Leaving the Lake

Nhkata Bay

When confronted with the prospect of leaving our glorious island retreat after a seven days, Alanna and I shared a similar sentiment: why bother? Here's a place where you're on a first-name basis with each of your fellow guests (and your bartender), where the village kids bring you roasted Malawian tree-nuts with no motive other than to expand your worldly food knowledge, where the beach could be mistaken for somewhere in the Caribbean except no salty residue! These things add up. In our eyes, to return to mainland Africa was to willfully subject ourselves once again to the gauntlet of cramped minibusses, hassling curio vendors, scary border posts, prospective muggers, ticks, warlords, pushy prostitutes, the lack of french toast, et cetera. But the itinerary prevailed, and after one last stop at the bar for something for Dad (can't you hardly wait, Dad?) we shipped out.

Well, it did not take long for the dreaded gauntlet to close its walls around us (contingent, of course, on a gauntlet being something that has walls). The Ilala ferry was four hours late, and boarding the ship was just as perilous as getting off a week before, except it was carried out in complete darkness. (On top of this, Alanna and I had the extra challenge of maneuvering on and off the lifeboat while attempting to hold our styrofoam takeaway containers upright, but that was of our own doing.) We reached Nkhata bay at 3 o'clock in the morning. The ferry was meant to pull up to a jetty (which makes disembarking quick and painless) but it was currently under repair, and unusable. The Ilala lowered its lifeboats and just... sat there.

We bobbed around in the tiny bay for four hours. Word eventually came round that using the lifeboats on this stretch of shore was deemed unsafe (ha!) so the plan of action was, evidently, to bide our time until the earth's natural cycles gently eroded the beach into a less hazardous shoreline. I guess it was decided that was going to take too long (Malawians are so impatient) so the Ilala moved to an adjacent bay and disembarking began. The happy ending to this episode is that we were picked up in a private rowboat that took us directly to our hostel and that we will never have to get into an Ilala lifeboat ever again.

Looks so innocent, don't she?

Nkhata Bay is a popular stop with those traveling through Malawi, and the lakeshore is dotted with much budget accommodation. We secured ourselves a lovely double room with views of the lake at Mayoka Village. We'd heard unkind things about the area – swarms of pushy vendors and that it is, in general terms, a “dunghole” (I've polished the language some), but our experiences were all positive. Walking into town meant passing a long strip of curio hawkers, but they were mostly of a Rastafarian persuasion and reluctant to leave the shade of their huts. In town, we took our business to a womens' crafting collective (oh how I love you, price tags and indifferent salespeople!). Having prepared ourselves with returning to meat-and-maize for three meals a day, we were happily surprised at the food (homemade pumpkin ravioli and zucchini-flower tempura, anyone?) and fresh fruit juice, long-overdue.

Lunch in town, a regional soccer match for entertainment

Life's essentials at the market (spot the sleeping man)

Mayoka Village shoreline

Our next destination was Livingstonia, after a short stopover in Mzuzu, where we slept at a strange hostel run by a pair of severe alcoholics (or did we just catch them at a bad time? I don't think so). Like the town of Livingstone in Zambia, it's named after David Livingstone, the explorer/missionary/much-admired Doer-of-Good who, like Cecil John Rhodes, seems to have left his mark all over the continent. Livingstonia is perched sort of in the middle of nowhere atop a plateau overlooking Lake Malawi, and is most easily accessed by a 15km-long dirt track that begins at the lake's shore and snakes up the side of a mountain to the village, 700m up.


In the blistering sun, that's a decent hike. All our guidebooks warned us that transport up the hill was scarce and walking was often the only option, but we'd met many travellers who had either been to Livingstonia or were headed there, and there was a hostel of good repute a little ways out of town, so we decided to give it a shot. We disembarked our minibus at the turnoff, and after a snack of Coca-Cola and mandasi (semi-sweet balls of deep-fried bread) we ventured forth. The first thing we encountered was the first thing we often encounter wherever we go: children (there are a lot if them in Africa, if you haven't heard). And the script is always the same: “hello! Hawayoo? Give me money! Give me sweeti! Give me pen!” The delights of Africa children probably deserves its own post, but I'll say this – the kids ask for these things but I'm sure it's just a shot in the dark, a 'might as well try' situation (on Likoma all we ever heard was “give me ballooni!” meaning one legendary person at some point got off the Ilala with a big bag of balloons and everyone since has had to deal with the repercussions). It's part of the ritual of interacting with kids here, and once they know you don't have anything to hand out they're just as open and sweet. Anyway, on the road to Livingstonia it was different: a small group of kids ran up and asked for the usual (funds, confections, writing utensils) and on learning our pockets were empty, they settled for “hugs?” Long story short, Malawi is great.


