Day 247 - Soviet Zimbabwe and the heart-shaped silence

Address to my compatriots:
If you suddenly feel nostalgic for the Soviet Union
Try to pass the immigration control in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe greeted us with terribly chaos on the border: it took us about an hour and a half to pass the immigration while being yelled at by the officers who seemed to despise our mere existence, because they kept putting us at the very back of the line every time we reached the cherished passport control "window" (that happened twice: the first time it was because the line we were standing in all of a sudden turned into the line for some specific tour group, and the second time – because we argued with the officer during the first incident and he remembered us for that and took his revenge). After waking up at 4AM and taking 2 flights (Cape Town – Johannesburg, Johannesburg – Victoria Falls, Botswana) it was pretty difficult to tolerate, but what are you going to do: the Russians survived the Soviet Union, the Russians will survive the Zimbabwe border…

The rest of the day was downhill for me, because I developed a terrible migraine (the first in the past couple of months; I guess, they are sometimes stress-related) and despite my burning desire to join the group for some authentic African dinner at the Boma restaurant, I had to drug myself silly and stay in the hotel and fall asleep at 7.30PM (until 7.30AM the next day – thank God without the headache in the morning).

I was able to briefly enjoy the beauty of the hotel though during the "inspection" (for my review with pictures please click here), as well as while I was falling asleep on my mosquito-netted comfy bed – the views from the window are absolutely spectacular and the silence, stunning!

The next morning – greeted by a most amazing view out of my window, an elephant drinking out of the heart-shaped (of course!) waterhole - I learned that in addition to eating well at the restaurant, everybody had gotten their palm read by some witch resident over there. Oh well… Maybe it's for the best that I don't know my fate. After all, I like surprises.