The boat transfer was at 8.45 am and we were back in Marineland by 9.30 am. The day then started to go a bit haywire and we were glad we had had such a relaxing start to the day.
Firstly, Ian managed to pay the wrong guy for cleaning our car and left them to argue it out. Then the guy at the gate was irritated that we had not parked in his covered parking spaces - clearly he too had wanted to earn a little extra for car washing. Luckily he was not too irritated as we couldn't find a crucial blue slip of paper that we were supposed to present to get out of Marineland but he eventually decided to let us out without it. Zimbabwe still functions on burocracy and paperwork!
We headed up to Kariba heights to see the view across the lake. We bought a hippo and had an early morning beer in a bar - far too early for me to be drinking beer! A group of school children were also seeing the sights and one of them must have dropped a $Zim note so we picked it up not really expecting to be able to return it.
We then headed to Kariba Dam. Neither of us had actually read the guide book which wasn't ideal! We worked out that we needed to go to immigration. At the border post we saw the coach load of children and Ian was able to hand to $Zim note to a surprised teacher. We completed the necessary paperwork and walked through the border and down to the dam. We soon realised our error - it was scorching hot and we had no water and I had no hat. We also realised that we could just have driven down and parked at the dam - it will probably be more memorably for the walk though!
Immigration and customs on the Zim side was reasonably straightforward. The immigration guy was amused to see us again and we had a laugh about the fact we had walked down to the dam. We paid our $10 dam tax, had a quick check from Interpol but they were too hot to really check anything and we were suddenly out of Zimbabwe and into No Mans Land. We stopped on the Zambian side of the dam and took a couple more pictures.
We then drove to the Zambian border - not expecting any issues. How wrong could we be! The first issue was at Immigration. The Immigration Officer refused to accept that our Kasa Visa was valid at the Kariba border post. Despite arguing we were eventually forced to buy 2 new visas at $50 each. In hindsight we should have asked to speak to his supervisor! At Customs we couldn't find our Carbon Tax certificate even though we knew we had it. Of course we did eventually find it but that was after we had aleady paid 550 Kwatcha for a new one. We were then directed to Interpol and this was when it went really wierd. We were told that we had the wrong paperwork for the vehicle - we were OK to enter Zambia but we couldn't take the car in. After considerable arguing we eventually decided the only solution was to call Gene at Safari Drive. She didn't seem particularly keen to talk to the Interpol guy but I handed the phone over anyway but it just resulted in him putting the phone down on her. We think he was trying to get us to pay him a bribe but we refused to do this and finally he relented and let us though. We then got stopped at the actual border gate. By this time we didn't trust anyone so the poor guy on the gate got a mouthful from Ian when he legitimately asked us to pay the local tax.
Finally back into Zambia, we drove straight to Siavonga to get some shopping. We had been advised to do this in Zimbabwe but we had ignored the advice! We did manage to find an ATM to get some much needed cash out but there was clearly no supermarket in Siavonga so for once we had to use the local shops and the market. This wasn't a problem it was just that the choice was a bit limited. We were able to get bread rolls from the bakery, some beef from the butcher (it was the only thing we recognised), potatoes and onions from the market. We tried to get some beer from what we thought was the bottle shop but turned out to be the wholesaler - we really didn't need 24 bottles of beer! However he did direct us to a little general store where we found water and beer.
We booked into Eagles Rest for the night. It was not quite what we expected but was a nice resort with lots of chalets, a restaurant and a beach bar. We sat at the bar drinking beer and eating a late lunch of fish and chips. I had a long chat with the manager Tom whilst Ian went and got changed, so by the time Ian returned it was time to return to the campsite and set up camp. We had a lovely view of the lake and were able to sit reading til 9 pm after eating braaied beef, fried potatoes and squash for tea - the beef was somewhat chewy but was edible! The tent was boiling hot so a very sticky night was in store and noisy from the next door neighbours peacock!
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