After an hour of swimming up the mountain in our own perspiration, we flagged down a shiny new pickup truck, a Livingstonian driving his British holidaying friends up the mountain. They were more than happy to let us cram into the back with their luggage and supplies. They invited us into the cab but we gestured towards our armpits and politely declined. So we summitted in style, passing many more unlucky souls, all locals, trekking up and down the road, often with heavy-looking head-cargo.

We spent three lovely nights at the Mushroom Farm Campsite, a rustic, small-scale non-mushroom-farming place with picturesque compost toilets (there's a word combo!) and a kitchen running entirely on wood heat. They provide tent pads (we rented a tent for $4) and a few thatched huts, all perched on the edge of a spectacular cliff overlooking at what felt like half of Malawi. Here we rendezvoused with friends from Likoma (one of which we've been running into periodically since Pretoria and just recently said our final farewells here on Zanzibar) and made a few more. Dinner each night was served by candlelight around a tiny table and we could have stayed much longer.

A view like this...

...means a sunrise like this

On the second day we walked into Livingstonia, another two hours up the road on foot. Originally settled by the Scottish as a mission, there was much ado in various literatures about the architecture ('charming' and 'colonial' were thrown around a lot) and what we found was a long, sleepy avenue dotted with muted brick buildings and many pine trees (I've detected a strong correlation between white missionaries and pine trees and it is a mystery). Nothing revelatory – if I'd lugged my entire life up a mountain on horseback I wouldn't be in the mood to worry about ornamentation either – but pretty charming indeed. There was a small museum displaying a creepy old decaying latex anaesthesia machine.

On the walk to Livingstonia. It had just rained, and the mud was perilously slick, but this kid ripped past on his way down screaming his head off. And oh look, a view!

The other thing to do near Livingstonia is to visit the waterfalls, a twenty minutes' walk from the mushroom farm. Nearing the trailhead to the falls one undoubtedly gathers a throng of young “guides” (indispensable, really) who will lead you down a short path to the top of the falls, a swimmable pool above, and a couple of small caves behind the falls themselves. What with South Africa's drought and Victoria Falls' excess, we've been starved of some good waterfall-viewin', and this certainly fit the bill. Lots of water plunging a great distance into an amazing lush valley, with more views than you can shake a small child at.

From the top of the falls...

...and looking back.

An aerial acrobatics demonstration. The pool was about a meter deep.

These hard-working guides led me to a cave behind the waterfall.

The slogan on the Mushroom Farm's business cards is “Tired of the Beach?” Impossible, of course, but it was refreshing to get into the mountains, up where it's cooler, greener and 'humid' rather than 'muggy.' Livingstonia was our last stop in Malawi, a country that lived up to every high expectation, with possibly the world's best inland beaches, its friendliest people, and one unforgettable old boat. And we got (almost) through without mentioning Madonna.

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Hey! You've made it to the end of the post!
Crazy Awesome Contest Time!

Malawi once had a president named Banda. He declared himself to the post for life, and got a little senile and did some iffy things, like commissioning a brand-new, sort of weird 'capital city' to be built next to the existing capital, Lilongwe.

He also ordered a nationwide ban on a certain song.

What was that song and why?

The first person to comment with the correct answer will receive a handmade card handwritten and addressed to you from Alanna and I (the card was not handmade by us, Malawians did it). Parents, I think you're getting cards already, so maybe leave the playing field open for now.

The game is on, Huzzah.

Lovely Likoma

Teaching the local kids to be sun smart

If it weren't for the scorpion-spiders, I could have easily kicked off my sandals and settled into a lakeside hammock on Likoma Island for the rest of my life. Plunging into the lake at 7am each morning, a giant mug of coffee and two slices of French toast for breakfast, devouring books, magazines, travel guides, in and out of swim suits, walking to town, buying giant avocados and miniature bananas, games of cribbage and bao, waiting for the sun to set, the placid water reflecting the painted sky and finally the stars. We were initially concerned that we'd grow restless on tiny Likoma, sick of the set menu and sand between our toes, but after a week we learned that it's pretty hard to get bored in paradise – especially with spider-scorpions scuttling around your toes.

Hands down, the most comfortable beach chairs in the world.

