Wednesday 11 December Mlibizi, Kariba Lake

We arrived at Mlibizi Zambesi Resort yesterday afternoon, after a very short trip to Victoria Falls. After a couple of idyllic days at Tuskers we packed the tent up on Monday morning and carried on northward to Vic Falls. The last night at Tuskers was excellent, we watched the waterhole and so many elephants came to it, herd after herd, from different directions. One young bull was quite desperate to mate and he cornered a female. There were a couple of stand-offs as two elephants went head to head and tussled for a bit. Finally the young bull seemed to win through, but he looked as if he was new to the mating game. He couldn't seem to coordinate mounting her and getting his penis inserted at the same time. After quite a lot of playing around she seemed to get a bit fed up and strolled off. He looked so sad and dejected, left with his penis dangling in the dust. Tuskers is an excellent campsite and we would recommend it whole-heartedly, just check that there isn't a truckload of overlanders booked in at the same time
The campsite I had booked in Vic Falls was Adventure Lodge, which was a mistake. The other campsite in Vic Falls is the Rest Camp, which according to the Bradt Guide, caters mainly for overland trucks, so I decided to avoid it. If I had read the book more thoroughly or done a bit more research, I might have realised that being in 'the industrial zone', rather than 'the residential zone' wold not be such a good thing. The approach to the campsite was dirty and litter strewn. At first we couldn't gain entry to the campsite, even though it was clearly marked from the road it seemed to be through a bit of waste land, but there were just solidly closed iron gates at the end, beyond which we could see what looked like a prion compound. We went back down the road and drove in to the main Lodge entrance, where we were able to check in. The campsite was indeed the walled compound we had seen, and John drove the car back to the gates where he was admitted, while I walked through the Lodge grounds to get there with the very nice young woman from reception.
I can only assume that security must be a really big problem in Vic Falls, because inside appearance confirmed that it was like a prison compound, high brick walls topped with rolls of barbed wire, flood lights designed to stay on all night. The camping areas were nice, grass under large shady trees, a basic but very clean ablutions block. A downside was that it was also the parking area for the overland trucks, even though the people in them were staying in the motel type rooms, rather than camping. The Lodge itself consisted of lots and lots of rooms, with a bar/restaurant/sitting area and and an outdoor area around a small pool. It looked quite nice and we sat there for a bit at lunchtime and tried to use the WiFi connection to do some updating. A television in the bar area pounded away relentlessly and loudly with pop dance videos. We decided to take a walk around the town and maybe find somewhere to eat.
Zimbabwe has a real litter problem. We noticed it first on the Beitbridge road as we entered the county, either side of the road bordered by bottles and cans, plastic bags and take-out cartons. As we have driven around the country we have found similar conditions wherever people seem to congregate, bus stops, outside the small subsistence shops I would call 'duka'. The bomas or kraals (as they are called here) generally seem to be well maintained and tidy, it's the public areas which are not so good. On the 'industrial' or predominantly black side of town where we were, litter was a big eyesore. This is so unlike areas of Tanzania I am familiar with. Even in a large town such as Arusha, where I frequently stayed in the Maasai quarter, the 'streets (dirt) and walk ways were kept so clean, all the rubbish swept up every morning and burnt. This litter problem gave Vic Falls a very scruffy and uncared for feel, a sort of temporary or transit feel. We have heard comments from Zimbabweans that Vic Falls has been spoilt because it has become so commercialised. We didn't find it commercialised, yes there were loads of touts and an abundance of street vendors selling cheap mass-produced carvings, " all my own work". If it is becoming 'commercialised', because Zimbabwe has far and away the best view of the Falls, then it would make sense for the Government to capitalize on that, clean the place up and give it some character as well as the spectacle of The Falls themselves. We took a look at the other campsite, The Rest Camp, and I have to say it looked a whole lot better than Adventure Lodge campsite.
We ate at Mama Africa's and both had excellent meals. John had a game hotpot with peanut butter rice. He liked the hotpot, wasn't so sure about the rice. I had a 'traditional' stew with green vegetable and ugali (corn mealie, called sadza here). It was delicious, in a way I've missed ugali, I got so used to eating it everyday when I was in Simanjiro it became the norm. Similarly I have such nostalgic memories of milky Maasai tea. on our return to the campsite we took a bottle of wine to sit by the pool and play some cards. The disco music drove us away, back to our tent, where some sort of a rave was going on the other side of the brick and barbed-wire wall. This lasted until about 12.00, accompanied by heavy traffic roaring up and down the adjacent road, not a good camping experience.
We were awake early in the morning and we had walked the small distance to the Falls by 08.00. This is November, the dry period,but it was still amazing. We have heard comment that the spectacle of the Falls can actually be better in the dry period. In April and May when they are at their most voluminous there is nothing to see but spray/smoke. The smoke that thunders. We walked around all the view points, getting quite wet as we went through the forested area. It is permanent rain forest as even at this dry period there was enough spray onto the trees for there to be permanent precipitation. Early in the morning the tour groups hadn't arrived, there were very few people. On the way out it was a bright clear morning and the views of the cataracts were great, with many rainbows. By the time we made our way back, meeting the hordes of visitors coming towards us, the sky was heavy and overcast and the light was poor.
We didn't hurry, strolled at leisure and made stops at all the viewing points, but the tour only took us just over a couple of hours so we were back at the campsite by just after 10.00. After a brief discussion we decided to pack up the tent and move on, we really didn't want to spend another night in Victoria Falls, or I suppose more precisely, at Adventure Lodge Campsite.
We were packed up in record time, about 30 minutes and, after a brief stop for fuel, on the road by just after 11.00. We retraced our footsteps to the Dete Crossroads and then followed the tarred road to Kamaviti and then to Mlibizi. It is a wonderful route, the road is a switch-back of ascents and descents, winding it's way through trees and scrub, past baobob trees and Tonga kraals. We hardly saw another vehicle.
We found the Mlibizi Zambesi Resort easily, and it is a lovely spot. We learnt that the current owners have only been here for four months. It is in fact owned by a consortium of share-holders, trying to turn the place around. There are some very nice chalets overlooking Lake Kariba. The camping area is excellent, raised pitches, tree shaded with electricity points. The whole area has the potential to be idyllic, it reminded us of 'Gringo Perdido' at Lake Peten in Guatemala, but much more sophisticated. There is so much that could be done here, but the current owners must take credit for what they have done already in the face of adversity. There is a nice grassed 'sunset deck' looking out over the lake. At 'Gringo Perdido' it was a pontoon built out into the Lake, but of course we swam there, it is not possible to swim at Kariba because of crocodiles. Everyone was so friendly and helpful. We took a two hour trip out onto the Lake on a powered raft with a local man who knew exactly where to go for the best sightings of heron, cormorant, storks and a fish eagle, as well as hippos and crocodiles. We are so pleased that we made the journey from the A8 to Mlibizi, 90 minutes each way, the resort itself was good, but we also had a feeling of being in the heartland of Zimbabwe, as we suspect not many non-Zimbabwean tourists venture this far. The people living around here are Tonga, displaced by the building of the dam and the creation of the Lake.