The Zimbabwe mountain club was having an all-day walk today and I was very excited to join since I haven’t had the chance to leave Harare in some time. They were going out somewhere to the east of Harare, about a 3 hour drive away, which meant leaving at 6 am!! I couldn’t find anyone from the club who stays in my area, so I arranged for a taxi to pick me up at 5:15 to take me to the meeting place.
Because of the storm the night before and the threat of rain, I texted one of the hike leaders at 5 am to see if the hike was still on; I didn’t want to pay $20 for a taxi all the way out to the meeting place if it was canceled.
And canceled it was! But not because of the weather; the hike leader somehow got injured on Saturday and wouldn’t be able to go and no one else felt familiar enough with the area to lead the hike. That was a bummer, especially since I woke up at 5 am and didn’t sleep well with worrying about not hearing the alarm. But luckily I was able to go back to sleep (after I canceled the taxi at the last minute).
But then when I did get up around 7:30 I didn’t have anything to do all day. I ended up working a lot on a series of training lectures about GIS that I’m going to be giving next week and I finished reading “Return of the King” (started and completed in 4 days! But not counting the appendices since the version I downloaded didn’t have them).
And as it turned out, it didn’t rain at all on Sunday: it was cool and overcast, a perfect day for a long hike!!