Zimbabwe
ZimbabweDecember 2010
Tuesday December 28th – Botswana/Zimbabwe
The Lodge organised one day return trips to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, but we had reserved two nights at the cheap Victoria Falls Backpackers Hostel because we wanted to have more time. We were able to leave our rented car at the lodge and just take small backpacks. Originally I had read that you could get public transport from central Kasane, but it seemed pointless when the border was closer from the Lodge
The hotel called a taxi to take us three miles to the Botswana /Zimbabwe border. En route, we passed lined of stationary trucks waiting to cross over the Zambian border nearly. Dropped by the taxi (30 Pula), we walked past a shorter line of trucks waiting to enter Zimbabwe. It was a simple process of just getting stamped out of Botswana and walking a few hundred metres to the Zimbabwe immigration building. Here there were a dozen people, mostly tourists on organised trips, getting Zimbabwe visas. We filled in a form and paid $55 each for the visa.
When we left the immigration building and walked outside the compound, I was surprised to find no public transport running to the town of Victoria Falls. There were half a dozen taxis. A man offered us a ride for $70. It was only 70 kilometres which seemed steep to me. We were in no hurry and just stood around. A few more reduced offers were refused and then an offer came in at $20. This would be acceptable. The only problem was that we were pointed to a beaten up car with a few problems – smashed windscreen, no rear view mirror, no windscreen wipers, an interior that had been ripped up, no tax, no registration number. The funniest thing was that the engine wouldn’t start and I had to push-start the car from behind to get it going!
Still, it went and the young driver called Godfrey was friendly. We passed a couple of elephants and some baboons ran across the road. Then it started to pour with rain and with no windscreen wipers, it was impossible to see though the cracked windscreen. He would stick his head out of the window to see where he was going.
We eventually arrived at the town of Victoria Falls. We had reservations at the Victoria Falls Backpackers which was on the outskirts of town. We were dropped at the entrance and checked in. We were given a basic hut with fan and a mosquito net. The en suite was a small wall dividing the ‘bathroom’ from the bedroom was not exactly private.
Set amid the flat, hot bush of Matabeland, Victoria Falls is one of the oldest towns in Zimbabwe, having attracted travellers since the mid Nineteenth Century. But Livingstone in Zambia got more attention and it only grew after the 1960s. After a tropical rainstorm, we started to walk downtown, but someone from the Backpackers saw us and gave us a lift. The main street had souvenir shops, fast food cafes and tour operators selling activities.
We were constantly approached by locals with wooden carvings in their hands, or the old currency when inflation took it into orbit so that million, then billion and even trillion dollar notes were printed. The American Dollar had replaced this currency, but everything had a minimum charge of a dollar (even a postcard). In the Spar supermarket where we stocked up on snacks and beer, we would get change in Rand. Because so many hawkers were around, there were also a few tourist police patrolling. We were able to get rid of the touts quite easily but more just kept on coming up. Kids would say ‘Give me a dollar’ or ‘I’m hungry, buy me some bread’ (not that they looked starving). Men would ask for my trainers, even though they were wearing a better pair than me.
The first impression of Victoria Falls was of a failing economy with little employment and everyone desperate to get anything they could off tourists. So many men came up with the same carved statue that when the later ones said “How much is this worth?” I was able to reply ‘Well, you’ll say $20, but it’s not worth $20 to me”. Nevertheless, no one would drop more than a couple of dollars and walk off. So they weren’t that desperate. Likewise, with postcards, it took an age to find someone who would knock down the cards from a ridiculous dollar each to 50 cents.
While walking around the town, we checked out the two poshest hotels. “The Kingdom” was less than ten years old, pretty swish with landscaped gardens, waterfalls and huge eating areas. Just down the road, the Victoria Falls is Zimbabwe’s grandest hotel known as “the grand old lady of the Falls”. To reach it, you walk along an avenue of scented trees before arriving at the hotel’s legacy of architectural style. The Edwardian-style five-star hotel, was built back in 1904. The friendly doorman wore a white uniform covered in medals and badges given to him from previous guests. The terrace opens onto views of the low greeny-grey hills of Zambia rising behind the filter of spray. The site was chosen for the view of the second gorge and the imposing railway bridge.
