The story continues,
Synopsis: Our brave hero makes his way through the troubled land of Zim, waylaid by officious govt agents and a crumbling economy.
From Zambia another morning Minibus brought me down another suicide run to the shores of Lake Kariba in the north. The road decented from the plateau on which Lusaka sits down to the lower reaches and rolling hills of Zimbabwe. The road was quite notable due to the strewn ruins of truck wrecks that littered every corner. The terrain was very hilly and green and steep, even along this ride we saw at least three trucks in trouble. They just seem to keep sending them though.
Lake Kariba was hot and for the first time in about a month I felt I was feeling the African heat again. The lake was created in the 50's when the govt of both nations built Kariba Dam to generate power for the nations. These days the Zimbabwians can no longer afford the power and are buying from South Africa (Apparently SA not getting paid and are threatening to flick the switch). The Dam itself is huge and lives in No mans land and I had to walk across it to enter Zimbabwe. At first I the immigration officials were really very pleasant but the gate keeper made me empty my entire bag before he let me through, all this after I had walked 3km's in the heat with 30kg on my bag. The first thing I noticed was how much more developed the roads and housing on this side of the border were. The place was markly more developed than anything else I had seen in africa. The second thing was that the taxi i took to my camp site was a 70's datsun that really shouldn't have been on the road. The campsite I stayed at was a ghost town, kariba used to be a massive tourist drawn with people coming from all over to take out houseboats on fishing trips but these days tourisum has been hard hit by negative press and political trouble. Apparently the weekend before I got there it was heaving but nothing like it used to be. The artifical lake was gorgeous though and I would have loved to go fishing but the price was too high.
Travelling from Kariba to Harae was a eye opener though. There used to be many buses to the capital but they had stopped running due to econmic reasons, so now there were only two buses that went each day. Leaving at 11pm and travelling overnight. To get on this bus I literally had to fight my way past the crowds and with the help of a friendly taxi driver I managed to get on. I though that was the end of my troubles but I was wrong. Later that night at 4am the bus was stopped at a police road block and they started searching everyones bags. When they got to me and found out I was British they got very excited and demanded my cell phone and camera and started demanding to see my papers. It was a scary few minutes and i had resigned myself to the fact my valuables were going to be taken. Thankfully I had kept al my paperwork and everything was in order and in front of a bus full of witnesses the officer thought better than to take my stuff. Still it was a close call.
In Harea I found a bustling first world city, better kept than most cities in the west and again the city worked. Things carried on and the people are still upbeat about there situations. This is not a country on the verge of falling apart but having said that under the surface there are issues. Getting money for example there is a huge black market for foreign currency and fuel prices are beginning to effect the populace. It makes me wonder at the wisedom of sanctions all it does is effect the people at the bottom and the Zimbabwians are a great bunch of people. Really friendly and helpful. In harae I was luckly enough to be staying with some distant relatives who went out of their way to look after me. I'm so thankful for the indian connection, I had my first proper meal and shower for the first time in ages.
I visited a Lion Santuary and got to wander into a cage with some cubs and play with these over sized pussy cats. My god they are big and strong close up. Earlier on his month one of the larger lions had mauled a japanese woman to death so we were only allowed to play with the little ones.
Then I moved forward to Bulawayo, Zim's sleepy second city. Again met some great people and visited the Matapos natoinal park to see Rock paintings over 40,000 years old. Matapos is an strange landscape of massive granite boulders hills all closely cropped together. The painting were interesting but faint. In one of the caves some paints had been attempted to be preserved by the results were disaterous. The oil they used stained the rock black so some of these works are now ruined. Good intentions and hell come to mind. The day was made even better with some close encounters with white rhino and a huge Black Mamba snake crossing the road in front of us. I also visted the Kami ruins, remainants of a sophisticated civilisation of traders that flourished in the 16th century. They really were quite something, huge granite brick walls seemlessly blending in with their surroundings.
Finally I left Bulawayo by train and arrived here in Victoria Falls. What can I say a series of 100m drop waterfalls stretching over a kilometre. The spray unleashed by the torrent rising up out of the gorge like a huge bow wave covering the other side in perpetual rain. These falls are wonderous, and leave you staggered at their scale. All I can say is before you die get here and see these falls they are amazing.
The pics from Zim will be uploaded once i find a decent internet cafe. In the meantime you all take care, 6 weeks to go. Tomorrow I raft and boogie board the Zambezi before heading into the deserst of Namibia.
Laters
Bhavesh
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