Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Victoria Falls & Bullawayo


I spent a lot of time traveling with the buses down to Cape Town from Zimbabwe which was the nature of the business. Grant had based himself in Cape Town (his home town) so Ruth and I moved to Zimbabwe where we were getting a huge amount of bookings from some of the nicest people in Africa. As most of the bookings came from Vic Falls we decide to move there and pop down to Bulawayo whenever we could. Having deposited Ruth in our new home in VF I went off back to Cape Town for a week to stay at the Carnaby and help Grant sort out a few things, leaving Ruth in charge of marketing the business. My brief to her was to get to know everyone in town and push the bookings. I returned 10 days later to a very warm reception from Ruth and to my surprise every one in town as we walked. Eventually after being greeted by the 10th person I asked where they worked. "The Casino, boss" Ruth had spent the entire week gambling and got to know all the croupiers!!! oh well at least the bus was full that week and she had managed to spend only $100 zim dollars while having a good time. A few months later I had to go back down to CT for a week and leave her again. On arriving Ruth phoned me to say she had malaria and had been as sick as a dog and felt terrible. I phoned Rasta Tony at Backpackers Bazaar to see if he could pop round and take care of her only to be told later that day that she hadn't got malaria but was pregnant!!! I promised not to tell anyone for at least a month and proceeded to phone everyone I could!! This meant leaving Vic Falls as soon as possible for fear of actually getting malaria. House packed up off we went again to live in Bulawayo my favourite place in Africa. As mentioned before we stayed with that terrible family for a few weeks until we moved into our colonial house with the Divorcee and the Jaguar. Ruth was a little nervous to say the least re the Hospital in Bulawayo because of the sparse and at times basic equipment used for pregnant mums. Her Mum Allison is a Midwife in the UK and managed to get to us 4 days prior to her giving birth to Joanna. Even though I say it myself it was fine and all went well including my dash to the hospital half asleep/pissed.
Kelly our best mate in Zim who I will talk at length about at some other point had a beautiful antique shop in town and gave us a stunning wooden cot that we loved. Having got used to the baby, Ruth wanted to go out on the town to celebrate with the only person who really can celebrate, Kelly. It was decided that we go to the Queen's Club for a quiz night only to find out it had been canceled! As the beers were so cheap ($12 zim dollars = 50p) we stayed. Ruth and Kelly downed at least 15 beers each and had to be carried out, while Ruth had to return to feed Joanna who then slept for a suspiciously long time after that.
Oh what fab times.

4 comments:

ExAfrica said...

Who carried you out?

Single and Happy said...

I stayed

Single and Happy said...

I stayed

ExAfrica said...

How gentlemanly of you.