Friday 7 March

Morning run

Having just emerged from an English winter full of cold, dark mornings, it was blissful to wake up to warm air and bright sunshine. Reece and I set off on a run around the block at 8am, before the heat of the day set in. Harare sits on a plateau at an elevation of 1,500m above sea level and – as Reece had warned – 6km felt a lot harder than usual (particularly the long, steady hills) due to the lower air pressure and warm temperature.

I enjoyed the run regardless, which was mostly on the road except for the occasional dirt “pavement”. We passed lots of leafy, walled gardens filled with trees, people going about their mornings, a couple of schools and a few rickety-looking market stalls. At one point a lanky teenage boy started running after us and I gripped my phone a bit tighter until Reece turned, unperturbed, and complimented his pace. At this, he sprinted off ahead – his feet barely touching the ground – before returning to his friends. That was a bit weird.

Errands

We returned to the house, puffing, and took brief respite in the pool. After a breakfast of croissants with ham and cheese, the six “kids” – Reece, Bryn, Ryan, Isabelle, Tilman and myself – drove 20 minutes to Kieran’s house, which is set in a fancy-looking golf estate with its own security guards, to collect his people carrier. We met Kieran’s lovely wife Trish, had a quick look around the garden – which backs onto the fairway and reportedly receives the occasional golf ball (and cobra in the pool) – and continued on errands.

We stopped at a petrol station (full service) to get fuel, then went to a pharmacy to consider a course of malaria tablets. Shelley had done the right thing and advised us to take them, with the caveat that if we didn’t then we could take antibiotics home just in case, and on learning that they’d set us back $60 each – and might make us feel rough – I decided against it. We bought coffee from a little cart instead.

After a quick detour to drop off a deposit for tattoos, we returned to the house and chilled for a couple of hours. I chatted to Iz by the pool while the boys wound each other up playing darts until lunchtime, when we all headed out to Tin Roof, the local bar/bistro that Reece used to manage.

Tin Roof

Set in a small shopping park, we found Tin Roof to be a lively place with an open-sided, indoor-outdoor feel, cheap drinks and a great menu. We sat at a long table and tried to keep up with the introductions – Reece’s family seemed to know just about everyone in there. Between us, Ryan and I had a calamari salad and a half chicken with chips, both of which were very good. An ice bucket of beers kept thirst at bay.

Venturing outside Harare

We got back to the house about 4pm to fill a coolbox, then headed straight out for an easy hike and “sundowners” – drinks and a sunset – at a place called Domboshava. Reece conducted the 40-minute drive, which took us north out of rush-hour Harare and provided our first experience of more rural Zimbabwe.

We passed a few farms and a lot of barren-looking scrubland, then came to a shabby-looking village where numerous huts made of just about every material under the sun – wood, chipboard, corrugated metal, tyres, cloth and cardboard – seemed to merge into one another. A boundary was formed between the potholed road and small maize fields by plonked cars, trucks and a ditch completely filled with black sacks and plastic rubbish – Reece explained that public bin services were non-existent. People milled around everywhere and we soon found ourselves behind a pickup truck rammed with a dozen haphazard-looking passengers.

After more potholes, fields, assorted settlements, scrub and the occasional smart-looking bungalow, we turned onto an even bouncier dirt track and soon arrived at a small car park. We each paid the $10 tourist fee for entry to Domboshava and set off on our walk.

Domboshava hike and sunset

Domboshava is an area of granite hills that features caves, unusual rock formations and ancient paintings. The landscape was unlike any I’d seen before: a great, rolling mass of bare, grey-pink rock rose up ahead like the back of a great, sleeping beast, punctuated by occasional fine cracks, thin streams and inexplicable pockets of greenery. We followed painted arrows up the side of the hill, stopping to watch colourful lizards that basked in the sinking sun and darted away as we approached, their legs wheeling comically in a quick, circular motion.

Barefoot and new to Zimbabwe, I remained conscious – to Reece’s amusement, I think – of the snakes I’d read about, whose venom can kill or maim in diverse and unpleasant ways. However, this fear was overridden by my fascination with the vegetation that somehow took hold in the seemingly soil-less granite, which ranged from patches of yellowish grass to thickets of shrub and swathes of verdant trees. In the “wild” for the first time, I was in my element.

As we gained the rounded crest of the ridge, the greenery receded. A low sun cast exaggerated shadows across the rolling undulations ahead and illuminated the thin layer of yellow-orange lichen that covered the rock, such that the land appeared to glow copper-gold. This, combined with the ominous, blue-grey sky on the horizon, gave the other-worldly impression that the normal order of light – bright above, dark below – had inverted. We could have been walking on Mars.

We followed the wide, humpy ridge all the way to the summit, which was marked by a round trig point. The view was spectacular: a 360 degree panorama of surrounding hills arranged in long, layered ridges, separated by wide, flat-bottomed valleys filled with fields, plains, forests and scattered villages. The sky above was clear and blue, with occasional fluffy white clouds drifting above the horizon, and we could hear some happy Friday evening clamour coming from indistinct parts of the basin below. We cracked the beers and I wandered alone across the strangely undulating plateau, drinking in every detail and looking for bugs, while the others sat and watched the sun as it fell towards the westerly hills.

Dark clouds crept towards us from the south and east in long, thick fingers and I returned to the others just in time to see the sun setting beneath a foreboding, grey veil. It sunk behind the horizon through a clear, lava-red stretch of sky, which faded at the edges to a perfect watercolour of orange, pink and yellow that accentuated the hazy blue silhouettes of distant peaks. As the soft breeze picked up, we looked east to thick columns of localised rain and flashes of lightning and decided that it was time for tea.

We descended the side of the hill via a couple of huge boulders balanced extraordinarily on natural plinths, connected by a very small surface area. They looked like abstract, unlikely works of art, ready to topple at any minute. The light faded and we found our way back by more painted arrows. As we approached the trees at the bottom, the air became alive with the incessant buzz of cicadas and the distinctive trill of a nightjar. We returned to the car just as the darkness closed in, and on the journey back – in between being brain-rattled by the roads and wincing at a few close overtakes – I watched lightning explode inside clouds above the hills as if someone had put a light bulb inside a balloon.

Home

Back at the house we sat at the bar and played Iz and Tilman’s game “Quixx”, which was good fun despite my record-low score, and Shelley made us plates of ham and cheese rolls while the rains came again. We each negotiated our individual attendance on the morning run Reece had planned and – in light of the run and tomorrow’s upcoming party – went to bed around 11pm.

My main takeaway from day two? Sundowners are a winner.