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| My Travel Diary - Zimbabwe
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Hey, time for another quick update! We have now finished our safari with Africa Travel Company. It was amazing, especially Chobe National Park in Botswana, where we did an over night camp and saw leopards, elephants by the hundred, lions, hippos, buffalo, many species of birds including eagles, baboons, mongooses, wart hogs, jeckels, hienas, and several species of antelope. The best way to spend 50 pounds ever. From there we get dropped at the border with Zimbabwe and this is where the fun begins. The crossing and visa entry were fine, easy in fact, the oficials weere actaully nice. ATC had organised a transfer for us to Victoria Falls. It's here on time and 9 f us from our trip pile on. About 500m up the road from the border, the mini bus judders to a halt. It appears part of the engine is missing and so we cant go any further!! We wait while they see if they can find it and the when they cant we free wheel back to the border!! Another company then takes us to Vic Falls in their swish van. Tired and confused we arrive in the ATC office to find that they are trying to sell us tourist trips. It also turns out that we cant get any money out in Zimbabwe using a card unless we want an extorsionate bill for a meal! So quickly many realise they havent enough money and change flights. We stay in a huge camp but have nearly all of it to our selves. Its election day and so nobody is around, everything is shut and sop lunch is bought at a service station. The people here are desperate, lots of them will swap anything, (from clocks to caps to t-shirts) for their wooden ahndicrafts. The camp has a view of victoria falls and we can even hear them from our room! So the next day we go to see them witha group of people from our truck who came over from Zambia the previous evening. The falls are amzing and jsut keep going. We see them from the edge for the first time and its impressive but it just keeps going and going. Definately a wonder of the world.
Overall we feel quite safe in Vic falls and we conclude that its because its a tourist area and not really a true representation of zimbabwe. The we fly out and i find the best advert for cigarettes ever, i shall try to put the photo up here.
We arrive safely in dar es Salaam, having gone via Jo'burg and get a transfer to our hotel which they then say is full and we go to another one whihc is right next to the all night karaoke!! Thankfully I have earplugs and get a fairly good nights sleep. Today is a sorting things out day. Tomorow we will meet with a few people from the project and a co year of ours who is tudying out here, all very exciting. We start the project at the end of this week. Should be good.
Lots of love and best wishes
sarah |
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Posted by sarahwaterfield on 2008-06-30 05:34:52 | Rating: | Views: 30
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