There's a secret room at Peter House Falls in Chimanimani National Park. If you scale your way up the side of the waterfall, cross the river and teeter across the edge to the very brink of the falls, it's there on your right.

About ten feet by six feet, its solid rock walls go up about thirty feet on three sides. The fourth side is open to the roaring waterfall. We slept here on our first night in the park. It was loud but amazing.

This is a big park. Hundreds of square miles, stretching through parts of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. And there were six other people visiting while we were there.

"It was so, so cold."
Waking up at the waterfall, we layed around much of the morning before jumping off some of the cliffs into the very deep,

Contemplating Binga Falls

very cold pool under the falls. It was so, so cold. And I'm not much of a guy for jumping off things either. I did it so I wouldn't regret not having done it, but sometimes I wonder if that's a good reason to make yourself do stuff.

The walk from the falls to what they call the "Southern Lakes" was a lot longer than we thought. We figured we were lost for a while, but we finally found them. Along with a rather crappy, sandy campsite.

"We went to Mozambique anyway."
The morning of September 11th brought our own little last laugh for the guy at the Mozambique embassy in Harare who refuse to give us visas. We went to Mozambique anyway.

The hike up to "The Saddle" is amazingly steep at times. I'd be afraid doing it with a big pack on my back. But it's easily the most beautiful part of the whole park. When you reach the top, it opens into a high grassland that looks like something out of Lord of the Rings. Or a medieval battle scene. Surrounded by rocky cliffs on three sides and studded with towering boulders, it's stunning to walk across.

The unmarked, unguarded Mozambique border runs across the middle of The Saddle. We even missed it when we first walked into Mozambique.

"You could blow off a leg."
Now's probably a good time to go over land mine safety. During the war in Mozambique, for whatever reason the border areas were heavily mined. Many are still there, including in the National Park.

A Flower Scene at Chimanimani

This is a real threat even though people say most have been removed. So it's really, really important to stay on the beaten paths, especially around The Saddle. You could blow off a leg... or your head, if it's the kinda mine that jumps out of the ground before exploding. This brought some nervous moments when we had to leave the trail to go around a swampy section.

We also got a taste of what the average Zimbabwean goes through not having food. We stayed two nights in the park, but due to a fateful miscalculation brought only enough food for a day and a half. After two days of rationing, we had a long, hard walk out of the park on empty stomachs. Miserable. But at least we could look forward to raiding the supermarket on our return.

"It was still sad to hear."
Then came the news about Johnny. I saw it first on Google News at a stunningly slow internet cafe in Mutare. Later after I broke the news to Matt, we saw BBC World doing lots of coverage of his life. Matt had surprised me in South Africa when he said June Carter Cash had died. We figured Johnny might not be far behind. It was still sad to hear.

Our family story goes that we're somehow related to the Carter family and June, so also to Johnny by marriage. When we were kids we often went to see them play unannounced concerts at the Carter Fold in Hiltons, Virginia. It was a surprise to see even BBC and Sky News treating it as a very big story. I would like to have been home to see how he was covered by American media.

Tonight, the night train to Harare. ...It's comin' round the bend...