Days 50 thru 52

(Rhia’s comments are italicized)

After Googling “Things to do in Harare”, we decided on a few of places that seemed right up our alley. The first place was an area called Balancing Rocks. This was a beautiful area where there were a load of…wait for it…rocks balancing on top of each other! The most famous, by far, is Money Rock.

The size of this national monument is quite small, and is nestled in a populated area.

But there were a lot of balanced stones packed into this little area.

We took a picture of the map they had displayed at the entrance and drove the short distances to each important stack. There was one rock called Devil’s Rock that was at the end of a hiking trail. We were interested in Devil’s Rock because we were told it had rock paintings on it.

So we parked the car at Look-Out Point, and started walking… and walking… and walking, and when the trail ended, we kept walking. The map shows passing two sets of rocks on the right, and then a huge set of rocks on the right. Well, it was all rocks on the right and on the left! Eventually, a man carrying a large bag of grass on his shoulder magically appeared from the tall glade of grass we were parting our way through. We asked if he knew where this rock was, and he had no idea. We decided at that point to call it quits on finding that rock, went back to the car and drove to the most intriguing of the balanced rocks, Boat Rock.

We then went to see some rock paintings.

Some of the plants around here were fascinating…

Still trying to make up for the days we didn’t eat much, we searched for another Indian restaurant…and it  turned out to be very posh! The waiters wore traditional  Indian clothing (and looked very handsome and sophisticated) and the menu didn’t have prices 😬. We still decided to eat there and put it on card. I tried to take a picture of the wonderful food, but my phone had switched itself to video capture and it ended up all blurry. Upon trying to pay the bill, we found out that their card reader was broken 😞 so we reluctantly paid the $40 (expensive for us) in cash!  I think I should explain here that I keep us on a strict budget; we can only travel for as long as we do by spending money cognitively and purposefully. That means that each ‘splurge’ (such as $40 meals) has to be saved for and planned. I suspect Dan will disagree, but I think it’s a fun thing to do… especially as it means we can travel for months again next year!!!

Then it was off to the highest rated Google suggestion; the Harare Botanical Gardens! This park covers over 140 acres, and has been separated into different Zimbabwe biomes.

But age and lack of money has taken its toll. We were shocked at how run down the whole place was. Every building was falling apart 😭.

I guess we were expecting lush vegetation, and beautiful gardens, and magnificent floral displays. Instead, we found a sad remnant of bygone splendor. But we got over ourselves and started looking at a different  type of beauty.

I think the locals now use it as a large park, and have picnics, parties, and just general rest and relaxation.

Another long drive followed; this time to Gweru to see the Naletale and Dholodholo (Danamombe) ruins. But our plan to visit both places was foiled by our two-wheel drive car and the local road! Hmmm ‘road’ is a very generous description of what we drove along. We drove 26 kms along what my offline Africa map app informed me was navigable in a 2 wheel drive. Yeah…no!!! We managed to make it to Naletale…barely and it took us 1 1/2 hours for those 26 KMS! I don’t think many people did what we did; people would run out of their homes to wave at us as we went past. Oh, and the ranger who checked us in to the area laughed at us for having taken that particular road in our particular car. He LAUGHED!!! People have commented at how easily we make friends with local people when we travel; I think we do so because we’re idiots and the locals find us amusing!! 

We almost missed the ruins as they’re not signposted at all. Thankfully, a park ranger saw us and pointed out the office tucked back into the forest. The park ranger, Dzingai, decided to be our guide as he was so excited to see Americans (I told him I’m Welsh but he didn’t seem particularly impressed by that. In all fairness, this site became a World Heritage site because of funding from the Americans).

Naletale is thought to have been a vacation place for the king, who lived at Dholodholo, about 40 kms away. Naletale is one of 300 such structures scattered around Zimbabwe.

What makes this particular ruin special are the 6 different designs that were built into the structure. Great Zimbabwe only had chevrons built high on the walls.

We left Naletale, and with the advice Dzingai, took a different road out. This gravel road was an improvement, but still left us with no time to visit Dholodholo this time around. I certainly enjoyed the fresh air, and the company of Dzingai. The people of Zimbabwe have been so friendly and helpful…I truly am beginning to think that people are so friendly with us because we’re idiots!!

On the drive back to Gweru we passed this truck…obviously one person did the ‘school run’ for the whole village! I was stunned that there were about 12 children stuffed into this truck bed...until we overtook the truck and I saw 2 rows of younger children sitting behind those we could see. This truck was carrying about 20 schoolchildren!! I was agog and aghast. The one constant in Africa is that, every day, things astound you!