MY ZIMBABWE DIARY XIII: MASVINGO, THE ANCIENT CITY
June 19, 2016…
It’s Sunday morning and the sun rose early. Finally, the 2016 Sanganai/Hlanganani World Tourism Expo is over. The award nite/closing ceremony last night was grand. Kudos to the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA), Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality Industry and the Zimbabwe people in general. I believe the expo was a great success and Bulawayo, the City of Kings and Queens was a great host. Hope to be here again next year…
Lizzie called that she would be with us at 10:00 hours. We left the hotel about 30 minutes past the hour, because Lizzie had to pick up Eniel (ZTA Harare) who was accompanying Lizzie as she takes us on tour of Masvingo and Mutare. It was a long ride to Masvingo and we got in sometime after 15:00. We had a brief stop at the ZTA office where we met Daniel (I remember seeing him in Bulawayo at the Sanganai expo). Daniel is in charge of the ZTA Office Masvingo and he came along with us to the Lodge At The Ancient City where we scheduled to stay.
It was late afternoon and we had not had lunch, so we went out to a restaurant where we grab something to eat. It was getting cold and dark by the time we left and returned to the Lodge, while Daniel went to his place.
*****
June 20, 2016…
…after breakfast, we set out for Chesvingo. Daniel came around and went with us – well he led us, since he was in charge of ZTA Masvingo and this was his territory. We had a long stay at Chesvingo Lakeside Village as the people showed us how they do their things.
We went down to a cave and a rock art site, before returning to the village. Due to time constraints, we couldn’t wait for the people to feed us as they really wanted to. We had to get to the Great Zimbabwe Wall site and it was already past noon. Besides, I needed to charge the camera batteries.
We made it back to the lodge and around 14:30, we left for the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the birthplace of Zimbabwe.
It was an exhausting walk, starting from the museum before touring the ancient ruins. We left as it started to get dark and headed to the Lodge.
I thought it would be nice to explore the city nightlife. But, we didn’t get round to it. It was pretty cold and when I thought about the distance from the lodge to the city centre and back, I had to let it go.
