Day 190 – 13th April 2010 (Livingstone, Zambia to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe)
The original plan was to go nowhere near Zimbabwe for obvious reasons, we have all heard of Robert Mugabe’s tyrannical exploits, the War Vets (don’t they have to be all well over 60 now??) land reclamation and the 160,000% inflation … but on a trip like this, plans change. All the way down we have met people that have said we must go to Zim – it is perfectly safe and now that they have replaced the Zim Dollar with the US Dollar, fuel, food and everything else you need is freely available. And so today, we found ourselves leaving lovely safe Zambia crossing a very impressive bridge over the Vic Falls and entering Zimbabwe. OK … so we had to tell a little white lie at the border - law isn’t a very safe profession in Zimbabwe, even now, so James and I are officially students studying European History at Newcastle and Tudor History at UEA respectively (OK, I now realise this is a bit limited for a 3 year degree but I was hoping they wouldn’t really appreciate that) – we also put our permanent address as London but luckily, it wasn’t exactly the French inquisition.
And so we entered Zimbabwe and instead of bullet ridden, dilapidated buildings we found a quiet, pristine promenade of shops that wouldn’t look out of place in middle America and instead of threatening, gun bearing (80 year old?) War Vets, the most shocking thing we found was a small stubby of beer was $3.50!
Miles travelled: 11 miles (total 18,735 miles)
Highlight of the day: Finding Zimbabwe is not completely rack & ruin
Comment of the day: From the Zimbabwean border control lady after we handed in our visa application forms, looking at us dubiously “so you are both students?”
Ness & James in unison “u-huh, yes”
Border control lady “what are you studying?”
Ness & James in unison “history …”
Border control lady “uh-huh”, smiled knowingly and stamped our passport … job done
Day 191 – 14th April 2010 (Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe)
What can you do with a spare day in Zimbabwe … quite a bit, as it turns out. After a leisurely breakfast, we checked out the awesome power of the Vic Falls and got very wet, almost had a very expensive broken camera incident (see pics) … then afternoon tea at The Victoria Falls Hotel (a Leading Hotel of the World, splendid in its colonial style) which actually turned out to be pinky wine sundowners followed by a debate about whether the US$2 note we received from this world class hotel as change was real or fake – which was confirmed by Jake & Richard from America, it turns out there is such a thing as a $2 note, who knew? – and to top off the evening, a (attempted…see Comment of the Day) night at The Kingdom Casino, complete with life size papier mache elephants and possibly the worst tex mex food ever … all in all, a pretty good day.
Miles travelled: 10 miles (total 18,745 miles)
Highlight of the day: Running through the spray at Vic Falls … contact lenses promptly falling out and not being able to see a thing – not helpful when the edge of the falls (and certain death) is a few feet away
Comment of the day: James/Ness “will the casino tables be opening tonight?”
Helpful casino dude “no siiiirr, unfortunately they closed tonight”
James/Ness “Oh no, when will they be open?”
Helpful casino dude “er, maybe in three months … but we could open them for you tomorrow night if you would like sir”
Day 192 – 15th April 2010 (Vic Falls to Hwange NP)
This morning, Vic Falls town seemed to be swarming with policeman in very shiny uniforms. It turned out that the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, was visiting the town today. Now, as tempting as it was to stay around and do the world a favour running him over with William, we had heard stories that if you didn’t stop when the President’s motorcade went passed, bad things were dished out to you by the President’s personal bodyguard. Plan thwarted, we decided to make a quick exit. Unfortunately, that plan was in jeopardy when Ness discovered, 5 miles out of town, that she’d left her much loved insulated coffee mug behind (a Christmas present from her brother) and had to make a mad dash back – we missed Mugabe’s motorcade by minutes, although we did see his very large private plane having landed at the very small local airport.
It was with some trepidation we headed for Hwange NP. One of the reasons I (Ness here) was reluctant to visit Zim on this trip, in addition to the obvious news stories, was stories of the wildlife being decimated by poaching over the its recent troubled past. On the other hand, we had heard some stories of Hwange NP having the largest herd of elephant in the world, numbering in the hundreds, which had specifically been protected by the President as the “Presidential Herd”. I am pleased to report that, although we only saw a few (very angry – one seemed to take particular offence and bursted out of nowhere to chase us off down the road) elephants, we did see evidence of a large number of elephants, with the most amount of elephant poop I’ve ever seen. Good news for the ele’s but unfortunately, we saw very little else the entire day – a croc, a hippo and a family of rock hyraxes ...
Miles travelled: 134 miles (total 18,879 miles)
Highlight of the day: Driving around a corner, discussing two franklins we had just seen (it really was a quiet safari) to find the light being blocked out by the largest elephant I have ever seen crossing the road … he was rather angry to be disturbed
Comment of the day: Local Zimbabwean to James when explaining the President was coming to town today “would you like an MDC t-shirt?”
