The Great Zimbabwe Nightmare/Awesomeness

A travel tip: when you intend to travel during the Easter holiday in Southern Africa, don't wait until the day before you want to leave to buy your bus ticket, even when peer pressure is exerted. (Corollary tip: know when the Easter holiday is.)

Yes. Well. Instead of about five days, I spent 24 hours in Zimbabwe. The only available ticket to Masvingo was so close to when I was scheduled to fly to Windhoek that it barely seemed worth it--but I've found that when my other option is two more nights in Pretoria, I sometimes make extreme decisions. So I got onto a bus Monday night with two other volunteers and sixteen hours later (four hours behind schedule) I arrived in Masvingo.

Getting from Masvingo to Great Zimbabwe, 27 k away, was complicated but not difficult, unless you consider the fact that I was carrying everything I own on my back, and that it turns out my possessions are compact but heavy. Basically, we convinced the bus driver to let us off in town instead of the Shell Garage stop, then walked oto the University of Great Zimbabwe to catch a combi to Great Zimbabwe. We arrived in the early afternoon at the Great Zimbabwe Hotel, where the front desk very graciously agreed to store my luggage and charge my phone (which is also my only remaining timepiece). From there, we walked 700 m to Great Zimbabwe itself, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Basically, Great Zimbabwe is the ruins of an 11th-13th century civilization in Southern Zimbabwe, for which the modern country is named. I needed to see it all in one afternoon, so I asked for a guide and got a fantastic one who spent about 3 hours showing me around. Photos are forthcoming.

When, exhausted, we finished around five, I had nearly 7 hours to kill before my bus was scheduled to arrive. I retrieved my bags and went to the hotel restaurant. I had arranged with the taxi driver who had taken us to the park to pick me up, but he never showed up, so the hotel helped me find another way back to the bus stop. The hotel found a guy who was about to go into town with his girlfriend and greed to take me, too, at what seemed at inflated rate considering I'd only paid $2 to get there (and by the way, it's very strange to use USD after so long on rand). They turned out to be very nice, and like everybody else I'd met in Zimbabwe, had a lot of complaining to do about their government. I think Zimbabwe might be my favorite country--it's beautiful, friendly, safe, and well-educated.

I waited at Wimpy Burger for a few hours for my bus, spending most of the time sipping Coke Light in order not to fall asleep in the restaurant and worrying that the bus would be late, whidch would in turn make me late for my flight to Winhoek. A four-hour delay like the trip up would mean that I would arrive in Pretoria, which is about 45-minutes from the airport, 2 hours after my flight's departure. This was not the plan when I bought the ticket, but the cost to change it was exorbitant. Miraculously, I arrived in Pretoria exactly on time, and despite multiple misdirections (because ORT does not believe in labels), I arrived at my gate with 10 minutes to spare before it closed. And proceeded to fall asleep before the plane even took off, waking up only when my delicious and extremely large mid-afternoon meal was served on my two-hour flight. I hear you now have to pay just for peanuts in America--true?

Today I'm leaving Windhoek--pictures and more forthcoming.