Trip breakdown.

City Hostel/Camping Price

SOUTH AFRICA
Cape Town Ashanti Lodge 90R dorm 55R camping

NAMIBIA
Orange River Orange River Lodge 30C
Keetmanshoop K. Municipal Caravan Park 54C
Aus Namib Garage 40C
Sesriem Sesriem National Park 80C
Swakopmund Swakopmund lodge 70C
Khorixas Gowati Lodge 45C
Etosha Etosha National Park 75C
Bagani Epopa Falls Camp 75C

BOTSWANA
Maun Audi Camp (Okavanga Delta) 30P
Nata Nata Lodge (Chobe) 40P

ZIMBABWE
Victoria Falls Victoria Falls Backpackers $6US
Victoria Falls Overland Club $4US
Hwange Hwange National Park $15US ($3.3M(z) black mkt)
Entry to park $15US (Above covered cost)
Bulawayo Bulawayo Caravan Park $775Z
Nalatale Nalatale Ruins Free
Masvingo Masvingo Caravan Park $500Z
Chimanimani Frog and Fern $3M (Z)

SOUTH AFRICA
Messina Baobob Caravan Park $35R
Krueger NP Oifantes Camp $205R cottage (total)
Nelspruitt Son Lodge $77R
Pretoria North South Backpackers $80R
Cape Town Ashanti Lodge $55R

Moms sent an e-mail which kick started me into remembering I haven't really done anything about the blog for a while. So what have I been up to...

W ended the trip in Nelspruitt and we went our seperate ways. Daniel and Andrea to Mozambique and me to Pretoria for my passport stuff. The first entry about the trip explains it all so with that finito.

Thanks to Andrea and Daniel for a great and educational tour. Goodby to the Tazz that carried us to places even the 4X4's couldn't go.

For me, its rest and recovery as I wait for my credit card to arrive and then heading along the east coast up to Mozambique. I figure I will hang out about a month doing the beach thing before starting my explorations.

I did find out about vaccinations today. To get me caught up will cost around $320R OR $47US. I just have to decided if my health is worth that much. I am paying $300US for health insurance and it would be a waste if I don't use it. Oh yea, I am back to two naps a day, so I am doing okay.

We unhappily left our cool double decker hut and decided it was time to head out of Zimbabwe before we had to get more money. That entailed a bit of a drive and a stop in my most favorite town (just because the others hated it, Crap forgot the name.) There we found out that our ultimate plan of screwing over the government was not going to be a complete success. Zimbabwe owes so much to other governments and their dollars are pretty much worthless, so they have to pay everything in foreign currency. This means that anytime someone changes money, the government takes ownership at that point and there is no way to get at it. Therefore, no changing the dollars back even with the receipts. Bummer. After that, it was a shopping spree for me since I still had a good wad. I just bought a bunch of food that I am still eating. We drove all day and crossed the border that night. The original plan was to either stay in Krueger National Park, or close to it. We were pretty beat so we stopped at the first border town that we could find.

The next morning we hit Krueger and this is what we saw.

At $450,000Z to the dollar, we became millionaires after changing $3US. This photo is what $200US looks like.

At the gas station, they use a money counting maching and just dump the bills into boxes and then throw the boxes into the closet. Crazy. Bills started at $20,000, 50,000, and the hard to get 100,000.

Gas ran around $35,000,000 to fill the tank. Crazy stuff. We had to walk around with our backpacks full of money just to go and buy a pizza.

Chimanimani National Park was a breath of fresh air from the normal arid desert like conditions of Zimbabwe. It was mountainous with green trees and heavily farmed. It had a nice little village and nice people. The most memorable part was scoring the deluxe accomodations for $3Mil each. Before we even got the bags out of the card we extended to two nights. It was sweet.
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The place was a two story hut with master bedroom, upstairs lofts, master bath with tub, a second with shower, a full kitchen, fire place, all the cushioned seating, and plenty of space to just laze around.

Just some views from the garden.
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Above is "Rat Bastard". He was a prick and he knew it. You could tell the way he acted he was power hungry. His message to Daniel was "step out of the car and bring money, we need to talk about some infractions." I would have preferred jail first.

These are from the other stops where we had to pay "fines."
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Matobo National Park is a bit easier to explain. Here they had three basic parts of the park. One was the rock formations. They had these weird balanced boulder things going on all around the park. It was just odd.
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Now this is one of the most important sites in Zimbabwe. The conditions are actually amazingly good. It is huge and there are approximately three basic sections that make up the huge city. Again, I can't explain more about what it is beyond the pictures. It was impressive however.
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This was a ruin made by, I am guessing Khami people. I am really not sure anything about the ruins because I am really lazy. I do know that it was not built by the Incas. Hope that helps. If you need any more info on these subjects, just type the title in Google or Yahoo and read away. Forward the info to me and I will add it to the site and make myself look less tarded.

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This is not the Khami people. It is a monkey.
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