Back at the hostel, we relaxed in the small pool, drinking ice cold beers while roger the resident cook, produced a ‘braai’ (BBQ) of delicious steaks. It felt good to get away from all the hustlers. One of the guests walked up later and said 'Didn't we see you on the plane to Cairo?' It turned out the couple had sat across from us. They had been met in Johannesburg by their Zimbabwe friends and done a tour through Zimbabwe. "Some of it was pretty rough" he said. Small world.
Wednesday December 29th
In April 2005, Harare embarked on Operation Restore Order, ostensibly an urban rationalization program, which resulted in the destruction of the homes or businesses of 700,000 mostly poor supporters of the opposition. President Mugabe in June 2007 instituted price controls on all basic commodities causing panic buying and leaving store shelves empty for months. General elections held in March 2008 contained irregularities but still amounted to a censure of the Zanu-pf-led government with the opposition winning a majority of seats in parliament. MDC opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the most votes in the presidential polls, but not enough to win outright. In the lead up to a run-off election in late June 2008, considerable violence enacted against opposition party members led to the withdrawal of Tsvangrai from the ballot. Extensive evidence of vote tampering and ballot-box stuffing resulted in international condemnation of the process. Difficult negotiations over a power-sharing government, in which Mugabe remained president and Tsvangirai became prime minister, were finally settled in February 2009, although the leaders have yet failed to agree upon many key outstanding governmental issues” (Phew!). It calls itself a
parliamentary democracy but this is not really true.
Positioned between South Africa and Zambia, Zimbabwe is slightly larger than Montana with 11.6m people of which an astoundijng 95% are unemployed and 68% fall below the poverty line (the CIA says average annual income is US$100) resulting in a low life expectancy of 48. 50% of them are syncretic (part Christian, part indigenous beliefs)
Agriculture products include corn, cotton, tobacco, wheat, coffee, sugarcane, peanuts; sheep, goats, pigs. Industries include: mining (coal, gold, platinum, copper, nickel, tin, clay, numerous metallic and nonmetallic ores), steel; wood products, cement, chemicals, fertilizer, clothing and footwear, foodstuffs, beverages. The CIA says “The government of Zimbabwe faces a wide variety of difficult economic problems. Its 1998-2002 involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo drained hundreds of millions of dollars from the economy. The government's land reform program, characterized by chaos and violence, has badly damaged the commercial farming sector, the traditional source of exports and foreign exchange and the provider of 400,000 jobs, turning Zimbabwe into a net importer of food products. The EU and the US provide food aid on humanitarian grounds. Until early 2009, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe routinely printed money to fund the budget deficit, causing hyperinflation. The power-sharing government formed in February 2009 has led to some economic improvements, including the cessation of hyperinflation by eliminating the use of the Zimbabwe dollar and removing price controls. The economy is registering its first growth in a decade, but will be reliant on further political improvement for greater growth”.
We got up early and walked back into town and down to the entrance to the Victoria Falls National Park. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site which means the entrance fees have increased to £20. A large warthog hug around looking for handouts as did a female baboon and her baby. The warthog has protruding high set eyes and large flap-like ears to maintain constant vigilance for predators while they feed face down. Their massive over sized head acts as a powerful lever for attacking roots and bulbs.
“The energy and power of over a mile’s width of the Zambezi River thundering 100 metres down a sheer chasm is a pretty compelling sight, and combined with the clouds of sunlit spray and rainbows” (Rough Guide). The Victoria falls is 1708 meters wide, making it the largest curtain of water in the world. It drops between 90m and 107m into the Zambezi Gorge and an average of 550,000 cubic metres of water plummet over the edge every minute.
When Livingstone arrived at the falls and named them after his queen, they already had a local name – Mosi oa Tunya “The Smoke that Thunders”. His most famous quote was “on sights as beautiful as this Angels in their flight must have gazed”.
The first view that you get, at the western end of the chasm, is known as Devil’s Cataract. Nearby stands a commanding statue of David Livingstone looking out. As we wandered through the rain forest beyond Devil’s Cataract we saw an array of different waterfalls: Main, Horseshoe, Rainbow and Eastern Cataract. The highlight was Danger Point, at the east end. We got soaked by the spray, dried out in the rainforest with its lush ilala palms and went back for a second look. It wasn’t very busy and in total, we spent 5 hours enjoying one of the Natural Wonders of the World. It is the noise of the water that is most impressive. It thunders all around you.
