups, gluten and cheese) and raw veggies while we sat by the fire. It would be interesting to see what this park looks like in the morning. As we sat around the fire, we could hear the melodious call of the fiery necked nightjar from the darkness.

The Nitty Gritty

Immigration – Note that most foreigners are eligible for a visa on arrival in Zimbabwe, which is $30 USD. You can ask for a KAZA visa, which is $50 dollars and allows for entry to Zimbabwe and Zambia in one visa. This is so people can visit both sides of Victoria Falls. Zambia recently dropped the requirement for US Citizens to have a visa at all, so in the future, the KAZA may not be relevant depending on which country you’re from. 

Customs – We already had COMESA, which simplified the process; we didn’t have to buy any insurance. They did ask, and if we hadn’t had COMESA, they would have required we purchase insurance at the border. Road tax and carbon tax were combined, $20 USD. I had completed an online TIP application before arriving at the border, but the customs officer informed me that an eTIP is not accepted at this border, and that they’re only used at the Beitbridge border. 

The customs agent was super friendly and filled out all our paperwork for us. He found that our TIP had yet to be closed out in their computer system on our last visit to Zimbabwe in 2019. Technically this is supposed to result in a modest fine ($20-50 USD, I can’t remember the exact number), but he judged it to be an error on their part, not ours, and without asking us waived the fee. 

We did not declare anything and brought in 4 jerry cans of fuel without issue. I have read a few reports of people being unable to bring jerry cans of fuel in, or being restricted to only two jerry cans, but nobody seemed to care in this case.

The final step is to ask the customs agent for a gate pass. They will give you a slip of paper with a stamp on it. When you show this to the guard at the boom, they know that you have completed all the required formalities, and they’ll let you out.

Vic Falls Town

We stayed at the N1 Hotel, pleasant ad-hoc camping on the lawn next to the swimming pool. There is not very good wifi here. 

We ate at a trendy bistro near the N1, the Three Monkeys. It was pretty good for what it is, but damn expensive! Across the street from the N1 is the River Brewing Company, a hip-looking microbrewery. We didn’t think the beer here was that great, but it has a lot of potential.

Helicopter Flight – Helicopter flights are darn expensive. You can do the short over the falls only flight, a slightly longer flight or the full gorge tour. They are something like 15, 18 and 22 minutes long. The longest flight gets you a tour over the gorge downriver from the falls. Our friends Pete and Melissa did this in November and had a fantastic time; the pilot flew the helo in the gorge. This convinced us to hope for the same, but instead, we stayed high above. It was cool, but I wished we’d had the more daring pilot. They flew with the senior pilot on the Zambian side, so if you want to try for that experience, I suggest you try from the Zambian side. 

The helicopter company, The Zambezi Helicopter Company, guarantees window seats for all passengers. Upon boarding the helo, we found this not the case; Ronda sat in the middle seat. We didn’t have time to argue and still had a great flight. We stopped by the ticketing agent and complained politely that we were not given the guaranteed window seat. They took this seriously, and after a phone call to the helicopter team, they admitted that they were wrong; we should have gone up in two helicopters. They practically insisted on flying us again the following day, but Gerry and Ronda had already taken their shuttle back to Kasane, and we would be hitting the road. Nonetheless, they were very professional about the whole thing, and we appreciated their effort.

Sim cards – you can check this excellent website to get data rates for Zimbabwe and almost everywhere else, so you know what data should cost. I’ve found this to be accurate, or nearly so: https://prepaid-data-sim-card.fandom.com/wiki/Zimbabwe.

This website has an excellent write-up on the Zimbabwean currency situation: https://www.victoriafalls-guide.net/zimbabwe-currency.html.

Latest exchange rates are here: https://www.zimrates.com: 

If you’d like to learn more about Zimbabwe I recommend these books:

Alexandra Fuller’s autobiographical account of growing up in Zimbabwe in Don’t Lets Go To The Dogs Tonight isn’t as light hearted as Rogers, but is every bit as good.