29th July
Livngstone island and the Devil's pool

Another early morning pick up to head out to Livingstone island for a "morning breezer" swim
Ordinarily the water level is too high to access the pool at this time of year but due to the poor wet season I was in "luck"




Two guides take you out to the pool- one swims with you, instructing you how to avoid the rocks, and the other walks along the rocks at the edge of the waterfall, with your camera in a dry bag, to take pictures for you



In the morning the water is absolutely freezing, although I would suggest it was actually slightly warmer than the air temperature
Still, I am glad I went, the views and experience are surreal

There are viewpoints you can wander around the island to see


(not sure why this one has come out low res but you get the idea)

Breakfast and more importantly, unlimited cups of hot tea were also provided

Very nice

From there it was back to the hotel to collect bags and then a taxi to the border
En route there were some unusual roadblocks


Also an actual real life Zebra crossing



There was a fairly substantial queue at the border, lots of bumsters and hassle (including from cheeky baboons!!)

I was soon through and onto the bridge, with a man trying to sell me something in hot pursuit



At the Zimbabwe side I discovered the joy of travelling with a British passport, in that my visa was twice the price of most other nationalities (I get the British thing, but for reasons I'm not entirely clear on Canadians have to pay even more for their visas- if anyone knows why?)

Given how "light" I now was, my intention was to walk to my accomodation, given the short distance and my fixed stash of US dollars. This attracted a lot of offers of taxis and enquiries as to whether I wanted to purchase various objects, until I came into the realm of the tourist police

I was looking for a less touristy experience so had booked into the Victoria Falls rest camp (http://www.vicfallsrestcamp.com)- while I believe these are traditionally marketed as self catering options, there was a recent restaurant where I enjoyed Boerewors while I waited for my lodge to be available



I was initially given a menu in Zimbabwe dollars, but the other side of it said you needed to have Zim ID in order to be able to pay with it- I paid USD anyway

Accomodation for the first night was a 2 bedroom lodge sleeping 4





It was obviously fairly basic but it was also phenomenally cheap and "authentic"- AU$100 for 4 nights and bear in mind that is the price for 4 people!
The self catering etc was a nice touch but note 2 things:
The power is insanely sporadic in Zimbabwe- it was on for about 2 hours in the afternoon on my first night there and then off all night until around 4am. It was somewhat better in the days following but still would be off for large chunks of the day
There were issues with currency; the supermarket I went to had prices only in Zim$ and apparently no conversions are allowed, which means if you only have USD they'll take them but at an exchange rate of 1:1, while the official exchange rate is more like 5:1

I headed out in the afternoon to the Econet shop to get a sim card- this is a complex process, a good general overview which I was instructed by is here: https://toomanyadapters.com/buying-sim-card-zimbabwe/
There were complexities to making the transaction- you had to fill in a form, which was apparently administered by the shop's security guard, then queue up at a desk to buy the sim card- the price was either 50c/Zim$1, but as I only had USD I ended up paying US$1 ie Zim$5ish; not the end of the world, however when I was going to queue up to buy airtime it was the same deal. Of course the banks won't give you Zim$ as there aren't many in circulation and even though USD are allegedly illegal to use now, it seems to be difficult if not impossible (and possibly illegal) to sell Zim$ to a foreigner/non-resident. Luckily the trusty security guard also does a side line in currency exchange and my US$5 note was swiftly taken down the street and swapped for Zim$25; I then paid Zim$4 for some airtime; there is no change so the left over Zim$1 was refunded to my now existing EcoCash account (you can use this in lieu of cash in certain places). The lady selling the credit in particular was really down on the whole currency situation, telling me that it's the worst the country has ever been and that everyone is trying to leave but not many places will let Zimbabweans in. Was all a bit depressing really

I had a plan at one point that I would try and take the train to Bulawayo, so headed down the railway station to discuss
Here I happened upon a series of new problems:
-They won't sell you a train ticket other than on the day
-apparently reservations for sleeper compartments are only available for employees of Zimbabwe Railways (and it's an overnight train so you really want a sleeping compartment)
-only Zim$ are acceptable for payment
(factors unrelated to Zimbabwe Railways)
-my working plan for getting back to take my VFA-JNB flight was to take the Fastjet flight BUQ-HRE-VFA; while Fastjet were still selling tickets on their website and apparently filing flight plans and thus showing up on FR24, the airline has apparently suspended all operations (and has been so for some time)
-Air Zimbabwe existed as an alternative, but their website didn't display any flights for sale more than 24 hours in advance, and there are chronic issues with reliability










I decided I would think on it overnight. On the way back I was accosted by a bumster; I confess I caved and bought a few trillion dollars, probably for far more than they were worth!!

Old and new

I made enquiries at the lodge about getting some more Zimbabwean dollars; they didn't outwardly say no but it was very much a case of "maybe a few, if management approves"

Ultimately the upshot was that I never went to Bulawayo or Harare; on the list for another year still