I wanted some bananas for breakfast; probably two or three would've been just fine, but this wasn't an option in the town market. The only possible quantity in which one could procure bananas was 30 for $1. I secured these loosely to my bike and managed to eat about a tenth of them before losing them all to a speed bump or pothole along the way. A mist hung over the mountains and the high passes were downright frigid; all of our extra layers, which had been nothing but excessive up until this point, were now woefully inadequate, and we resolved that, if ever it should begin to rain, we would have no choice but to pull over and set up our tent. At every road junction, farmers with bananas, avocados, and apples would run to us to try to be the first to satisfy our obvious need for absurd quantities of perishable foods; I did ever so briefly consider the fifteen avocados for a dollar deal. Reaching the village of Chimanimani, we walked through a butchery to a wooden shack placed interstitially between two storefronts; there we found some of the best chicken I'd ever tasted, accompanied by sadza and spicy cabbage for (drum roll) $1.
A long, rough 4wd road took us into the national park. Since I hadn't managed to withdraw any money recently and we were down to our last fifty bucks, I told the ranger we might not be able to afford the $10 entry fee and $8 per person camping fee; not about to turn away 50% of his business for the day, he dismissed the issue and said we could figure it out later. We tried our best to follow the trail to the ridgeline but immediately got lost and did a fair bit of bushwhacking up the cliff face. At the top, we found an extensive boulder field and spent some time seeking out routes on a rock we labeled 'the dragon'; we lamented not strapping a couple crashpads to the backs of our bikes. Just beyond this was a cabin complete with rocking chairs, running water, toilets, and mattresses that probably hadn't been cleaned in twenty years. An old woman sitting there explained that her friends had gone off to look for frogs, but she had no idea where the trails were. We followed a couple fairly convincing trails, which ended abruptly in streams, before discovering one that dropped straight down from the front porch and into the valley below.
We went to a waterfall and 'cave', which turned out to be nothing more than an overhang, and then bushwhacked to Skeleton Pass, a route once used by guerillas to travel between Zimbabwe and Mozambique. At the base of the trail up to the pass sat a shack with five border guards and/or park rangers; one was completely naked and bathing in the middle of the trail; we exchanged the usual pleasantries as we awkwardly edged around him. With about an hour of daylight remaining, we raced up to the border, then returned at a fast clip to the cabin. The backpackers there advised us to stay, but we weren't too keen on spending the night without our sleeping bags, so we pressed on to our campsite. My headlamp was dead, but using only Matt's we managed to find our way and not trip over a cliff; surprisingly, we managed to follow the trail much more faithfully than we had in the daylight. Our gas was out, so we built a fire to cook pasta and curried vegetables. The rain started a few hours later and we soon discovered how truly rain-unworthy our cheap tent really was.
We awoke to find ourselves lying in puddles and all of our gear similarly soaked. The rain continued, so we made porridge and tea in our neighbor's deluxe tented kitchen. We realized it would be suicide to ride any further, given the slick rocks and mud on the way out - not to mention the threat of getting soaked through by the constant, cold mist. We had no choice but to wait for the departure of the cloud that sat atop our camp and for the sun to bake the sodden road for an hour or two.
Since all the women were up on the mountain, we spent much of the day hiding out in the ladies room for warmth. At one point, Matt discovered a single sunny spot on the other side of the bathroom block that was surprisingly consistent given that the rain in other parts of camp never relented. Since we had not planned such a long stay in the park, we had already gone through all of our food (if only I had 15 avocados!), and I had the park ranger convince his wife to make a little extra of whatever the family was having for lunch. A few hours later, he brought us a giant pot of spaghetti and sardines, and a little while after that, a large carafe of tea.
At 4, it seemed egress might finally be possible; we said our goodbyes and made a slow retreat down the muddy trail back to Chimanimani village. The daylight was already fading and it was a good two hours of riding to the next town on the map, so we had little choice but to find a place to stay in the village. We visited the lodges listed in the guidebook; at two, the staff was strangely absent, and the other was reportedly full. As a last resort, we went to the fancy Chimanimani Hotel to beg; $15 got us a tent spot and a bathroom with a very nice $90 room attached. We returned to the food stall of the previous day to get offals with sadza and cabbage; a blackout had hit, so the staff used phone backlights to cook and to light up our food. This was probably for the best, since I can't imagine cow stomache looked could look particularly appetizing. Though a couple Zimbabweans had told us it was their favorite dish, offals turned out to be fairly vile. The rain began again and our tent immediately soaked through as it had before, but we could care less this time around, since we spent the night lying on the floor of our bathroom suite.
We bought a $2 air pump to fill Matt's tire that was now going flat every eight hours or so, and picked up some bootleg gas to insure that we made it to the next pump. I bought a kilo of honey for $2 that would guarantee a ready supply of ants at every campsite and give us way more sugar than we really needed for the next week.
In Mutare, we finally found an ATM that would accept at least one of my cards (my primary card refused to recognize any transaction in Zimbabwe as legitimate but worked just fine the moment we crossed the border). We went to a garage to change our oil and adjust our chains; I had my chain perfectly adjusted when someone claiming to be a bike mechanic came up and told me to do it differently; when I had made the recommended change, my wheel became misaligned and would remain that way, compromising my back brake and wearing on various components, until the chain finally popped off a thousand kilometers later.
At the border, we were hit with a surprise Mozambique visa fee of $80 which quite nearly bankrupted us. Fortunately, the vehicle import fee was less than a buck. Half a dozen insurance salesmen followed us around as we went to the various stations and eventually convinced us that we would face terrible consequences if we didn't shell out another $12 to insure each of our bikes.
Manica province, the region adjacent to the Mutare border, is home to beautiful mountain scenery and a high density of picturesque little villages. We hadn't seen many motorbikes in our travels until now, and especially nothing like ours, but here, the Chinese Lifan was the vehicle of choice. When we pulled into Manica and saw the medieval church upon the hill, I knew we had no choice but to forfeit any additional kilometers we might make that night and stop there. We got a room in a pensao, which was more of an apartment complex than a hotel, for 600Mt, and stored our bikes in a dungeon-like area in the back.
Things here were every bit as cheap as in Zimbabwe, but the currency was conveniently divisible; we were able to get a small donut for 1Mt, coconut candy for 2, and an avocado or bunch of bananas for 5. After asking around, we found a small candlelit shack that served up sadza and fish for 20Mt. We hiked up to the church-turned-school, jumped through one of the open windows and explored the makeshift classroom. Back in town, the night market was hopping; shoppers perused by candlelight, while music blasted from several stalls, kids danced in the street, and smoke drifted up from alleys full of barbeque chicken vendors.