We had viewed the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia where people did bungee jumping, and decided to go and have a look. The Zimbabwe immigration gave us a slip of paper to let us back in without stamping our passports. We walked to the bridge and stared down. It was the third longest bungee jump in the world. I had seen the longest in South Africa in 2009. I decided against spending $110 dollars for the brief thrill. I had bungee jumped in the UK years ago. We entered Zambia but not officially.
It was very hot, but walking back into town, a pickup truck stopped to offer us a ride to the centre. Ewe climbed onto the back. The young occupants had come to town with hundreds of others to attend a 2 day festival starting on New Years Eve. I hadn’t known about the festival, so I was glad we had reserved our cheap rooms months ago. Not that we had heard of any of the bands who would attend. It seemed a long walk back to the hostel from the town where we could relax again.
Thursday December 30th – Zimbabwe/Botswana It was time to return to Botswana. Wendy’s feet were blistered from all the walking yesterday, so I walked into town to see if I could find either public transport or a taxi to take us back to the border. The offers I got were $80 and $70 dollars. Eventually, I walked to the Information Centre, where they arranged a taxi for $40 that would pick us up at the hostel at 11am. I was probably overcharged, but it was the only way we were leaving town.
A smart taxi arrived as planned and we thought ‘this is more like it’, but just outside town on the road to the border, it pulled in where other taxis hung around. The driver had a chat with someone which eventually led to a shouting match about something. We were asked to switch taxis and got a slightly less impressive taxi but better than the one that had brought us from the border. The driver set off and then stopped to talk to someone by the side of the road. “He’s a policeman” the driver said. “He needs a lift to the border”. Once he had got in, we then drove into a property where the ‘policeman’ then lugged two large cases of beer into the boot and got back in. It was probably a scam to get a mate a free ride to the border, but as long as we got there, who cared. We never saw ID, and later on, passed some policemen by the side of the road. The taxi driver knew tem but the ‘policeman’ did not.
Relieved to reach the border, we were stamped out of Zimbabwe with no problems and walked onto Botswana immigration where they stamped us in with a new free visa. The strange thing was that there was a small dip full of disinfectent where all vehicles had to drive through to keep bacteria/insects etc away from the crops. For pedestrians like us, they sprayed our foot ware and our hand luggage with the same stuff.
When we got through immigration, there were no taxis waiting on the Botswana side.
As we left the compound, a pick up pulled up behind us. It was the Head of Immigration. He asked us where we were headed and when we said Toro Safari Lodge, he told us to jump in because he lived nearby. He dropped by right by the entrance. How lucky can you get?
If I was to recommend a trip to Victoria Falls, I think I would actually advise to just do a day trip from the lodge. You would probably avoid having to buy the $55 entry visa and a day in Victoria Falls is enough. It had given us a taste of what Zimbabwe is currently like and no doubt I will return to see the rest of the country.
Back at the Toro Safari Lodge, we were given a different hut and moved our luggage back in from the car and generally relaxed. But when it got dark, there were two power cuts and after the second of which was not fixed, I walked to reception to see what was happening and we were ‘upgraded’ to a room nearer the river. In the late afternoon, we had watched a boat pull up by the hotel. It was an afetrnoon river excursion just finishing. I recognised some of the punters. It was the same two couples we had met at the Victoria Falls Backpackers. They were also staying at the Toro Safari Lodge. Even smaller world.
Friday December 31st – Botswana/Namibia No sooner had we arrived in Botswana, it was time to move onto Namibia. We had a long 600km drive today and set off early into Kasane which was a little underwhelming since most people stayed at lodges rather than the ‘town’. We entered Chobe National Park and drove 65km through the park, stopping to register for free at the park entrance. The roads were virtually deserted and I was surprised that we saw no wildlife, not even an elephant!
It was 65km from Kasane to Ngoma Bridge where we said goodbye to Botswana for a second time. We were genuinely sad to leave Botswana. The people, scenery and wildlife had been wonderful. It is a very comfortable place to take a holiday. The driving is easy though you will need to do a lot of it. We had only done the east side but it gave us a good idea of the country. Recommended.
Zimbabwe Roadkill - Lizard, beetles, the economy
Travel - £18.90
Costs in Zimbabwe for 3 days (in British Pounds Sterling)
Accommodation - £31.50 (2 nights)
Food - £23.53
Other - £49.92 (includes $55 visa & £20)
Total - £123.85
Maps courtesy of www.theodora.com/maps used with permission.