Scott developed a bit of a posse of local boys during our stay. Being flung into the water was one of their favourite activities.

We call this one the Jesus, for obvious reasons.

Likoma lies a few kilometres off the Mozambican shore, about halfway up Lake Malawi – known as the Calendar Lake for measuring 365 kilometers long, 52 kilometers at its widest point, with 12 estuaries flowing into it. The island's only link to the mainland (besides dug-out canoes and local fishing dhows – neither of which have a great safety record) is the ancient, battered, but undoubtedly enduring Ilala ferry, which covers the Monkey Bay to Chilumba route once a week in either direction.

The mighty MV Ilala, running a mere 3 hours behind schedule at the time of boarding.

We boarded the Ilala at Chipoka, and purchased two first class deck tickets, which meant we'd be spending the night in the open (blissful under a blanket of stars or freezing under a thin cotton sarong, depending how you look at it). Downstairs, the economy deck was dense with farmers, traders, children, crates of empty bottles, bags of maize and cassava, basins of fish, furniture, clothing and chickens. The steamer is very much the lifeline of the lake and I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the boat were to break down or be taken out of service for any length of time. Given its age (it was assembled with parts from Scotland in the 1950s) this doesn't seem too far-fetched.

Apparently, on another sailing, they played "My Heart Will Go On" on repeat throughout the night. Probably not the best song selection given the fact that the the Ilala only has two operational life boats and was without a doubt exceeding its capacity.

Twenty-four hours later, the Ilala pulled into Chipyela Bay, Likoma Island. As there is no jetty and the water in the bay is too shallow, passengers and goods must be loaded and offloaded in the lifeboats. There's a lot of yelling and pushing and throwing, and I'm sure even if I did understand Chichewa, I would find the whole process chaotic. The boats are designed to carry a maximum of 22 passengers, but the Ilala crew seem to regard this as a bare minimum, and only when rounded out with several dozen sacks of maize and cement mix. By the time the boat is 'full' and the boatman points it towards shore, there's usually mere inches inches of clearance from the water.

One of Likoma's slogans is “Turn your watch ahead one hour and back a hundred years,” and stepping onto the beach, you feel as though you are discovering a strange and exotic land that has remained unaffected by the passage of time or the proliferation of technology. Notably, Likoma is the last place on earth with a single-digit telephone system and until recently, the only vehicle on the island was the hospital ambulance.

But Likoma's main claim to fame is its cathedral – a building as impressive as it is out of place. Built by Scottish missionaries in the early 1900's on a site previously used to burn witches, the church served as the headquarters of the Anglican Church of Malawi until 1940. It is a grand and beautifully constructed building, featuring intricate stained-glass windows, carved wooden pillars and pews, and a crucifix made from the wood of the tree beneath which Livingstone's heart is buried.

Unfortunately, we arrived on Likoma a few weeks late – mango season had just ended. The beach where we stayed was lined with mango trees, which (had they been bearing fruit when we visited) may have canceled out the scorpion-spider issue and convinced me to put down my roots for good. But there were no mangoes to be had, and the scorpion-spiders proved to be a menace I could not imagine contending with long-term.

Our beach hut teeming with scorpion-spiders

I really have been making progress with my fear of all things that creep, crawl and slither – I recently watched a man put a snake in his mouth and didn't cry, vomit, or run screaming from the scene – but scorpion-spiders? Scorpion-spiders are a whole new breed of terrifying. Like almost any animal that evokes human fear, they are ten times as afraid of you as you are of them. They are less than one hundredth your size and you can squash them with your sandal. They are virtually harmless to humans. And still... and still. When you have to go pee as many times during the night as I do, the stress of crossing the floor in the dark is too much for one woman to bear. More than once, I made Scott get up and run around the room scaring them into the corners so I could dash outside to relieve myself. I mean, LOOK AT THIS THING. If that doesn't make you whimper and recoil in fear, nothing will.

Simply horrifying

Well, except maybe this.

Scott shaved his beard! Fortunately, the end result is much more attractive than these in-progress shots, and I'm very pleased to report that my boyfriend's face is back and better than ever. However, it's good to know that he can pull off the hillbilly look, should circumstances ever demand it.

