It has been one helluva day. I'm going to have to work hard to resist the urge to draw some parallels between the turbulent nature of today's events and consequent emotional rollercoaster, and the rapids on the Zambese down from the Victoria Falls, That would be lazy, though. I'm now pretty much spent, and we're off at 6:30 tomorrow to start the long drive back to Jo'berg. I'm thinking I really should have hitched the semi-offered lift to Kruger in a Cessna with the two race pilots I met...

Right, I'll split this into a few posts. First, the events overnight...

Last night was the last 'official' night of the Cape to Vic portion of the tour and, for a lot of people the end of their trip. Instead of going out for dinner, at Bjorn's suggestion, we'd all put in some Pula, they'd bought food, and the Savanna kitchen cooked it up for us. Bjorn, Lissom and Lee were to leave at five the next morning, to drive back to Cape Town. The more I think about this, the more I'm not keen that Nomad have done this. It's shattering the illusion that we're a tight-knit group, and reinforcing the fact that we're just paying customers, and that there wil be dozens more every week. The guides were less happy about it, too – Lee is from Vic Falls and used to work at Savanna, so it was a chance for her to catch up with friends. Lissom's wife had made a five hour train journey with his six-month old son, Oliver, and was only going to be able to spend one night with him. We got tips together for the three of them, and presented them in envelopes. Bjorn, in particular, has done an outstanding job. As I may have mentioned, he toured with Nomad twice before telling what they could have done much better on the second trip. Within months, he was working for them. Lissom, too, has been great – slightly shy, perhaps, but hilarious once you get to know him, and full of simple wisdom. Some tradional danceers came to sing and play for free, but again, with the hope of tips. Bjorn jokingly said they were leaving at five, if anyone fancied seeing them off. Christine and Heather, my roommates, decided that would be exactly what we would do.

We scraped ourselves out of bed at a quarter to five and wandered outside to the truck. I saw Bjorn walk, stoney-faced, acrossed the courtyard, and some sixth sense told me not to attempt to say anything funny. We gathered in a group, by the truck. Lee came up to us and explained. They'd been burgled. Thieves had broken into their rooms while they slept and stolen everything. Tips, passports, her ETD (curse my banking career: my first thought was 'Exchange-Traded Derivative?', but it's an 'Emergency Travel Document'). Bjorn's bag had been taken, Lissom's wife's bag and his camera. To be honest, I was too bleary-eyed to be properly shocked, but I did note how calm Lee was. It might be that she can step it up when it matters. I've been burgled before, and obviously, it's not nice, but we couldn't understand how on earth they could have broken into a locked, occupied room without waking anyone. After standing around for a while, I dragged everyone back to bed, figuring we were more in the way than anything else.

We were at breakfast at seven thirty for our rafting brief. We were still a little numb, and the robbery took on a dreamlike quality. Bjorn and Lissom had just left on the truck, but Lee stayed, since she had no travel documents and wouldn't be able to cross the border. Our biggest concern was for Lissom, and Heather and Christine instigated a collection for his wife and I'm told she was surprised and grateful. Times are crazy in Zimbabwe, and it would be shocking if he was spending months away from his family then coming back with a deficit.

We arrived back from rafting. Lee was still at Savanna, and we found out that Bjorn's bag had been found by the fence, still containing his clothes. The current theory is that the robbers sprayed some sort of soporific gas under the doors, since nobody had woken, and when he did wake, Bjorn wa, apparently, very groggy – not like him at all. We suspected an insiide job, since the security guard was asleep on the gate, and they may have known we'd tipped the guides, and that they were leaving early so wouldn't be using the hotel safe that night. Apart from Lissom, then, it sounded like losses had been fairly minimal. They'd missed his iPod, and it sounded like his tip may have already been in the truck safe. Lee, though, was having trouble contacting him. Her phone wasn't set to roaming, and she wasn't sure what to do, so was waiting for him to call. I concluded that she was supposed to be on the next trip out with Bjorn from Cape Town, leaving this morning, so she wasn't sure whether to get the transfer to Jo'berg with us tomorrow..

(At this point, despite surviving the rafting unscathed, I tripped over a stone step at the lodge, and I now have two rather spectacular holes in my shins, along with cuts to hands and elbow.)

By the evening, Lee still hadn't heard from Bjorn, so she had decided to stay in Vic Falls. To be honest, I don't think that's the right course of action. Her reasoning is she's in a better position to catch up with Bjorn's next trip from here (although I also think it's because she has friends and family here). Personally, I think that if she was serious about being a Nomad guide (as opposed to 'spending time with her boyfriend), she should get to Cape Town as soon as possible and get on the next departing trip. As I say, though, I'm sure the guiding's low on her list of motivations. Anyway, I've said my two penneth worth, and maybe I don't know all the facts.

The fact is, though, that many people here have nothing. The money isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. In fact, I was taking a photo of the exchange rates, pinned up over the electronic rate board, when a security guard asked me what I was doing. I thought I was in trouble, but in fact, he was just informing me that they were a day out of date, and that the rates had already gone up. People on the streets try to trade anything with you – they trade for your clothes, your shoes, anything… We were told that, if we want to buy souvenirs, the best way to do it is to use food. One of our group has already traded a kilo of rice for a stone statuette…