Day 315 / 80

Date: 21 February 2023
Sleeping location: Clevers Resort, Lake Mutirikwi, Zimbabwe
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 82 / 19390 / 4553
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 600 / 169600 / 51600
Stubbornness discount: $5

Day in three words: The rainbow machine

Cuthbert came back to his room at 5.30 in the morning so I was away from the mine before 7. After the previous evening’s difficulty there were, of course, countless ideal camp spots almost immediately and for the next 35km. But at least I can now say I camped in a lithium mine. The wind was light and the road gently undulating so progress was easy until I stopped for a break a couple of hours in. Here I met a nice man called Junior and a group of farmers who were meeting to discuss collective crop strategy for the local area. Zim really feels like a collaborative society*. 

To get around the south side of Lake Mutirikwi I had to turn off onto 15km of dirt road, which was thankfully in good condition, if a little bumpy (as they almost always are), with very infrequent but friendly people. This led to a thin ribbon of tarmac with some spiky little ups and downs, and one of the ups took me to my first view of the lake, an expanse of deep blue water with rocky green hills rising up out of it. It was very pretty. The road then began to get very twisty turny as well as uppy downy, running through quiet corn fields with the lake popping in and out of view in unexpected places - it’s man made so it has lots of tendrils. 

Most of the way through the day I went over the reason the lake was there, the Kyle Dam. I had heard this was beautiful but assumed this was because of the views over the lake, and when I came round the corner and first saw it I had my socks knocked off. The dam outflows were fully open and three huge torrents of water were rushing out and dropping 50m into a shallow sided gorge of bare smooth rock. Even better, after I’d freewheeled down to the dam the sun was positioned in such a way that the spray from the “waterfalls” created a 180 degree rainbow at the bottom of the view up the gorge. It was an incredibly beautiful and impressive sight.

On the other side of the dam a man attempted to extort $3 off me for, essentially, enjoying the view, but gave up in the face of cold hard logic.** A short distance later were some rock paintings of a sort of big deer-like animal and some little stick people running around. These were quite interesting, but no information was given as to their age or provenance other than a sign saying “Bushman Paintings”, so for all I know they were painted by George Dubya on the campaign trail in 2004.

 

Sarah had recommended I stay at a very fancy hotel where one could camp for $15 (which I ragamuffined down to $13). I arrived at 2 but decided it was a good place to relax for the afternoon before heading to the nearby Great Zimbabwe ruins the following morning, rather than rushing round GZ the same day. I set up my tent in a picturesque spot then lazed around and watched the resident monkeys monkey around on the lawn and eat the unripe grapefruits/pomelos from a tree, before having yet another bath (it’s becoming quite the habit at this point). Suitably scrubbed up I went inside to the fancy inside of the hotel, which was full of fancy vintage furniture, and did some blogging at an actual writing desk with a couple of beers. 

Once darkness fell I went back outside to peasant land to make my own food. There were limited spots with good lighting and my headtorch was attracting too many insects to my face, so eventually I moved my entire table, chair and cooking setup down to under a light in the car park. Here I cooked my entire meal before realising that there was a semi indoor and well-lit cooking area right next to where I’d been, already occupied by a French/Belgian couple called Oliver and Pauline who were also camping here. They invited me to join them and we had a chat over our meals. They are heading north via public transport and hitchhiking. 

Today was the first day that Cyclone Freddy came onto my radar - this evening he was about to make landfall in Madagascar, which made Oliver and Pauline sad because they had been there recently. After this he will continue west over Mozambique then Zimbabwe/SA, where he will almost certainly intersect with my route. A situation that will need some careful monitoring and potential circumspection.

*Though how much this collaboration crosses racial lines is hard to gauge

**Namely; it’s not a toll road, no price was listed anywhere, cars had driven across without paying, he didn’t have any tickets, “being white” is not a tax in Zim in the same way it is in, say, Malawi. His repeated defence was pointing to his Zimbabwe Water Board polo shirt and saying “it’s official”. It’s not.