Zimbabwe: The Granite Wonderland of Matobos

 

You're not exactly roughing it at Amalinda where the bar was built in front
of large granite boulders. The "safari camp" looks as if no rocks were moved
in its construction. The main buildings and the nine cabins are all 
structured around such boulders. The roofs are thatch. 

     By the time we reached Amalinda, our first stop in Zimbabe, it was May 9, a Saturday, and we had been in Africa more than a week on our 2026 trip to Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.  I was nursing a very sore right leg and what I remember most about Amalinda is all the stairs. Our cabin was at ground level, but inside there were stairs between the bed and the toilet and other stairs to the bathing area. There is a steep outdoor flight of rough stone stairs to the dining room and even more to the bar. 

     What should be most memorable about Amelinda is its design.  All its buildings are structured around ancient granite boulders, with the boulders bulging into rooms and forming interior and exterior walls. Parts of our cabin seemed like a cave.  Much of Amalinda, though, feels like a resort. If a "safari camp" is providing bathrobes, a spa, massages, a swimming pool and multiple opportunities for cocktails, then it's a bit more than a safari camp.  That said, Amalinda's staff was friendly without pandering. Our guide, Kevin, could identify any bird we pointed out, and it was mainly birds here along with impala and maybe a couple of other antelope. Kevin and two Matopos National Park rangers helped find two white rhinos that we saw on a half-mile walk into the bush. Two nights here were enough to see what we could see. Others who are looking for afternoons at the pool or challenging hikes would want more time.

      Unlike most safari camps, Amalinda promotes its hikes, including some to ancient stone paintings hidden in the hills. The hikes sounded like they'd be too steep for my injured leg (walking on level ground to the rhinos was no problem) so we basically toured around with Kevin in a converted Toyota Hilux. One stop involved a bit of a climb, but not an arduous one, to the hilltop grave of Cecil John Rhodes, the diamond baron (a founder of De Beers) who more than a century ago tried to build a railroad between Cape Town and Cairo. He was the source of the name of the former Rhodesia, which is now known as Zimbabwe. He also founded the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford University and is a poster boy for British colonial arrogance, racism and white supremacy.  Kevin, however, chose to focus on Rhodes's infrastructure projects, which he said still benefit Zimbabwe. 

Here are some pictures:

Amalinda is just outside Matopos, Zimbabwe's oldest
(and smallest) national park. It's known for its
rhino population.

Blue gnus or wildebeest at Matopos. Gnus are among the largest of Africa's many kinds of antelope.

Kopjes, granite bulders and outcroppings, dominate the
landscape at Amalinda, which is built around
boulders such as these. 

A half-mile walk in the bush with our guide and two
park rangers, whose help he had enlisted, brought us
to this young rhino. The guide, Kevin, guessed that
she was about a year and a half old. She still had
her horn, which park oficials remove starting around
age two to make the animals less attractive to 
poachers, who kill them to harvest the horns. We were
on the ground within six meteres or 20 feet of the animals.

This is the younger rhino's mother. Our guide said she appeared to be pregnant. It's not
very clear in this photo, but that's not her horn; it's the stump left when the horn was
removed.  Guides told us that rhinos seem unaffected by not having horns. After
 looking at us for 10 or 15 minutes, both rhinos ambled away. 

Granite boulders appear to have been acattered on a granite hilltop in Matobos National Park
 near the gravesite of John Cecil Rhodes, who died in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1902
at the age of 48. He is remembered as a powerful figure in the era of capitalistic imperialism 
 and as a founder of the diamond company De Beers. As prime miniser of the Cape Colony,
he  restricted the ability of indigenous Africans to own land or vote. He tried and failed to build
a railroad connecting Cairo and Cape Town, though he did get a telegraph line built.

Rhodes's will specified his hilltop burial site and the simple inscription 
on this brass plate, which is stainded by human urine. Rhodes, a white
supremacist, left a complicated legacy of accomplishments and arrogance. 
This hilltop, referred to as "View of the World," was considered
sacred by the local Ndebela people and there have been calls for
the grave to be moved elsewhere.