Today we'll have about 380 kilometers to go including the border with Zimbabwe. The first stretch to cover is the 190 kilometers to Francistown, the first town of any significance on our way. As the road is well maintained it's an excellent opportunity to get some extra sleep. Time passes quickly and it's 11 AM when we arrive in Francistown. After a short stop and a warm snack, we continue our way to the Zimbabwean border, another 100 kilometers to go. A few 100 meters from the border we take our chance to refuel as, due to the bad social and economic crises Zimbabwe, there is a permanent shortage of fuel in the country. While filling we're reminded of yet another huge problem for southern African countries: AIDS!

Like the entry to Botswana, leaving Botswana is easy. But the border of Zimbabwe has a reputation of long queues and bureaucratic immigration officers. Suzanne offers to wait in the queue with all our passports while we prepare lunch. Sometimes they allow this, sometimes not making it necessary for everyone to wait in the queue. Today we're lucky and after about two hours of waiting, Suzanne comes back with passports and visa for Zimbabwe. We enter the truck, and are quickly on our way again to Bulawayo. Almost 200 kilometers is still ahead of us.

But then, about 10 kilometers from the border, we're stopped by some road official who insists that we had to undergo some specific formality at the border. After some discussion between him and Mick the official manages to get hold of Mick's drivers license, and we're forced to go back to the border. There they tell us that nothing has gone wrong and we can leave again. Our second appearance at the border gate causes yet another discussion. The officer responsible for opening the gate tells us to go through customs first.We already did that at our first arrival but he doesn't seems to (or wants to) remember that. Fortunately we can persuade him to let us pass and with a one-hour delay we're on the road to Bulawayo again. It's already getting dark when we arrive at the campsite.

point to see the notes

On our way to the campsite we pass through Bulaway and Suzanne offers to change Pulas and US dollars here for Zim dollars. Due to the economic crises the rate of the Zim dollar is plummeting and although the official rate is 55 Zim$ for 1 US$, Suzanne is able to get 130 Zim$ for 1 US$. Not bad! As the largest denomination is 100 Zim$, Suzanne returns with a cardbox full of 100 Zim dollar notes. In the evening "the bank" is open and everybody is able to get rid of his last Pulas or change some additional US dollars in Zimbabwean money.

Today we don't prepare dinner ourselves but instead of that we drive into Bulawayo and have dinner there. When we come back at the campsite it's already pretty cold and we turn in quickly. During the night the temperature falls below zero! Is this Africa?