Chirundu to Mucheni 3, Mana Pools National Park

Well that wasn’t so bad after all.

The last time we crossed into Zimbabwe at Chirundu, in 2019, it took us more than two hours of a bureaucratic nightmare to get through. The biggest hassle was filling out the paperwork, several times, for the vehicle TIP (temporary import permit).

This time around, it was possible to actually fill in all of the vehicle details online on the Zimbabwean eTIP site. I did this in advance and received a confirmation number, and this seemed to speed up the process.

Along with a “helper,” who cost 20 USD and whom we swore we wouldn’t use to help us this time, it took us less than 1 1/2 hours to clear customs and be on our way. We were four very happy campers.

It took about two hours to reach the reception office at Nyamepi, where we checked in and then proceeded to get two days’ worth of firewood.

This is not your typical split-log type of wood. This is from the mopane tree—long and wrangled, sharp at the ends, and extremely dense and heavy. It makes great, long-lasting fires, but we had no idea how we were going to pack all this wood in the truck, which was essentially impossible.

I wish we had taken a photo. It’s the last thing you are thinking about when you’re hot, sweaty and anxious to get going.

Anyway, we had a small roof rack with a ratchet strap, so we slowly and strategically placed the heavy, sharp logs across the rack, most pointing front to back so the strap would hold them in place. Then we headed off for an 8 km bumpy drive to our camp, fingers crossed that the logs and assorted very heavy wooden firewood wouldn’t come crashing down on our windshield. They didn’t.

Mucheni #3 Exclusive Camp

What an amazing location! And a huge area all to ourselves with no other campers within at least 1 km.

There is no toilet, other than a hole dug in the ground with a half-metal barrel on top, with a broken toilet seat surrounded by a corrugated pony wall. To use it, one had to brush off numerous insect species and hold one’s breath. There was no water, other than the river and our reserve tank on the truck for washing, and all of our cooking was done over an open flame/embers.

Our site was situated along the banks of the Zambezi River. In front of us was the Zambezi Escarpment in Zambia.

We were located at the edge of the riverbank and, to our left, an open, expansive floodplain, which attracted a large variety of animals that came to graze. These included large herds of elephants that would walk down to the edge of the banks and the beginning of the plain, which was no more than 40 feet away from us.

We had several memorable moments when elephants would wander to within a few metres of us as we sat at our table having lunch or, later on, relaxing. We stayed calm. An absolutely incredible experience!

There was little to no moon so the stars were phenomenal.

We cooked over an open fire every night and sat in awe at the world around us.

On our last night we watched two lionesses walk past our camp.

This was a motivating factor to decide to hit the sheets early.

After a short while lying in our tent and the girls all cozy in the bush camper, all hell broke loose.

Elephants started trumpeting loudly, hyenas screamed to high heaven, and loud lion growls permeated our surroundings. Then all went quiet. Something wasn’t lucky and became the evening meal for the lions.

As Joyce and I lay in our sleeping bags, we noticed a strong stench as we heard some animal(s) wander closely past our tent.

We figured the hyenas were passing by us, smelly from the rotten meat they had probably eaten earlier, before one of their comrades became lion food that evening. The smell can also be associated with lions. Either way, we lay in our sleeping bags, listening to and smelling the wildlife at 2:00 a.m. and enjoying every minute of it.

It is difficult to put into words, so hopefully the pictures below will give you some idea of what we experienced at Mucheni 3.