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Zimbabwe

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-- From 2018/12/24 to 2017/12/30
-- From Mana Pools NP to Matobo NP
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The GPS road tracklog
from Mana Pools NP to Harare
from 2018/12/24 to 2018/12/24

Harare, It's small world-2

I left Mana Pools before the daybreak to be at 6:00 in Nyakasikana Gate then at 7:00 in Marongora Gate i.e. approximately 74 km of track. I arrived at 13:00 at Harare after 396 km to do shopping before going towards the south. I returned to It's small world-2 for one night. Thus I passed from 350 meters of altitude at the edge of the Zambezi river to 1500 meters of altitude at Harare.

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The GPS road tracklog
from Harare to Great Zimbabwe
from 2018/12/25 to 2018/12/25

The Great Zimbabwe

Wednesday, December 25, Christmas Day, I visited the Great Zimbabwe, the greatest medieval city of sub-Saharan Africa, here. The local visitors were numerous. I was involuntarily an attraction as important as the site. I was photographed with babies in the arms, with children to the hand, with young person-girls by the size and with women by the shoulders, oh! They are charming. The site has two main localizations, the Great Enclosure and Hill Complex; this last requires the rise of a hill by two ways, either old classified the rank-3 or the new one classified rank-1. Of course at the rise and the descent I traversed the modern way causing me of the joint pains in spite of my walk sticks. I bivouacked at the edge of Lake Mutirikwi.

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Lake Mutirikwi
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The GPS road tracklog
from Great Zimbabwe to Bulawayo
from 2018/12/26 to 2018/12/27-8

Bulawayo

Wednesday, December 26, boxing day, is one bank holiday. When that I arrived at Bulawoyo the city was quasi-dead except two open supermarkets. I posed my bivouac in Burkes' Backpackers Parardise at approximately 1440 meters of altitude to profit from fresh night.

Bulawayo is a city of almost 700,000 inhabitants at approximately 1450 meters of altitude, here. The town-planning is orthogonal with broad raised avenues. In downtown area close to the statue of Josua Nkomo, ex Vice president of the Republic of Zimbabwe, remains of the buildings of the colonial era of which some have a style art-deco.

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The GPS road tracklog
from Bulawayo to Balancing rocks
from 2018/12/28 to 2018/12/28

Balancing rocks

Friday the 28th was a short way to bivouac not far from Balancing Rock.

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The GPS road tracklog
from Balancing rocks to Maleme Dam
from 2018/12/29 to 2018/12/29

Matobo National Park

After a night during which the storm thundered and the rain fell thick, the day of the Saturday, December 29 was announced gloomy and it was it. Matobo National Park at approximately 1300 meters of altitude, here, is famous for its natural granite sculptures, accumulation of rocks in balance, as well as for the rock art caves going back to 6,000 to 10,000 years. The site World's View offers a panorama at 360-degree. It is also the site where the Cecil Rhodes' burial, founder of Rhodesia become Zambia and Zimbabwe after independence, sits. I established my bivouac in Maleme Dam camp-site where I was only. I understood quickly the reason, all the installations were in a state of basis, in spite of a prohibitive price, for foreigners!

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The GPS road tracklog
from Maleme Dam to Maleme Dam
from 2018/12/30 to 2018/12/30

Failing to see wild animals I tracked Balancing rocks I returned to the bivouac at the end of the morning. It was a morning with a changing luminosity.

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