Chinhoyi Caves

Sleeping Pool Cave

Finally, after all this time in Zimbabwe, I got to visit these famous caves I had heard are beautiful. Initially, I wanted to go straight from Vic Falls to Harare, but you have to go over Bulawayo, so I took the train back to Bulawayo. In Bulawayo someone gave me the incentive to first visit Great Zimbabwe and the Eastern Highlands, so that's what I did. And then I went to Harare, I arranged my visa for Malawi, and the day after, went to visit the caves.

It's one and a half hours drive northwest from Harare by minibus taxi. I woke up at 6, and was at the road just before 7. I chose to go in a bigger van (like those airport shuttles) and was seated in the front seat between the driver and another passenger. The uncomfortable part was only that I had to move away a bit for the driver to be able to change gear. I got to Chinhoyi around 9.30 and stayed around there for about an hour. I waited to see if the sun would shine more into the cave and reach the water, but the cave isn't orientated that way.

Sleeping Pool Cave viewed from the Dark Cave

After that, back to Chinhoyi, for a pizza at Pizza Inn (a food chain comprising Chicken Inn, Bakers Inn, Creamy Inn and Pizza Inn that's present over whole Zimbabwe). For the way back, I was squeezed on the last row of a combi, with 3 other passengers. For once I was the first to go off at Westgate and all the people sitting right in front of me had to get up and some out. But there were only about 20 people in this combi.

That day I almost had accidents twice, with two different combis, but the same mistake: they both went back on the road without looking. The first almost got hit by a truck, and the second by a bakkie. Fortunately nothing happened. Sometimes these drivers are really careless.

It has otherwise been a nice little outing from which I came back to Harare around 2.

Drip in Dark Cave