“Are you ready to have your mind blown?” asks professional guide Mitch Riley as we disembark from our safari vehicle on the escarpment above Gonarezhou National Park's Chilojo Cliffs.
Before visiting Gonarezhou, I'd seen plenty of photos of Chilojo Cliffs, which tower 200m above the Runde River, so I had some idea of what to expect viewing them from the base. But the vista from the cliff edge, though less containable within a photographic frame, is even more sensational. Below giant curved buttresses of burnished sandstone, the Runde meanders through a wide sandbed to a distant western horizon, a setting so vast it reduces the mighty baobabs and elephants on the floodplain to toylike proportions. Mitch is correct. It is mind blowing — probably the most spectacular view in Zimbabwe that doesn't involve Victoria Falls.
Chilojo is Gonarezhou's most famous landmark. Stretching for 13km from east to west, the cliffs stand sentinel above the Runde as it courses towards its confluence
