Road Trip to Kariba!

Destination: Kariba, Saturday 19 March, Time : 4:45am

Passport – CHECK, Overnight clothes – CHECK, Power Bank – CHECK, Phone Charger – CHECK, Cellphone – CHECK

I am ready to go, let’s do this!!  We had a whole 360km drive to get to Kariba.  The plan was to leave at 4am but the designated driver overslept so I was all patiently waiting for my friends to send me a message to let me know they were now downstairs waiting for me.  You know whenever all things fun are involved my friend Patience will also be there.  They picked me up at 5am, like a whole hour later but I wasn’t complaining because my plan was to sleep through the whole journey, I even had my pillow with me.  I had one bag but my friends are extra I tell you, who has two whole bags for an overnight do?  By the way Kariba is extremely hot and I have no idea what they wanted jackets for.  Crazy people if you ask me!

You can see Patience is all about that extra life. LOL  Anyways, that was after our first pee break!

We arrived in Kariba at exactly 10am.  We were greeted by hot air and and a temperature of 35 Degrees Celsius.  So much for my friends packing their jackets right?  I for one was super excited because I had been looking forward to visiting Kariba and I simply could not stop taking photos.  Thankfully I will not bore you with too many of them, just a few to keep you coming back for more.

Hello Kariba!!

The first picture of the Kariba Dam that I took.

The plan was to cross over to Zambia because we had made reservations at Lake Safari Lodge.  However, because we hadn’t cleared the car we had to wait for a whole hour to get an affidavit and you have no idea how unreliable the network signal in Zimbabwe can test your patience!  Thankfully we came prepared and we had enough drinks to last us hours.

To be honest, some of these websites sell real actual dreams!  We got to Lake Safari in Siavonga, Zambia alright, it’s just a few minutes away from the Kariba border but those photos on their website and what’s on the ground are completely different!

The rooms were alright.  The TV was huge, I think the room we shared with Patience had a 50 inch TV, I will have to confirm that with her though.  The air con was working fine, there was running water (a rarity in Zimbabwe) but the Jacuzzi wasn’t working properly.  Water was leaking all over the bathroom the moment you tried filling it up with water.  To think I was all excited about trying it out and it let me down like that!!!  Management really has to sort that out.

 

We went site seeing.  I naturally took all the photos which had a swimming pool because that’s the only thing that makes sense to me.

I am always on my phone, it’s a very bad habit that I am working on.  Sometimes I miss out on the moments because of this.

And then I went night swimming, whoop whoop!  When I really think about it, I just spent the greater part of my day in the pool and even the water was warm.  I was hoping at night it would be a bit cooler but was I wrong or what?  Both lunch and supper didn’t taste nice.

I had been drinking Vodka since morning and unfortunately for me I had to go to sleep earlier than everyone else. Sigh…Note to self…Do not drink before midday!

 

I slept soundly though and woke up the next day around 6am, like really, it’s a road trip and you can even wake up at midday for all you care but my internal alarm thought otherwise.  We had breakfast around 8am and the food tasted so bland that I wondered why I hadn’t carried my own food to show them what cooking is done.  It’s either the people who do the cooking are actually not good at it or the food in Zambia simply tastes horrible because I kept getting disappointed.

We left for Harare at 10.30am, we could have left earlier but I was curating for the day on Afro Bloggers and so I had to send some introductory Tweets before we left.  We passed through the Kariba Dam Wall and took more photos, naturally!  The Dam really doesn’t have water.  I hear and read about it but never pay attention to it but when I saw it with my own eyes I was a bit distraught, what is going to become of Zimbabwe…

 

My phone takes decent photos for a Samsung Galaxy 3, an upgrade is totally overdue (let’s hope my boyfriend gets this hint)

We arrived safely in Harare at 330pm, travelling on a Sunday is a breeze because there is less traffic.  It was a fun experience and we are actually planning on the next road trip we should have…This year the plan is to visit as many local tourist destinations as we possibly can.

On my phone YET AGAIN!

MaKupsy