Bulawayo and rhino tracking

Just before arriving at our campsite in Bulawayo-the nicest looking town we've seen thus far, we stopped at a 'Food Lovers' supermarket. I've never seen a truck load of people look so happy. The best way I can think of describing it is Waitrose/Booths. When overlanding through Africa and not having access to amazing food at times, you can understand why we were so happy.
The fruit and veg section was amazing, they had a salad bar, the bakery had every cake going and they had a biltong counter!!! Having never had Jerky or biltong before I was a little dubious of dry beef that sits there for quite some time, however, a new food love has been born. We bought the chilli seasoned biltong and everyone agreed we'd chosen wise. Roll on South Africa when it will be in greater abundance.
We arrived at a sorry looking campsite with the dirtiest pool we'd yet seen, with a separate pool full of hundreds of very noisy frogs. I now understand the term the 'frog chorus'. Never mind, the shower was hot and powerful and it was only for one night.
The next morning we headed out to the Matopos National Park to track rhinos and we were lucky that after climbing a steep rocky kopje ( hill) we spotted a family of them not far away at all. We crept slowly towards them, out of their line of sight so as not to scare them away and as the wind was blowing in the opposite direction, they couldn't smell us either, which is how they most frequently detect predators as their eye sight isn't great.
The majority of rhinos in this national park have been de-horned, with their horns being kept in a secure vault in Harare. As our guide said though, Zimbabwe is very corrupt so whether the horns are still there is a mystery. No one is permitted into the vault to check!
Poaching is still a massive problem with 1600 rhinos killed for their horns in South Africa alone last year. This year to date (Sept) South Africa has lost 700 rhinos to poaching, hence the decision to de-horn the rhinos in an attempt at conservation. This is only carried out in areas where they are no predators, such as lions, as the horns are used in combat.
After time with the rhinos we drove on in our safari jeep for an hour and a half to a lunch spot by a dam, of which there are several in the Matopos, to collect the rain water. In the afternoon we drove and hiked through the beautiful park, which is made up of some of the oldest granite in the world. Boulders balance precariously on top of one another, forming fantastic installations which resemble teddy bears, rabbits or the heads of lions. ( in my view anyhow!!)
We visited caves that contain paintings by the San people, believed to be between 8000 and 10000 years old, and yet you can still clearly see the majority of paintings made out of blood, clays and minerals from the local area. Some of the drawings depict rhinos and this is how it was decided to re-introduce these animals to this area 70years ago as it was evident they had once survived here, before poachers came along.
Seeing the paintings was a big highlight for me and I was fascinated to learn about their culture and way of life. New tribes coming into the area drove them away in their quest for better land and later, and when European colonists arrived,the Boers pursued an extermination campaign that killed over 200,000 indigenous people over 200 years. Sad.
Our driver took us to visit the huts of a local woman he knew who had entered her home in the 'best decorated home' competition. It was started last year and this year it's had over 200 entrants. Many of the mud huts in the area had been painted by the women using different clays to give different colours, and some had even painted flowers, patterns or wildlife on the outside walls. This lady had also created an amazing kitchen with shelves showing off lots of vintage looking crockery. I was a little jealous! The completion was being judged in a few days time so we didn't know the winner.
After 11 hours out in the jeep we headed to Bulawayo train station, a colonial looking building that was quite impressive. Behind the facade, it wasn't quite so impressive! We caught our train, staying in first class sleeper carriages with 4 beds to each compartment and sat down to eat the pizzas (now cold, but still tasty) that Alun had picked up en route before meeting us. I was sat in the corner, our cabin shared by Tony, myself and Brad & Michal. I exclaimed I could smell urine and thinking it was emanating from the toilet further up the corridor, thought nothing more about it. Half an hour later I could still smell it and this is when I noticed what we had all thought to be a little table, was actually a sink....which we then surmised had quite possibly doubled up as a toilet by previous cabin inhabitants!
Whilst this may be first class, the train service in Zimbabwe,which was once revered, is now decrepit with minimal investment and with the carriages never seeing bleach, a cloth or a mop in months!! We spilt some pizza on the floor and when wiping it up, the tissue came away black! Still, this was a nice change from travelling on a truck and one which Tony and I rather enjoyed.
I went straight to sleep at 9pm, huddled in my sleeping bag liner as it was so hot, waking at 7am to dozens of monkeys on the tracks, Brads feet dangling out of the window in the bunk above me ( how he didn't get his feet chopped off during the night, I do not know) and Tony returning from the bathroom looking a little worse for wear. It seems something had upset his stomach. A toilet with a hole leading straight to the track, in a carriage shared by others, is probably not the place you want an upset stomach!! I met Jack in the corridor a little later and he too wasn't well. The common denominator- the cold piri piri chicken pizza the night before.
After travelling through Hwange National Park and the Victoria Falls national park and spotting giraffes and elephants from the train corridor, we arrived at Victoria Falls Station around 10am. We said goodbye to our very nice train conductor-Charles, who sported an interesting 'respect the beaver' bright pink tee-shirt to bed, and headed off to the town centre consisting of 2 streets, all geared up to tourism. After so many disappointments on the coffee front, we asked Alan if he knew of a decent coffee place we could stop at en route to the campsite.
Shearwater Cafe, with its fast free wifi, was on the corner of the road where the campsite was. My $3 cappuccino came with a glass of cold water and a shot of Amarulla, the baileys like liquor I have come to enjoy. Score. Decent coffee and wifi right across from where we are camping. I thought to myself 'I'm going to enjoy Vic Falls'!!