Each day on Likoma was much like the one that preceded it and like the one that followed. There were no surprises, nothing that really merited a letter home or a blog post. We went snorkeling. We drank a lot of Coke and Fanta. We played cards. We ate, breathed and slept. And yet it was one of the most memorable parts of the trip for me thus far. It was just so... nice. I probably couldn't come up with a blander, less meaningful way of putting it than that – nice is what you say about something that there's nothing else to say about – but for me that's what it was: nice. Just nice. And when it comes down to it, not even the scorpion-spiders can detract from this view.

Dreams of Zambia

There's this little term thrown around over here, a concept exchanged knowingly between travelers wherever we've been, called 'African Time.' It's a simple and sort of charming notion that time just works differently in Africa, and when dealing with any kind of schedule – pick-up or departure times, opening/closing hours – things are going to be slightly more, let's say, relaxed. We've found this to be too true, and aside from companies geared specifically at uptight Western travelers (namely the BazBus), to be in a hurry in Africa is to be doomed. Minibusses always leave only once they're full, and it's uncommon to sit in one for any less than 45 minutes before it rolls out (our record is three and a half hours). The coach busses we've bought tickets for have been anywhere from an hour to three hours late. That's a long time to sit with one's luggage in a cramped van or at a bus depot, yes, but this is Africa, it's just how things work. African Time had been until recently a mildly amusing quirk of sub-Saharan culture, like the kid we saw wearing a busted soccer ball for a hat. Until Zambia, that is, where it reared its ugly, sluggish head.

Like good travelers, we bought our bus tickets from Lusaka, the capital city, to Chipata, around 700km away near the Malawi border, a day in advance. Eight-thirty departure time, be there at seven forty-five, easy, no problem. (We arrived actually at more like seven thirty-five, because that's just how good we are at traveling.) Mornings at the Lusaka bus depot are hectic and crowded, but our taxi driver dropped us off right in front of our chosen coach. One tout grabbed our bags while another led us onto the bus. A pair of Zambian men already occupied the best two seats at the front, which they were ordered to vacate so that us tourists may have the finest view. The tout insisted over our protests, proclaiming, “because this is an adventchah!” and the two evictees didn't seem too grudging, so we installed ourselves. I confirmed the departure time, which the tout said was half-past nine, not half-past eight, as we'd been told the day before. But what's an hour in Africa?

We waited on that bus for over SEVEN HOURS. Seven hours, doing close to nothing but staring onto the same patch of pavement for the temporal equivalent of a full session of secondary school, or a transatlantic flight, or four feature-length films. It's important to note that the bus sat idling as we boarded, and remained so the entire day, tauntingly, as though it would leave at any second.

Over the course of the SEVEN HOURS, these are the events that occurred:

• Someone handed me a baby.
• Since there is more than one bus company at a time bound for one destination, we watched the mob of bus touts and their scary-aggressive tactics in convincing undecided customers to board their respective vehicles. This includes much yelling, shoving, the grabbing/dragging of limbs and luggage, often borderline physical abuse aimed both at each other and at potential passengers. Needless to say we were relieved to have bought tickets in advance.
• At 8:30 sharp the driver appeared, sat down, and got nice and comfortable behind the wheel, only to nudge the bus sideways a foot at disappear again, the tease.
• We were subjected to plenty of Christian programming (“the woman's role in the household is that of a helper”) through ear-stabbingly small speakers.
• We turned down a multitude of hawkers who came onto the bus selling everything from electric razors to lollipops to large framed mirrors.
• Alanna (ever the daring one) ventured out and peed three times. I only went once. She also located us some meat pies, the only thing we ate all day aside from unsweetened oatmeal that morning. (Have you ever had sugarless oatmeal? It's an atrocious food.)
• One of the touts came onto the bus to demonstrate Zambian dancing and to discuss the American method of dancing of standing with one's arms crossed and bobbing one's head, which he could still pull off much better than I.
• On one of her urine trips Alanna met two Zambian men whose cunning icebreaker was, “hello! Do you only like white men?” Later when she was reading under a tree across the road they came by to chat, and offered her a free cola. She promised she'd say goodbye to them before we left, she did not keep her promise.
• The woman sitting across from us dispensed a superhuman amount of breast milk into her baby (the one I'd held, though she was not the one to pass it to me – the passing around of babies by strangers is common practice in Africa). We were exposed to a single, yet entirely odour-free, diaper-changing.
• I took a total of zero photographs.

Ready for the clincher? The bus DID NOT LEAVE. EVER. Over the course of the day we learned the bus would only leave when full (hence the touts' desperate measures for gaining passengers), and those in charge, after seven hours of presumably hanging around with their fingers crossed, had decided that a trip to Chipata wasn't likely before nightfall. We were informed of this just before three o'clock in the afternoon.

