Zimbabwe with Marco

Zimbabwe with Marco Marco and I land at Bulawayo from Johannesburg, flying on the Air Zimbabwe Boeing 767. Here we rent a car from Europcar, apparently the only car-hire company available, though its cars aren't the latest model and in any case have done more than 100,000 km. We sleep in Bulawayo and book a tour with the local tour operator, at 300,000 lire for about a week, with 5 flights included with Air Zimbabwe, nights in 4- and 5-star hotels, breakfasts and local excursions included - a steal. So the next day Marco and I hand the car back at the airport and take the old Boeing 737-200 to land at Victoria Falls Airport. Here they pick us up in a minibus and take us to the little town of Victoria Falls, right at the edge of the legendary falls and on the border with Zambia. The hotel they assign us is the most famous one - Queen Victoria herself inaugurated it.

Its garden is immaculately kept, as is the whole hotel; baboons and warthogs, along with vervet monkeys, scamper up and down at the edge of the pool. The splendid view of the great bridge joining the two states is right opposite. The next day, a buffet breakfast with every good thing, then an excursion to the falls and other places of interest. In the late afternoon they take us back to the airport. Here I make the shortest flight of my life in a jet plane - just 20 minutes - this time on a BA 146 called the Jumbolino. We land at the airport of Hwange National Park, where before landing a car clears zebras and wildebeest off the runway. The Hwange Safari Lodge is unique of its kind, separated from the national park by a ditch that stops big cats and dangerous animals from getting into the hotel gardens, so that we tourists, comfortably at the edge of the pool, enjoy nature live.

Later they take us on a safari. The next day we fly to Kariba and here too the routine repeats: a lovely hotel and excursions. We visit the great dam built by the Italians, responsible for creating Lake Kariba. We've reached the final part of this tour. With two connecting flights we touch the capital Harare and return to Bulawayo. End of a wonderful tour. Here Marco and I, after a couple of days, decide to return to South Africa by sleeper train. The peculiarity of this train is that, as far as the Botswana border, the locomotive is steam, then diesel as far as Gaborone, and finally electric on the last stretch in South Africa.