Since I’m not re-reading the last blog for fear of dying of shame I’ll assume I left off in Harare where we stayed with the lovely Smits and went to watch my uncle perform in a stage version of ‘Ello ‘Ello which featured a painting of the Fallen Madonna with the big boobies...
We caught a bus from Harare to Bulawayo which was actually remarkably comfortable if you could excuse the incredibly bad, incredibly loud movies played for the entire trip. I couldn’t. I think Mark struggled to get past my incredibly loud and incredibly constant complaining.
We stayed with Caroline and Jeff Fenwick, Caroline is the sister of some family friends of mine from Perth, her brother Leo actually drove me to our wedding, so while I’d never meet the Fenwick’s, I know Caroline’s brother and grew up with her nieces and nephew. However meeting and receiving amazing hospitality and care from people who’s relationship to you is tenuous at best seems to be par for the course in Zim as well as the rest of Southern Africa. Their son, Justin took Mark and I on a tour of the Matopos Hills which were pretty amazing. They also gave us contact details for John in Vic Falls which was where we headed next... on the same bus company we used to get to Bulawayo.
Fortunately the bus turned out to be a lot smaller, so there wasn’t a tv screen, instead we read and listen happily to our own music while watching the world go by – how civilised!
Vic Falls in Zimbabwe’s premier tourist spot and in many respects it shows. While in the rest of Zim there are rolling blackouts (be it to electricity for three days of the week, or electricity for half of the day) it’s very rare for Vic Falls to have a black out. And roaming Vic Falls where a lot of tourist police, whose jobs were financed by local hotels and task was to protect tourist from some fairly aggressive touts. Mark and I being jaded, backpackers we are seem to have gotten much better and politely getting rid of aggressive touts quickly (and politely mum), but I did watch a lot of people really struggle, so this was a great initiative that I hadn’t really seen elsewhere.
About the Falls. Well they are beautiful. Simple as that. They’ve been listed as one of the 7 natural wonders of the world, and while I don’t always agree with these lists (the Colloseum as one of the 7 modern wonders of world??? Where’s Ankor Wat??) Vic Falls should definitely be there. We also spent a day white water rafting which was AWESOME!!! To say I was petrified about doing this does not cover how scared I was. I didn’t sleep the whole night before, waking poor Mark up at 3 in the morning telling him I couldn’t do it. Fortunately I did, because it will probably go down as one of the best experiences of the whole trip. That night we were treated by the Smits in Harare to a dinner at what is considered one of Zimbabwe’s premier restaurants, the Boma, which serves game (think Warthog, Kudu, Ostrich or even Croc) and includes drummers, dancers, fortune tellers, and face painting. What a day!
Following the advice of John (a friend of the Fenwick’s) we decided against spending extreme amounts of money trying to leave Vic Falls, and hitched our way to Botswana...
Zim was always going to be pretty amazing for me. It’s the second time I’ve visited since I emigrated to Australia with my parents in 1983 and the first time visiting without them to guide the way. What I found was a beautiful country that is recovering from a difficult few years, populated with a very kind and generous people. I would warn however, that if you don’t have your own transport, maybe wait a year or two to visit. The transport infrastructure isn’t so great.
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