A fellow disgruntled passenger who was going to be very, very late for a job interview took us under her wing and negotiated for our tickets to be transferred to a different company's bus, one that was full enough to leave that day. Within ten minutes we were on a different coach, I on a heap of luggage in the aisle, as they'd run out of seats (After an hour on the road I did get to sit down properly, but the air conditioning was broken and I endured much of the ride with cold water dripping from the overhead vent onto my crotch).

The seven-hour trip took ELEVEN HOURS. The only point of interest on the drive was a refreshment stop at a long row of stands piled with Zambia's favourite road-trip snack, some form of dried spatchcocked fish. This is where I took the second of our two photos to remember Zambia by:


The coach pulled in to Chipata at 2am (we'd scheduled, doe-eyed that morning, for a 4pm arrival). Alanna had researched a scenic guesthouse for us, but we basically let our cab driver take us wherever he darn well pleased as long as there was a mattress. He dropped us at a sparkly chain motel with remote-control air conditioners. Our bodies and luggage had taken on the scent of dried fish during the voyage, but it all seemed natural, somehow.


And you might ask, "what's your other photo from Zambia? Adorable children? Memorable African architecture? A sunset? At least a sunset!"

Of course not:

Trains, Touts and an Invisible Wonder of the World

Back in Bulawayo following our sojourn at Great Zimbabwe, Scott and I may very well have purchased the cheapest first class rail tickets in the world. At $10 US apiece, we reserved a private 'coupee' compartment for the 12-hour overnight journey to Victoria Falls. The bus could have gotten us their in a third of the time, but speed and efficiency be damned, we were going to arrive in style.

After a long and sleepless night next to the sink-toilet.

Arriving at the station after dark on the night of departure, it became very apparent very quickly that we had not in fact scored the deal of the century. Once we found our compartment (we only got it wrong, maybe, four or five times?), we had to dig our headlamps out of our bags to see what it actually looked like. Chartreuse and white speckled paneling covered the walls to almost-match the hospital green mattresses on the beds that folded away from one wall. On the opposite side, in the corner, was some sort of metal receptacle, which we deduced was not a toilet but a sink that happened to smell suspiciously of urine. Not surprisingly, the tap, like the light switches, did not work and probably hadn't since the 1970's – a time when 'Rhodesian Railways' (their insignia is still everywhere) wasn't horribly out-of-date.

Aside from spotting an elephant at Hwange sometime around 6am (our first Big Five! Very exciting!), the train journey was fairly unremarkable. It was cold, there were a few cockroaches, and when I couldn't sleep, I tried to list all fifty states. I couldn't. We arrived in Victoria Falls around 11am, just four hours behind schedule – not bad, if our more recent experiences are anything to go by.

Walking out of the station, we were struck by just how different the town was from anything else we'd experienced in Zimbabwe up to that point. There were sprinklers watering manicured lawns, Land Rovers cruising up and down the main drag, and a large, unsightly travel/shopping/restaurant complex mimicking the style of Great Zimbabwe. What wonders tourism can do for a place.

Ambling around with our backpacks and guidebook, it didn't take long for the touts to spot us and come running over, waving billion dollar bills and salad spoons at us. After Coffee Bay and Hogsback, I had thought that we were reasonably well-versed in hassling, haggling and the art of saying no, but until we met the relentless 'artists' of Victoria Falls (everyone we met claimed to be a carver or a weaver or a painter), we really had no idea just how persistent, constant and intense the harassment could be. Once safely inside the gates of our hostel, we were reluctant to leave – they were quite literally waiting on the other side for us to come out.

But after half a day sparring with pool noodles and downing soft drinks (in the bizarre and unfortunate absence of fruit juice, we've been getting our liquid calories almost exclusively from Coke and Fanta) it was time to get out and see the falls that give the town its name. We headed out early and managed to avoid too much hassle, but at the gates to the park were met with a competitive bunch of raincoat-renters, all vying for our $3/coat. Trying to be fair, we split our business between two different guys, only to be told that it all goes in one pot. I guess that's just how they do things in Victoria Falls – relentlessly, competitively, desperately.

Livin' it up with Livin'stone.

Mostly, this is what we saw.

For a brief moment, the mist cleared and we were able to snap this shot. Ooh! Aah!

