Day 5 of our trip and Paul is changing our 4th flat tire. We are perched up on the side of a hill overlooking the Great Zimbabwean Ruins in our $40 per night two bedroom lodge and vervet monkeys are running around like an overpopulation of squirrels. Travel in Africa is not for the faint of heart. It is a world of contrasts fraught with beauty and difficulty. We finally left Friday afternoon finding it prohibitively difficult to leave town before then. Paul is involved in several activities including lobbying on behalf of the mobile operators (people who offer mobile tented safaris like his company) with the Minister of tourism so that he doesn’t “regulate them out of business” (which he has threatened to do). This has resulted in our developing a survey of operators to gather some baseline data on their economic and environmental impact as well as many hours of Paul’s contacting interested parties to try to get people aware and motivated to stop this from happening. Another project is helping to monitor the proliferation of farms out in the Boro area that we live in. Over the last couple of months we’ve seen more and more cows and goats and small bomas (housing complexes with several outbuilding and fences, etc.) popping up and the neighbors are worried they are “illegal.” They asked Paul to map all the new homesteads, which meant flying around (in a tiny plane) with his GPS and using the data to make a map to then present to the Land Board to file a complaint.
Anyway, we headed off on Friday afternoon toward Francistown on the eastern border between Botswana and Zimbabwe. We stopped along the way to look at Nata Lodge (recently rebuilt because it was completely burned down by a bush fire last year) and Nata 
Bird Sanctuary which recently had a chemical truck explode in front of its reception building and burnt it to the ground! We stayed that night in Marung (meaning “clouds”) where we sat by the pool and listened to the music at a dinner party and I sang all the lyrics to the 1980s and 1990s tunes. Unfortunately that night a party across the dry river bed went on and on until 2:30 AM when there were a couple of hours of peace until the baby in the tent next to us started to cry at 4 AM and men started arguing with each other around 6 AM. I didn’t get much sleep that night (Paul slept through it all).
Saturday we headed off to Plumtree to cross the border into Zimbabwe with no incidence. We were harassed a bit when purchasing third party insurance (you have to buy insurance for your vehicle) but went to the little camper set up as an office that didn’t bug us. Continuing on our way we got our first flat tire outside of Bulawayo and our second one at the tire repair shop where the spare popped (loudly) as air was added to it. $146 later and we were on our way with two “new” refurbished tires. Two flat tires in two days.
We headed down toward Motobos (used to be “Motopos” not sure why one would change one letter in a name?) a national park. Zimbabwe is a beautiful country with luscious green mountains and beautiful flowering trees. It is such a tragedy how much of it has been destroyed by one man’s leadership (or corruption). You see evidence of the struggle everywhere you go. First, there is very little traffic. You occasionally see people walking on foot and it’s hard to imagine how far they have come or how far they are going as there is often no homestead or villages in sight. Women walk with babies strapped to their backs and large bundles on their heads. You seem men sometimes on rickety bicycles often in what looks to be their “best” outfits – long sleeve button shirts and long pants (and it is hot outside!).
Motopos National Park is riddled with large granite rock formations and you can imagine leopards that might make these their home but we never saw any. On the way to our campsite we stop at a curio shop and trade a large bag of clothes the Paul has weaned from his closet for several handcrafted baskets and wood carvings. The crafters are thrilled to have the clothes and we are happy to have their goods.
We camp at Maleme dam and our campsite overlooks stunning views of the reservoir created by the dam (although this area of the country has been in a drought and the water is quite low). Unlike the night before, this night is peaceful and we can only hear the sound of cicada bugs humming and the occasional bird flying by.
Sunday morning gets off to a rough start when I am innocently taking a morning pee when I am unexpected stung by an evil red wasp who has come out of nowhere and zapped me on my upper bicep. I let out a blood curdling scream and run out of the bathroom with my shorts and underwear down, toilet paper wad and roll in one hand (in retrospect I think it’s pretty funny that I managed to grab our toilet paper roll as I ran for my life…toilet paper is a precious resource in Africa). Paul drops the chairs he’s setting up and rushes toward me (thinking I’m being murdered) and I burst into tears.
Let’s be clear…I don’t like bees or wasps. As I child I was covered from head to toe on a couple of occasions (I had a knack for stepping on nests in the ground) so even the buzzing of them makes me a little nervous. But this sting is the worst thing I’ve ever felt. The bite instantly swells as I search for the Benadryl to try to reduce the reaction. Red wasps are known for being aggressive particularly around their nests but I had been into that bathroom the night before with no problem and I only caught a glance of this one out of the corner of my eye before he attacked. It happened so fast I wasn’t even sure what happened until the pain registered in my brain. Damn that hurt!
Unfortunately, Paul, not 
heeding my advice never to go near the building again as the spawn of Satan might get him too, goes in for dish washing water and on the way back, on the outside of the building, he gets zapped too…on the lip and suffers a much worse reaction than me. The entire side of his lip, jaw and face swell and he looks like the elephant man (I keep saying, “I am not an animal!” but he hasn’t seen the movie so he misses the humor completely). I told him not to go near there…he never listens.
My disfigured husband and I head off to the game park in Motobos for a morning game by but sadly, due to poaching, there are very few game in the game park. We see four giraffe, a couple of kudu, two turtles and a klipspringer and that’s about it. There are supposedly rhino here and we do see spoor (foot prints) and middens (latrines of rhino) but don’t see any. Unfortunately, the poaching is another sign of the desperate times as the poachers have simply been looking for food. We decide to head off to the Great Zimbabwean ruins, our next destination.
These ruins are believed to have been built in the 13th century and occupied until the mid-16th century. They are the largest African built ruins in the sub-Sahara and their name, meaning “house of stone,” became the name of the country after independence (it was Rhodesia before named for Cecil John Rhodes diamond miner and capitalist entrepreneur). The ruins are made with tons of granite blocks fitted without mortar. The remaining structures include the Great Enclosure and the impressive Hill Complex (believed to be the place where the chief lived). 
After replacing the third flat tire on the way into the ruins and going on a wild goose chase to try to find an air pressure machine to fill up the replacement tire (note to self…never travel without an air pump), we spend the afternoon exploring the ruins. The steep climb up the 300 foot ascent to reach the hill complex is well worth it. Much of the outer wall still remains as well as the walls built right into the boulders that sit precariously perched on the top of the hill. The views from on top are also stunning providing a bird’s eye view of the Great Enclosure as well as a large lake. 
After the hike we enjoy our sundowners watching the cheeky vervet monkeys which exemplify why they call it “monkey-ing around.” They are climbing through trees and eating mangos and palm nuts and having a blast. Lots of babies ride attached to their mother’s bellies and a couple of them move on to our porch when we move inside.
The lodge is lovely but unfinished and while I first think it must just be that our unit is unfinished, it actually turns out that ours is the closest one to being functional (note: and we have no hot water). Tourism in Zimbabwe has really suffered with the political situation and it dawns on me that we might be the first people who have stayed here in a really long time.
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