Tuesday 1 October - Drive to Lake Chivero Lodge

Woke to a drizzly, wet, grey day.  Packing the tent up in the rain was pretty miserable and no incentive to hang around to have breakfast so were back on the road for another long drive by 7.30am. First job was to find the petrol station that Philip (one of the restaurant staff) had explained to us last night.  Ian had not been convinced by the directions but Philip's map was actually perfect and we drove straight there.  The garage was in an industrial estate off the main Masvingo to Bulawayo Road, next to a Schwepps Sign and behind a big red gate.  We would never have found it ourselves as it was essentially a truck depot but they were happy for us to get diesel and pay in $US.  We returned to town with a full tank and hunted for a supermarket.  We landed on Pick and Pay and were surprised at how much more choice there was than the Spar.  This time we remembered to check about payment before shopping - the manager told us they didn't accept foreign currency but could accept a foreign visa card. This proved slightly more problematic than it sounded but finally the second machine worked and we were able to pay.  The customers in the queue behind were amazingly patient and didn't seem at all fazed by the payment issues - probably nothing compared to the issues they experience on a daily basis.

We did take a "short cut" to avoid just travelling on the main roads which took us past a lot of mining areas along a very narrow strip of tarred road - passing other cars meant driving half on and half off the tar.

As we got closer to Harare, toll booth started to become more of a problem.  At the first one, the attendant refused to allow us to pay in either $US or Rand and eventually called the Police Superintendent over.  We were not sure where this was going to end up but even we were surprised whern the policeman just took out his wallet, paid Zim$10 for the toll and pocketed our $2.  It certainly made our life easier but is not going to help Zimbabwe in the long run.  At the next toll booth, we had a similar experience but in this case the guy in the queue behind us paid and took our Rand.  Both of them clearly happy as they have making a nice little profit.

Got to Lake Chivero at 3.30pm and were aggravated to discover that the lodge was a 30 minute drive around the lake.  At the main office we were told that our lodge was the Kingfisher Lodge and were advised that an attendant would meet us there - it was another 2km drive.  From the outside, the lodge looked nice but we could see a load of bags in the living room and no sign of an attendant.  Eventually decided to phone back to the main office and were informed there had been an error and the bags would be moved.  We decided to chill out and drink a beer on the patio, watch the fish eagles and keep out of the way.  We finally got in the the lodge and found that it was pretty run down although it had clearly been impressive in its heyday and still had stunning furniture.  The ladies from the main office came back with two candles warning us that the power could easily go off - Nomsa also asked us to say hello to Samba when we reached Mana Pools (it is a small world in the National Parks).  In the end the issues were not related to the power rather there were no bulbs in the sitting room and the shower didn't work, in addition there were broken windows and a hole in the thatch. We managed to cook beef with noodles on the gas burner and sat at the huge table eating with our head torches on so no real difference to a night camping.