Harare and last stop with the animals in Mana Pools

After four nights in the Eastern Highlands, we made our way to Zimbabwe's capital city, Harare. We were originally planning on taking a longer route towards the west of the country, but were forewarned that the rains were coming again so we decided not to take our chances and get stuck driving long distances with drivers who don't take the treacherous conditions into consideration.

We found a small guesthouse towards the north of the city in the Mount Pleasant area, which had decent ratings on tripadvisor, and it turned out to be a good place to stay for a night. The owner was lovely and gave us tips on where to go out and eat. We didn't have many expectations of Harare, only knowing it from the news and what we have seen on television, but the city really surprised us . It is a really lovely city, especially around the outskirts. It has large houses with beautiful lawns, decent roads, nice shopping areas and good restaurants. We went out for a delicious dinner and all the restaurants in the area were nearly full - on a Wednesday night!. There was a great atmosphere and we felt quite safe, in comparison with a number of other places we have visited or driven past along the way.

After one night in Harare we headed for Mana Pools National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the north of the country. It is the one game reserve where you are allowed to get out of your car and walk in the park without a guide, as the landscape is quite open and barren that you have clear visibility ahead (although you still have to be extremely cautious of course).

Mana Pools was a beautiful park with quite a lot of animals, however, as rainy season usually begins somewhat earlier, there were hardly any other people in the park as the roads become impassable when wet. We were lucky that the weather was good when we were there, however, a bit more wind would have been appreciated as it was so hot in the tent that night. The other unique feature to Mana Pools is that it is an unfenced park, so animals roam freely, including in and around the campsite. This also makes it a bit scary for the campers!

We had buffalo about 20 meters away and hippos came out of the water and walked about 10 meters away from our tent at night. The hippos also decided to make a lot of noise throughout the night, so together with the hot temperatures I didn't manage to sleep much unfortunately.

We were up very early the next morning to go on a game drive, where we saw the varied landscapes and pools within the park and lots of different animals.

We didn't see any lions, much to Joost's disappointment, but as we were driving out of the park, we spotted two lions under a tree. We decided only to stay one night in Mana Pools, worried that the rains were coming, so after the game drive we packed up and ventured towards the Zambian border on our way to Lake Kariba.