Bulawayo and getting to Hwange National Park- 8.sept

Had the whole morning to look around in Bulawayo, our bus leaves at 2pm so we would have plenty of time to walk around in this beautiful town. Up at 7, breakfast at 8, tour of Bulawayo club right after and then headed to town. Bulawayo seems very friendly, buildings are old and big, streets are wide, people seem polite and all seems safe. We wondered around for few hours - National Art Gallery and Natural History Museum. Both definitely worth visiting. Looked around at the park, tried to grasp all the beautiful architecture and lively streets.

Bulawayo is Zimbabwes second largest city and the capital of Matabeleland, home of Ndebele people. Town is located 1350m above sea level giving it a bit cooler climate than in the rest of the country. There are 2 important names to mention that are connected to this region:
King Lobengula - the son of Zulu king Mzilikazi, leader of a breakaway faction from South Africa's Natal that was to become the Ndebele nation, based in this area.
Cecil John Rhodes - an influential colonialist with ambitions to bring the whole of Africa under British control, while increasing his already phenomenal personal wealth.

Those two figures were the leaders of two sides fighting over the land (late 1800's - around 1894), finally peace negotiations took place. 1920's saw the introduction of municipal electricity even before it was in London. In 1931 the first aerodrome opened to service the Imperial Airways London-Cape Town route, and in 1941 Bulawayo was granted city status.

Right before heading back to the hotel I managed to offend a statue :( Full story is that I took a picture of a building and in front of the building there was a statue that was all covered up and two policeman were guarding it (with guns!). And so they were on the photo as well. One police (a lady) walked over to me and asked what did I just do. I explained that I took a photo of the building. Well, the whole conversation took at least 5 minutes me explaining that I did not mean any harm and it is just a photo and I can delete it if that would help at all. But no, the harm had already been done, photo was taken and deleting it would not help at all. They would take me to the central police station where they would then see what to do with me as this is a very very big offence and I could go to jail (yea, they were serious about it). All was sorted out and I was not taken anywhere, but this was quite tense. So lesson learned - not only is it forbidden to take photos of government buildings, but also of police.

Quickly got back to the hotel, packed our things, checked out and took a taxi to the bus "station". There was no station really, the bus was parked just in the middle of the street and that was it :) One bus was facing one way, going to Harare, the other the other way, going to Victoria Falls. Had to get on the last one (we are getting off earlier though, at Halfway, going to Hwange National park for 2 days). For the longest time we were just standing there waiting for our bus from a different company, only to find out that existing bus is actually the one we need - some confusion right there, but I'm glad we caught on early enough otherwise we would have just missed the bus and would be still standing there probably :-P

Bus was packed, it was a minibus with about 17 passenger seats and additional 4 pull-down seats at the isle. I think they put 20 people on the bus :) No air conditioning (did I mention it is about 27C here during the day?) but it was possible to open the windows. They handed out water and also fast food dinner. There was an attendant from the bus company who said a prayer with everybody once the bus started moving :D We were about 40 minutes late getting out of Bulawayo, but we got to our destination 1.5 hours later that originally planned :) One of the reasons were quite numerous road blocks where police would pull the bus over and ask all kinds of questions from the driver.

Bus drive was pretty good though. Even though my chair turned into a rocking chair at some point and the sun was burning hot and the windows had no curtains - it was all good. The crowd was fun :) There were two local guys at the bus sitting close to us and we managed to get ourselves laughing so hard at some point that I got tears running down my cheeks :) Bus ride was about 3 hours. Once at Halfway the others continued on and about 5 of us stepped off. Our accommodation organized a pick-up for us, another 40 minutes in the bus and there we were - in a small quiet camp where housing is arranged at elevated tree-houses :) There are no walls really, just some shades. It all looks very comfortable though: there is a big bathroom with a shower and water toilet, there are 2 comfortable beds with mosquito nets hanging over them. This place is really in a deep deep bush, closest people are in a village 3km away.

They have a habit to serving cereal and a full English breakfast here in the morning and a 3 course dinner in the evening :) Dinner was super nice also in this accommodation. Right next to the open dinner area there was a bonfire lit. Rest of the evening went in the name of Zimbabwe wine, talking, staring at the fire and gazing at the bright stars up above. The stars are amazing here since it is so dark - just beautiful, clear and bright stars.