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