James “er, no thanks”
Day 193 - 16th April 2010 (Hwange NP - Bulawayo)
With William smelling distinctly of elephant pooh and finally seeing an antelope (and a zebra) we headed for Bulawayo. We had heard of an eccentric Englishman that had built an amazing castle in Bulawayo, called Nesbitt Castle and opened it as a boutique hotel. Unfortunately, we had no idea where this place was but how many English castles can there be in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe?
As we entered Bulawayo, we were stopped at a police roadblock and after the usual paperwork checks (not as daunting as some make out) we asked the policeman whether he knew where Nesbitt Castle was. He replied he only knew of one castle and even he could not go there, it was not safe. Slightly perturbed, we continued on into Bulawayo when suddenly we sped passed a castle, complete with turrets and stone eagles. We did a quick u-turn and approached the gates … despite signs everywhere that the place was protected by armed security, the gates were wide open. We entered without question and arrived at a what seemed to be a completely deserted castle, impressive turrets but overgrown gardens. After waiting a few minutes for a welcoming committee, which did not materialise, we decided something was definitely amiss and made a quick getaway. On our way out, we stopped a passerby and asked if he knew whether this was Nesbitt Castle? He said that there was a castle but it was taken over by War Vets and it is not safe to go there. With darkness falling, we headed for the safeness of the Holiday Inn instead …
Miles travelled: 243 miles (total 19,124 miles)
Comment of the day: James “F***
me, that’s a castle and a half”
Tune of the day: Take back the City by Snow Patrol
Day 194 – 17th April 2010 (Bulawayo – Antelope Park, Gweru)
Somewhere between here and Zambia our laptop has decided to go on strike and instead of switching on, just now emits three very loud beeps at us. So we decided to track down the hotels internet to find out what our laptop was trying to tell us. As it turned out, to get to the hotel business centre we had to walk through a wedding ceremony being held in the corridor, for which guests were starting to gather. This was fine on the way into the business centre as only a few guests had arrived and most were too deep in conversation to notice us. However, as we tapped away, it appeared the whole congregation had gathered with breakneck speed and were now patiently singing away awaiting the main event … and looking very bemused at two whities dressed in shorts and t-shirts taping away on a computer in the room next door in full view everyone. Our only exit route appeared to be through the congregation and any minute now the bride was going to be walking down the aisle ‘aka’ our exit route. We were trapped in an African wedding ceremony, completely inappropriately dressed nightmare … what do we do, stand up when she enters? Attempt to mime to the songs in Shona? Luckily we did not get that far as the business centre lady, realising our predicament, took pity on us and smuggled us through the staff quarters at the back.
So we quickly headed to Antelope Park – you really would not think you were in Zimbabwe here. Certainly one of the best campsites of the trip - a beautiful setting on a river, good facilities, nice bar, friendly staff and best of all … you can play with lion cubs!
Miles travelled: 107 miles (total 19,211 miles)
Highlight of the day: Tickling the tummy of a baby lion cub!
Comment of the day: Antelope Park guy “Are you going to be joining us for breakfast?”; James “No thanks”; Antelope Park guy [looking
baffled if not positively shocked] “Really?”;
James [deadpan] “Really.”
Day 195 – 18th April 2010 (Antelope Park, Gweru)
You can do an amazing amount of “activities” here – from walking with lions to elephant back safaris (unfortunately we couldn’t take the elephants for a swim because, despite being warm enough for us to wear shorts and t-shirts, its too cold for the ele’s … pussies J). We settled on a horseback safari for this mornings entertainment which was fab – a lovely ride and you can get much closer to the animals on horseback.
But perhaps more interesting was our guide. An obviously educated Zimbabwean – he regaled the history of his country, including the highs and lows of British involvement, with passion and enthusiasm. The conversation soon turned to the recently passed Indigenization Laws – a Mugabe initiative that require all Zimbabwean businesses to be at least 51% owned by an “indigenous” person (a pretty narrow definition as I understand it). Existing businesses that do not meet this requirement must transfer at least 51% of their business to an indigenous person by March 2015 for little or no compensation. From an outsiders point of view, this seems to be the final nail in the coffin for Zimbabwe – already any new foreign investment is being put on hold to see how the laws pan out but if they are implemented in full, one can only speculate but it seems the end of foreign investment in Zimbabwe and white Zimbabweans, even those that have been settled in Zim for generations, will be forced to move out. I guess this is the idea but it is very sad for an economy that was obviously once so prosperous in Africa. However, our guides opinion on these laws was very different - he was all for them, when we suggested that the likes of Barclays and other foreign businesses might pull out of Zim he merely shrugged and said that there would be plenty of other businesses willing to step into their shoes – well I hope you’re right Mr Guide (I also hope the MDC get more power and stop this lunacy/lunatic … oops, did I say that?).
Miles travelled: 0 miles (total 19,211 miles)
Highlight of the day: A ride with giraffe and zebra in the morning, watching the elephant graze next to us in the afternoon and sitting around the fire listening to the locals celebrate their Independence Day in the evening.