One of the nicest parts of our adventure across Africa is that it largely lacks any scheduled itinerary, providing us with the luxury of making many of our travel decisions on a rolling basis. Although our journey is only loosely mapped out, we have generally already determined how, and approximately when, we will leave a given location before we arrive. More than anything else, this is simply an effort to keep from inadvertently marooning ourselves anywhere longer than desired.

Consequently, I had been trying to determine the best method for continuing our travels into Zimbabwe well before we arrived in Victoria Falls. Unless you have your own wheels, overland travel in most parts of Africa generally means long bus rides. Because of this, I was especially intrigued to read in our guidebook that Zimbabwe had a functioning passenger rail system that called upon destinations we wanted to visit. That such large-scale, state infrastructure would still be in operation, however, seemed implausible given the economic collapse that had befallen the country just a few years prior. Nonetheless, a quick check of Seat 61¹ confirmed that Zimbabwean trains were still running – or, at least they were as of June 2013, the date of the site’s most recently posted travel report. In a manner that would be frustratingly rare for the rest of our travels across Zimbabwe, the information we found on online was accurate, detailed, and current.

Continue reading Riding the Rhodesian Rails (Or, Taking the Train from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo) →