Vacation in Zimbabwe - Eerie Experience

This happened way back in 1992 May. Since my husband and I were alone in Lusaka, Zambia and our kids were studying in Madras (Chennai) we were requested by friends to join them on a trip to Lake McIlwaine.

Lake McIlwaine is beautiful National Park near Harare in Zimbabwe. Here accomodation is available in the form of Chalets, Chateaus and Bungalows. To this place we all travelled by cars with a maximum of 4 in one car plus a kid in case of need. We never travelled crowding the car as this was unsafe, as sometimes our speed was at least a 100 kms per hour as there would be no vehicles or people on the roads.

Going on a holiday to any of the National Parks involves great amount of preparation - you cannot even believe that we carry food for the three or four days we plan to stay there.
In one person's house (the lady of the house with fellow travellers wives) would be making a minimum of a 100 'methi chappathies'. If cooked well it would last for four to five days without refrigeration. Then we would have another lady making 'Adai Mavu' - dried preparation - just take 3 measures of rice, one and half cup each of Thuvar Dhall, Channa Dhall and Urad Dhall and along with 5 to 6 red chillies and another 5 green chillies which are are grilled to make it brittle, some curry leaves which are also grilled, we add Asofodita and dry grind this whole lot and pack it in zip lock pouches. The third dried preparation is our 'Rawa Uppumma'. We pour some ghee and oil mixture and roast mustard seeds, urad dhall, channa dhall, finely cut green chillies and ginger and roast the rawa or semolina till it is well roasted. We also separately roast cashew nuts and add this to the "Uppumma ' mixture.

We had a whale of time - mostly seeing good game but the icing on the cake was the third day morning when we made the 'Rawa Uppumma'. Since we were all have the same at the open air in front of our Lodge and facing the the landscape filled with game which we hardly could see with the naked eye, we attracted a whole of tiny weeny birds and later large squirrels. These squirrels were plain unlike the ones in India which have three lines. They were larger in size may be twice the normal squirrels which we see in India.

These squirrels were keeping a distance when we were a crowd on the patio of the Lodge. But slowly one by one friends went inside to wash their hands and I was practically alone eating my 'Uppumma' very slowly and I got tempted to give some to the squirrels. Oh boy, they all came for it and slowly they started to eat out my hands. The sugar available were slightly big granules and the squirrels enjoyed the sugar and were eating this with a crunching sound. Many of our friends joined and we kept over feeding the squirrels with fruits etc. Whew ! What an experience.

Since it was time to visit game we went around in our cars and had a great time. The last day of our stay in Lake Mcllwaine was coming to end. One friend was bored and since he was ready and I also was, we both decided to see game for at least half hour, while the others got ready. We went away on a drive and he was driving at a speed which was normal but at a curve we came almost face to face with two White Rhinos, probably getting ready to mate. Oh my God, my friend managed to reverse right on time and we did not think of anything but kept praying that we should not be chased by the White Rhino and our car was Red in colour. Our escapade was the talk of the day with all our friends and all of them in unison stated that we were really lucky.

As was the normal practice, we shuffled the rooms which we got on rent. The Bungalow/Lodge had three bedrooms and the Chalet two bedrooms. Since we were 5 families, two of them with two kids each plus a bachelor, we rotated our stay between the lodge and the Chalet. The parents with kids were exempt from this rotation as they needed to stay with their kids.

So on the last day, my husband and I had to go to the Chalet with the Bachelor. We reached the Chalet at around half past ten at night and it was pitch dark with a few lights twinkling around. The lights were tiny so as not to attract animals and the Chalets did not have toilets attached to them. So when my husband went to the toilet carrying his torch, I asked our bachelor friend(his stay was here all the time) where the toilet was located and I was generally getting oriented to the surroundings of the Chalet. He told me to step out with him carrying his torch and I followed him. As I was closing the door behind me to prevent insects entering the room, he was casually telling me not to do so, as he left the keys of the room on his room table. BUT IT WAS TOO LATE. It was a lock similar to Godrej locks which we just shut while going out. You cannot enter without a key and if someone was inside, they could open from inside. HARD LUCK. I had already closed the door behind me. This guy (let us call him LN) left the keys on his room table and also the car keys and all we could do was to see it through the closed window. All windows with mesh were closed from inside.

All three of us looked around tried calling for people but no one came to our rescue and we were there just at the mercy of howling animals at a distance and insects flying all over us. My husband wanted to walk back to the lodge (car keys on table, remember?) and I was scared of the animals on the prowl at the dead of night. Scary. To think of the scene now makes me shudder.

We did not have anything to sit on and it was terrible as we did not have blankets and it was getting cold. It was a good hour odd later, when LN suddenly came to us and stated he managed to push the mesh of the window in his room, with tremendous amount of excitement.

Now I went in search of a stick and low and behold we found one and some copper wire and this we tied in the form of a hook to the stick. Then my husband carefully inserted the stick through the window while LN & I held the mesh up as it was falling back. With bated breath, the key was taken by the hook and and slowly it was pulled to the window and we removed the key off the hook and at last we managed to get inside our rooms.

What an ordeal ! But it did not end there. Suddenly my husband had this bout of coughing and throughout the night we remained sleepless.

Thankfully we were traveling with LN on the wheel and I slept quite a bit till we reached the border. We cleared customs and we were on our way back home.

When we reached back home in Zambia, we had a get together the next weekend and many of our friends were informed of our 'night safari' at the Chalet in Lake Mcllwaine.

Since this episode I ensure that I take extra precaution before closing doors.