Once suited up in ultra-chic head-to-toe yellow plastic, the deluge began. It wasn't so much that the heavens opened up as that the water crashing down over the falls was sent splashing skyward and back down on our heads. Apparently, viewing the falls at the tail-end of the rainy season does have its drawbacks – there is such a thing as too much water and the spray made it nearly impossible to get a clear view of the falls. But the $20 park fee wasn't a total waste – we got a shower with unparalleled water pressure, and were treated to a highly entertaining display of monkey acrobatics.

The next day, we crossed the Zambezi, leaving Zimbabwe behind for good. I wish that I could urge people to put aside their reservations about this country and discover it for themselves, but having seen what tourism has done for the one corner of the country whose international reputation has not diminished under Mugabe, I hesitate. Zimbabwe needs your tourist dollars desperately (just ask one of the dozens of so-called artists) but in our experience, the best part about Zimbabwe (Vic Falls excepted) is the virtual non-existence of tourists. In most of the country, people are friendly, sincere, and eager to help out, not because they want to make a buck or sell you their wares, but because that's just how you treat guests. So go to Zimbabwe, explore its ancient ruins, discover its stuck-in-the-50's cities, meet its charming people – just keep it on the down-low, it would be a shame to see the country become one big adventure mall.

Next stop, Zambia!

Great Zimbabwe

As well as being the country's namesake, the ruins of Great Zimbabwe are supposed to be the nation's second-most visited attraction, next to the tourism behemoth of Victoria Falls. That may be so, but in keeping with our experiences in Bulawayo, we didn't exactly have to sweat over other foreigners crowding our photos. Lodging within the park consists of double-bed huts, dormitories, en-suite chalets, and a campground, all spaced generously across manicured lawns with views of the ruins; and fives minutes towards the main road sits a four-star hotel with white-linen restaurant, bar, tennis court and swimming pool. There was a large village's-worth of beds available in all, but aside from a brief conference of some sort at the hotel, our only neighbours among all this accommodation was one other young couple with a tent. Needing a kitchen to reheat our can of curry, we ended up in a spacious chalet that along with a stove (which we only used once) had two bedrooms and a television. We've grown accustomed to the twenty-square-foot life of dorm-hopping and by no means needed the space, but the ability to scatter our meagre belongings across the surfaces of three separate rooms was a luxury in itself. I had a candle-lit bath. The TV had only one channel, the Home-Videos-Of-Church-Sermons Superstation.

Why this amused me? I don't know. It's a flaming billy club!

We welcomed Great Zimbabwe's sprawling emptiness, aside from the tinges of pity towards the armies of idle hospitality staff and overalled men raking the same patch of soil day after day. Though the term doesn't usually bring to mind anything outside Europe, GZ is indeed a medieval city, dating back almost one thousand years, and is the largest ancient structure in sub-Saharan Africa, home to 20,000 at its peak. Research shows the sophisticated structures were built by the local Bantu people of the area (though colonial authorities of yesteryear were eager to prove otherwise) and there is much evidence pointing to healthy trade routes through Mozambique and beyond – a museum displays ornate artifacts from India, Persia and China, all excavated from the ruins. Also in the museum are a set of treasured soapstone birds, one of which is reproduced on the country's flag. Their significance as national emblems was offset somewhat by their being modestly propped within a dim, stuffy papier-mache 'cave' diorama, dead moss glued to the walls.

Watch out, mid-century British man!

The ruins themselves are epic. Divided into two 'enclosures,' one laid whimsically on the peak of a huge stone 'whaleback' and the other more bulky and spread out within a valley, they satisfy all the criteria for a good castle romp: winding passageways, narrow doors, and the sense that you're the first to move among their walls in centuries. What differentiates Great Zimbabwe from similar European structures is their classification as 'free-stone,' meaning no mortar or sealant was used in their construction. Everything we explored was built of stacked, free-standing granite, at times two meters thick and eleven meters high, and all we had for company were a community of blue-tailed lizards and more loftily dropped baboon dung.

Making use of the natural landscape in the Upper Enclosure

Poo with a view

While the state of Zimbabwe's tourism economy sometimes overshadows the sights themselves (in commenting about our visit since, “we were all alone!” is often the first thing from out mouths), visiting the ruins was an affirmation of what the country has to offer – we visited a solid, world-class attraction, with a singularity and historical resonance that no game lodge or snake park can match. So please, come to Zimbabwe! And maybe do a little littering while you're here, or scuff a footpath at least – tell the groundskeepers Scott sent you.

While waiting in a minibus this guy wanted his photo taken, so here he is.