Were have all the zimbabweans gone on holiday ?
18th August
August is school holidays and we were told by many that if we wanted to stay in Nyanga we would have to book as everything would be full….
On our way through to Nyanga we stopped at a place called halfway house as from the outside it looked like a cape farmstall so we couldn’t help ourselves …and to our surprise it was a farmstall abundant with fruit and a little restaurant serving toasted sandwiches !!! We ordered toasted cheese but they also had steak available - no where in zim so far had any meat been available we stocked up on apples and headed of for Nyanga.
Gail had said we should try and get into The Rupurara Inn for a few nights so we headed down the dirt road expecting it to be full, but we relieved to find 2 rooms available for us and what a great find. Really luxurious, amazing service, fantastic views from our room of the Rupurara rock (Rupert climbed it, completely exhausting himself and it took him 2 days to recover-see top pic) and beyond,and fully stocked restaurant.The hotel was really busy full of a group of cyclists with their families that had just completed a 500km cycle race !!
We went on walks , a game drive and the kids went horseriding I was feeling really relaxed and had time to read a book and loaf a bit.
The next day everyone left the lodge and we were the only people there, I started asking questions about how busy they had been in August and how they were coping with the shortages etc and it turns out that they would be closing the lodge once we had gone and would only open when they had reservations. The lodge was not busy and they were struggling. No one was travelling much in Zim as they didn’t have fuel to get around ,food was a problem so they were struggling to provide meals ,meat in particular. The conclusion I came to was that maybe people were not taking holidays then (oh but they were ! see next post) I felt completely gutted for them the hotel deserved to be busy, the staff were amazing so pleased to be be busy nothing was a problem for them …we left wondering if they would make it …
Onto the border crossing Mutare and into Mozambique…