Day 91 - Bolder Creek. 02/01/13

The same countryside seems to go on forever, but suddenly we were crossing the Zambezi and into Zimbabwe. This is a OSBP (one stop border post to us ignorant travellers) in a large, almost impressive, building opened only a couple of years ago. That was the good news, the bad being that everything is slow due to totally manual systems. On entry to Zambia, passport control was computerised, with our photographs being taken whereas here all details are written down by hand - does anyone ever check them? On the other side of the room were their Zimbabwean opposite numbers where you first line up to pay $55 for the visa, with everything recorded by hand (with carbon paper) and then on to a second counter where the visas are issued, again manually. Still, we were all in and out in about an hour, so no complaints.

Then on to Harare for a couple of hours to get the feel of the place. Outskirts, with district names like "Avondale" and "Greencroft" looked decidedly English - south African born Claire says more like "white, English South Africa". Centre again very European, similar to Lusaka. The clouds were becoming blacker and blacker as we headed for the campsite - by the time we arrived, there was a unanimous decision that we should upgrade to superior accommodation before the heavens really opened, which they soon did! We are beginning to understand the real meaning of a tropical downpour.