This morning I decided to get in touch with my exercise side (since negated by my consumption of an entire Hawaiian pizza this afternoon … my stomach now hurts. Mmmm, sweet pineapple) and 4 of us (me, an American, and 2 Canadians) thought we’d get up nice and early to walk to Chimoio’s most famous – and only – mountain, nicknamed “the old man’s face” (?!).
It was a nice long walk, and quite pleasant – 5 kilometres to the base of the hill, mostly through dusty Chimoio villages and farms. Along the way, there were plenty of interesting, “rustic” sights … including my favourite, some philosophical graffiti …
As aforementioned, this mountain is called “the old man’s face”, because apparently it looks like the profile of an old man’s face, lying down on the ground. See what you think* …?
The hill itself was nice, but unexciting (particularly compared with the gorgeous Zimbabwe mountains). However, it had a few interesting features – including a near-impossible steep climb up. It was only later we discovered that the path was actually on the other side of the mountain. Doh!
When we actually got up to the top, it was pretty unexciting – there really isn’t that much to see in Chimoio at all. At all. Though, despite the bland-ish views, it’s beautiful with the fresh wind blowing in your face, fresh in the morning (to simulate this, try and make blowing noises whiles looking at these photos)
The only really interesting part of the trip (apart from getting some good exercise, and discussing Canadian-American politics) was, once we were up the top, we realized that we were sharing the peak of the mountain with the local Chimoio witch doctor. (“Which doctor?”, I hear you ask. Exactly.) In fact, the steady stream of people running past us were all going to see her. We only realized this when she started screaming loudly, face thrust towards Chimoio, waving her hands and shouting angrily in some kind of local language. She wasn’t too happy to see us either, when we realized we were temporary neighbours, and gave me a rather unhappy look …
God bless
john
*Don’t worry, like those funny magic eye puzzles it took me a while to see the face. See what you think looking side on at the face – pretty realistic, huh?
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