"Mike Resnick - Between the Sunlight and Thunder (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

spare,
and got a second flat just as we were pulling into the Great Zimbabwe Hotel. While Carol and I
slept
the sleep of the innocent, Lazarus earned his salary by hunting up some friends, finding an all-
night
gas station (unheard-of in all other African countries), and getting the car in shape before
breakfast.

September 22: Carol and I walked a mile from the hotel to Great Zimbabwe, the oldest and most
impressive ruins in all of sub-Saharan Africa, and the structure that gave Southern Rhodesia its
new
name. This was a gold-trading society that existed about a millenium ago, and built a fortress
with
walls some 40 feet high. I spent about two hours photographing it and taking notes, as it will
figure
prominently in one of the books I'll be writing next year. Then, when I thought we were through,
Lazarus showed up and told us that there was an equally impressive ruin we hadn't seen yet. Where,
I asked. Up there, he said, pointing to a nearby mountain. So we spent another hour climbing up to
the second ruin, and once I caught my breath I had to admit he was right: it's every bit as
impressive
as the one most people photograph (the so- called Great Enclosure), perhaps even moreso,
considering that every one of its million or so stones had to be carried up the mountain. We drove
back to Harare in the afternoon, checked into Meikles again (they weren't so sure about taking my
voucher this time, but eventually they relented), and we spent our final night in Zimbabwe pigging
out
on a huge tray of food we ordered from room service.

September 23: We drove to the airport in early afternoon and caught a plane to Lilongwe, the new
capital of Malawi (formerly Nyasaland.) Upon arriving, we found the representative from Soche
Tours, which had subcontracted the Malawi portion of our safari. "You'd better hurry," she said.
"Your flight to Blantyre is about to leave." "We're not flying there," I said, showing her our
itinerary
and voucher. "You're supplying us with a car and driver, so we can see some of the countryside."
"We are?" she said, as the Blantyre plane began coasting down the runway. "Nobody told me."
Eventually the lady's boyfriend volunteered to drive us the three and one-half hours to Blantyre.
It
was dark before we left Lilongwe; so much for sightseeing. As we were driving, we noticed that
there were absolutely no lights on the right side of the road, and asked Joey, our driver, about
it. The
answer was chilling in its simplicity: the road was the border between Malawi and Mozambique, and
if you so much as lit a match on the right side of the road, you were likely to get your head
blown off
by a rebel before you could bring it up to your cigarette. So for two hours we hugged the left-


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hand
side of the road and hoped nobody felt like shooting a car. You can't imagine the relief we felt