Chimanimani, Bullawayo, The Antelope Park and Harare, ZIMBABWE

Well, we have been bopping around Zimbabwe for over a week now and spent many hours in the back of the cold truck. The weather here is cold at night but quite pleasant during the day as long as you are not in the back of a truck. We spent the last four nights at The Antelope Park near Gweru, Zimbabwe where they have a unique 4 stage process of breeding Lion Cubs in captivity and then releasing them to the wild. They are doing this to try to help the increasing problem of lions fast becoming extinct because of poaching and the sale of lion carcases to China. There are people from all over the world volunteering their time at a cost of $1000/week to help them in their efforts. Chimananimani is very picturesque as are most of the places her., Bulawayo and Harare are both big cities and we stay in the suburbs and commute into town. Many things in Harare are just the same as they were when I was here on business 25 years ago. Things here are very expensive as the US Dollar is the currency used and lots of the foodstuffs are imported. I went to the store yesterday and bought a few snacks and it came to $36.00. I really don't know how people can afford to live here. The roads are full of potholes as are the pavements. You really have to be careful where you walk. The toilet at my hotel has no walls just a shower curtain around it. I will take a photo and post it soon. We expect our passports back from England today with our Ethiopian Visas and today we apply for Egyptian visas here. Hopefully they will be back for Thursday then we go to Mozambique for a day then to Zanzibar in Tanzania. Today I am going to treat myself and go to a movie.It was good to see CNN for the first time in a month this morning.