AFTER his travel diary following a visit to Zimbabwe in November 2009 [DAY 1; DAY 2; DAY 3; DAY 4; DAY 5], Scott Ramsay returned recently and travelled for four weeks in the western parts of the country, discovering deserted tourist attractions, plenty of welcoming locals and more than a few roadblocks.

Want to find out what it’s like to travel in Zimbabwe at the moment? Can you have a good time in the country? Are visitors welcome? Is it safe? Is there fuel? Is there food? How bad is the poaching?

AFTER Shumba, Mario and Dolly returned to Bulawayo, and I travelled north, first to Robin’s Camp, which was deserted of staff – and tourists. After an hour of waiting at reception, I walked to the area warden’s office, which was open, but no-one was there.

Finally, a helpful MacDonald Mandizvidza arrived and took me to see Christine Ndlovu, the manager who was doing her ironing at the back of the camp. I explained what I was doing in Hwange, and that I’d like to take some photos of Robins Camp. Christine was very reluctant, so I showed her my various letters of accreditation. She relented.

When MacDonald showed me around camp, I could understand why she had been reluctant to let me take photos. The chalets were in bad condition, especially the toilets and showers, which were broken and leaking, while paint was peeling off the walls. The restaurant and bar were locked up (“They’ve been closed since land reform,” said MacDonald). The lookout tower (the camp’s best feature) was also closed, due to a massive bee’s nest (“We haven’t been able to get rid of the bees”, explained MacDonald).

I asked MacDonald whether I should stay the night here, or at Sinamatella Camp, also in the north of the park. “Go there,” MacDonald agreed. “They’ve got more funds. It’s a nicer camp.”

As I drove to Sinamatella, I couldn’t help notice the absence of wildlife, compared to the south. Hwange’s wildlife traditionally congregates in the lower end of the park, where there are more pans offering grazing, while the north of the park is more hilly, rocky and wooded, making it harder to see game.

Sinamatella was a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively. Perched along the edge of a steep hill, about 90 metres above the eponymous river’s floodplain, the cool breeze is pleasingly consistent. The vertiginous Sinamatella affords the finest views in Hwange National Park, which is mostly flat.

And unlike Robin’s Camp, the chalets and lodges were in good condition, and the staff – especially reservation manager Sarafina Baramasimbe - were friendly. Robin’s had been eerily depressing and unwelcoming, while Sinamatella exuded professionalism.

So it was good to see that there was at least one other group of visitors enjoying the scene. I got chatting to Kurt Haas from Bulawayo. He and his friends had also seen no game whatsoever recently. “Nothing,” Kurt said. “Absolutely nothing.”

But there were signs. In the morning I noticed fresh leopard spoor around my tent, while in the afternoon I had followed rhino tracks along the road.

The presence of rhino was a relief, because the Sinamatella area is a so-called “IPZ”, or intensive protection zone. Area warden Moses Gomwe and his 90 staff at Sinamatella are responsible for the protection of many of the last rhino in Hwange. Figures of remaining rhinos aren’t disclosed – “for security reasons,” said Moses.

Like in the Matopos, Moses and his team are up against market forces beyond their control. The increasingly prosperous Chinese market still believes that rhino horn is a cure for laryngitis, lower back pain and fever (but not male impotency, as is commonly believed in the west). And the Arab market joins in too: wealthy young Yemen men seek rhino horn to fashion handles for their jambiyas, a type of ceremonial dagger.

At sunset, I headed out for a drive around Ngweshla Pan, and besides a profligacy of impala, zebra, kudu, waterbuck, baboons, wildebeest and sable, I came across ... LION! The honey-coloured grass, five feet high from the summer rains, hardly covered his bulging mane. A big male, fully grown – and clearly hungry. He was striding across the pan, directly for the concentration of plains game. Unfortunately, it got dark quickly after that, so I had to head back to camp.

Steve and Eleanor shared their dinner with us under the camp’s acacia trees. Steve has travelled extensively in Africa, running a business called Safari Guides, which markets Africa’s best wildlife guides to the rest of the world.  They had also seen the same lion earlier that morning.

“In East Africa, there would have been ten cars around that lion,” Steve said. “Here, it’s amazing. There’s no-one but us. We spent two hours this morning, by ourselves, watching that lion.”

My last days in Zimbabwe were spent at Little Makalolo, the luxury yet laid-back camp in the south east of the park. It lies on the Makalolo concession, a 400 square kilometre jewel of massive pans interspersed with pockets of thick woodland.

The six-room camp was filled with guests, mostly from America and the UK. Rates are high, but not unreasonable considering the remote location, fantastic food, expert guides and superb accommodation. Little Makalolo is situated in one of the more remote parts of Zimbabwe, a country where it’s still difficult to get any fresh milk, meat, veggies or fruit.

A large open-plan lounge, dining and pool area is the focus of camp, but it’s the rooms which enchant – or luxury tents actually. Despite the intense summer heat, they are kept cool by high ceilings, shady overhangs and a constant breeze through the open sides (which are netted, to keep the bugs out). There are no fences, so animals walk right up to the tents if they wish, meaning you can be lying on your fluffy duvet while a hyena comes to say “HELLOOOO” at your front door.

I spent two days with Lewis Mangaba, one of Wilderness’s highly trained guides. We ticked off close to a hundred different bird species, which were drawn to the vast amount of standing water in the pans. During the summer thunderstorms, Hwange’s southern pans are filled to the brim.

As we got chatting, the ever-smiling Lewis told me how wildlife tourism changed his life. An orphan born in Kariba, he lived as a homeless street child in Harare until he was 13, when he moved to Vic Falls to find work. He couldn’t find a job, so he used to write his own poetry, and recite it outside the bars and restaurants.

Passersby would throw him some change, but one morning a professional wildlife guide offered to teach him about the bush. Lewis caught on quickly, and moved his way up through the guiding ranks. Today he excels at Wilderness Safaris, one of the most prestigious, eco-conscious safari companies in Africa.

Lewis’s original mentor has since died, leaving his extensive natural history library to his protégé, who still studies most nights until 3AM.  “I have trouble sleeping sometimes, and there’s so much to learn,” Lewis told me, as he drove me back to my car on my last morning. “You can read your whole life, and still not know everything about the bush. But it’s fascinating, and I love sharing my knowledge.”

We bumped along the sandy terrain in the Land Rover. It was humbling to hear Lewis’s story, especially in the context of Zimbabwe, whose tourism industry is now only starting to recover after Robert Mugabe’s most recent decade of disastrous rule.

We rounded a bend, and there in the middle of the track were four lion, absorbing the early rays of sun. They weren’t going to move for us, so Lewis drove up close to them, and switched off the engine. An adult female and her three subadult cubs lounged in the amber grass.

I remembered what Steve Krenzen had said, and it confirmed my own thoughts: how special this country can be as a tourism destination, and how amazing it is that there are so few tourists to experience it. As Lewis and I sat in the Landy, chatting quietly amongst the lions, I swore I’d come back to see more of beautiful, beleaguered Zimbabwe.