Day 156: Mabalauta (Zimbabwe) – Moreson camp and RV (South Africa)

On the way out of the park, we make a detour to the Mwatombo Viewpoint (great view, nothing going on) and then drive one of the most boring, bumpy roads of the entire trip.

From the Malapati Gate, we travel along the Limpopo River for a while to the Beitbridge Border. There are small, tidy houses everywhere, but the road is annoying.

We want to enter South Africa today so we can get our Carnet de Passage extended with a "Letter of Grace" in time. And it's one of the fastest border crossings of our entire trip.

For the exit from Zimbabwe, there's a slip with a QR code, and since it's blank, we're through in 15 minutes. What's pretty odd, though, is the $28 fee charged only at this border to finance the modern new border facility :-(

We also entered South Africa in a flash. After consulting us, the border official quickly changed the 30 days to 3 months, which we could have written ourselves :-) And the fact that we have to extend our CdP is only worth a brief comment.

With the remaining data on the Zimbabwe SIM card, we quickly finish the documents for the Letter of Grace. Thanks to Junior Setsiba from the AASA for his support.

Musina is our next stop – a pure shopping paradise after the last few months. You can easily withdraw cash (no black market like in Malawi, no parallel US currency like in Zimbabwe), pay with a credit card (which hasn't been the case since Tanzania), gas stations naturally have diesel, and the supermarket has (almost) everything we need.

Only buying new SIM cards takes as long as the entire border crossing...

What else is accessible from Musina in daylight? We choose Moreson Camp and RV. 420 ZAR per night (20 euros). Clean restrooms, pool, net, a nearly empty site (the South Africans all left at the end of the month), nyala on the grounds, and bush babies in the tree above us.