Gonarezhou: the garden of the baobab
Harare is a city in disuse, as many African, powder that blends past and. I have little time to understand, just one night and a ride on truck, but its ancient past progress is found that poverty is concrete and not wood and cardboard. A luxury in these lands. Everything seems to be bound by invisible wires.
From the capital of Zimbabwe headed south, the Gonarezhou Park. After nine hours of travel we arrived at night at a hotel adjacent to the park forgotten. I feel lonely, with a beer, with a wooden railing that overlooks a dark cliff which you can see a river; is sensed at that hour when darkness dominates everything. Suddenly, watching one of those African skies where the stars are struck to be hollow, I hear the hoarse sound of a hippo. That carries me quejido mi Africa dream, the rural, where wildlife is mixed with mud on their sidewalks. I missed that contact. I was happy to return there.
The lodge is a miracle that explains the country. Enclavdo luxury in a magical place, no shelf drinks and some rooms have no windows, doors or are inhabited by bats. Every fruit of the decade of terror experienced. For ten years was the wonderful relationship between the owner, Clive, they call "Shonga boy" and its employees which has remained open. Salaries are paid with the currencies of some crazy people who decided to come to a place where thousands of animals were killed among other things by the incursions of guerrillas from the border Mozambique. Sometimes tourists ended excursions on foot after being assaulted and car stolen in the middle of the visit. A free in the package include a walking safari to the hotel. That is the past.
We entered the park. I sit in the car in front Lenghton. An open type, Mugabe foe, I explained that he burned the house to "be friends with whites and supporting the opposition". He speaks of his family, his father that I can not go to school and he did and you need to buy a rifle that costs 200 dollars to be a guide. "Save for that,", tell me. So we spent several hours, talking, asking and forged a friendship ephemeral those made on the routes.
Suddenly, watching one of those African skies where the stars are struck to be hollow, I hear the hoarse sound of a hippo. That carries me quejido mi Africa dream
As, the car runs a special park. A unique landscape in which animals are not many but a baobas garden in the jungle. Elephants crossing the magical African tree along reluctantly. Gonazherou in Shona means "Place of the Elephants". It is true, baobas them and own the place. All this is wild, real. The Impalas, eg, flee in terror at the sound of the car, sign that the years tourism has stopped here (in other African parks a car is part of the landscape and animals contemplate it without suspicion). We reached the cliffs of Chilojo, guards of a river and its peak over plateau 300 meters. More car, more road dust. Punctured. Lengton helped to change the wheel and we resume the way to a lake in watercolor. Green, yellow and dotted with crocodiles and birds. Just behind is a huge baobab called Shadreck office. "Within the leaky tree lived in hiding for decades park's most wanted poacher. The authorities captured six years ago and died in prison ", I dice Lengton.
After two days of reunion with the Natural Africa continued on. Lengton waiting for me at the door of the Lodge. I made some pictures with the elephants who wants to put on a web page that dreams of building to be offered as a guide. The change brings me to an elephant hair bracelet on her wrist wearing. We give a goodbye hug and says "here's a house". We go to the historic ruins of Great Zimbabwe.
This trip is part of the route of the agency Katanga Zimbabwe.
Route Kananga: http://www.pasaporte3.com/kananga.php
Comments (4)
Taken
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Who was president there
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Javier
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Well soon I will be where you are (small stop on the way)
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MereGlass
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The rugged baobab to the passage of the elephants between red and ocher immense… I try to imagine
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Javier
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Put also the deafening silence of the park in your imagination
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