Our Wild Journey Travel diary

ZIMBABWE

Saturday 16th May - Sunday 24th May 2009

From the Zambian side of the border it's about 2km to the Zimbabwean side, crossing the big Kariba dam wall. Here we could take photos for the first time without being hassled by anyone. Around 10:20 we arrived at the small border post. The visa took us 5 minutes, just the car a little longer, but that because of a queue of South African bikers. All in all a surprisingly easy crossing. From there on we went towards Makuti and from there on to Mana Pools National Park. From its main gate it was about 70km to the main camp, we enjoyed the track there - not because of the rough road, but because we saw elephants and lots of lion tracks as well as other animal evidence. Just after sundown we arrived at Nyamepi camp right by the Zambezi and pitched our tent between South Africans and Namibian visitors. For dinner we had veggie and potatoes, then we went sleep. Well, for Andrea it was not a quiet night - all hippos in the river enjoyed a very loud discussion and filled the air with sounds, from the other side hyenas were howling while pulling away from the camp the old food rests and unattended cooler boxes. And screeching monkeys ran around as well, stealing whatever was left by the hyenas. And, not to forget, the impalas were in mating season as well and made a lot of strange noises! All in all, an "animal-filled" atmosphere. Even sometimes one could hear the trumpeting of elephants across the river - actually, one pile of dung was right next to the car and stinking all evening! :o)

The next morning we got up early, quite racked from the previous night, and went on game drive. Except elephants and the usual animals we didn't see nothing - no lions! :o( We wanted to turn around and go back to the camp, when Andrea discovered something in the bush - a male lion and his female companion. Both looked quite sleepy - not surprising, it's mating season. We watched them for a while but they didn't move much, so we moved on. On the way back we saw a few jackals and a little herd of Kudu. In the evening we came upon a small herd of elephants, enjoying themselves in the waterhole. We stopped the car and watched them, took a lot of photos. And instead of going around us, they just came closer and closer and finally we were in the middle of this herd. Andrea felt a bit uncomfy and asked Rene to leave, but he said it might be better to wait and let them pass. But finally he started the car and tried to take a detour around them - one elephant started flapping ears, trumpetted and took a threatening pose. Quickly we sped off - in a bit of an adrenaline rush! In half darkness we went back to the camp and came close to a group of hyenas, preparing for the nightly raids! Oh, during the day we did the same as the animals, we relaxed in the shade right by the river and cooked lunch while watching hippoes and even elephants. We tried fishing as well, would have loved to get the reknown "tiger fish", but had no luck! We also had no more luck with seeing lions. :o(

We had changed our camping spot and went to Mucheni camp, a private camp site where there is no one else around. This was an amazing place right by the river. Of course, here we also saw hyenas and impalas and at night, a lot of eyes were reflecting in the shine of our lamp. But we had a big fire going and felt quite safe. Then, suddenly we heard rustling of leaves and there it stood right next to our car - a big elephant. He silently grazed next to the car, undisturbed by the fire or us! We were half amazed/half shocked about this and were ready to jump on the roof! After about 30min he had decided that he had eaten enough and moved off - so finally we could cook as well, liver with onions and potatoes. Our night was surrounded by roaring lions, and it felt really close! On the other side of the Zambezi, on the Zambian side, we heard a few shots and screaming elephants - obviously poachers. Disgusting! The next day we went on game drives again, but without any new sightings, in the evening we chose the same place to camp and again - our friend the elephant came again, this time straight to the car without stopping! We were a bit scared about his quick moves, but again he moved off after an intense graze around our car. (We only found out later that elephants LOVE citrus fruits and would do ANYTHING for it, including destroying cars, well, we had about 10 oranges in our car, fortunately the wind came the right way for us!!!) The night was calmer than the one before. The next day we decided to leave and passed by the head office, where we met Dr. Norman Monks, the area manager of this national park. We had a long chat with him and got a lot of information on the park, life in Zimbabwe and lions in general.

Then we left, went through the usual TseTse fly control and continued towards Harare. In Makuti we even got diesel. The road was normal asphalt, people along it looked alright, it was only 25 degrees which was good for driving. Then we came through the district of Chinhoyi, once a big centre of commercial farming of tobacco, soya, corn and other fruits. Zimbabwe once was called the "bread basket" of Africa, black and white Zimbabweans lived together peacefully, a lot of people had work and hunger was unknown. Well, then, from 2002 on a lot of things changed. On man, Robert Mugabe, started chasing white farmers off their lands and the vicious circle of corruption started - now he has a palace with 36 bedrooms!!!! And the people have famine, cholera and all these productive farms that fell into "black hands" look abandoned, overgrown by grass and are merely ruins! It was a dreadful sight for us! Once fruitful fields are reduced to small plots which grow 20 corn plants and 10 tomatoes and the "black man" is laying under the tree doing nothing!

When we had a quick lunch on a rest area next to the main road, a car stopped and a white Zimbabwean got out - Sonnie Rousseau from Harare, he was interested into our trip and invited us to come and see the 4x4 Jamboree on the coming weekend. He would be participating as well in his old Landrover. In the evening we finally made it to Cherylyn, Colin's youngest daughter, and Ross, her husband, in Harare. They offered us a "real" bed and a very nice and yummy ostrich stir fry! We were overwhelmed by their kindness! They are very nice people. During all the chatting we forgot the time and around midnight went to bed. And we can't forget, that the second person telling us about the 4x4 Jamboree was Ross, he also would drive his Landrover over all sorts of "mean" obstacles! The next day we planned to visit Lyn, Colin's wife, a woman full of humour and energy (and this although their farm got taken in 2002). There we packed some chips, wine and off we went to Thetford Estates, where we met Carolin, Colin's eldest daughter and her kids Nicole, Rachel and Dylan, and we went for a pricate game drive in the game park there. We had the chance to see white rhino really close-up!

On Friday we went out to Donnybrook together with Ross and his navigator Bill, there the competition would take place. We pitched our camp there, amidst other 4x4 competitors and enthusiasts who all worked on their cars for the final touches before the trial. Ah, we forgot, we even had a third invitation to this Jamboree, when we were in the Spar shopping centre, a woman came up to us and handed us a flyer, Hillary, Mark Benzon's wife (chairman of the 4x4 club), thought we might be interested...so there was no choice but to go! :o) On Friday evening the club had food for everyone - a "poiki", some sort of layered stew with "sadza", maize porridge and "rape", some sort of spinach. Yummy!
On saturday morning at 6.30 some impatient drivers already started their Jeeps, Landrovers, Suzukis and Cournils to heat up the engines. The whole weekend all sorts of 4x4 were competing on 18 courses, going over stones, through mud, over logs, going uphill, downhill and "aroundhill", 2 were even rolling over. We ran around and took about 5 GB of photos, which we "sponsored" the 4x4 club and Ross - to make them happy, maybe Ross can even print a calendar from this. There were normal, extreme and mud competitions. People watched, grilled, drank beer, discussed, took photos and wandered around between the different courses and categories. There we met Mike Gill, an older participant who took first Rene, then Andrea on a short offroad drive in his Jeep Wrangler - definitely we HAD to hold on to something!
Ross came out 3rd in his category, he was happy about that. After all the prizegiving "ceremony" people again grilled and celebrated the weekend till the early morning hours. There we met a lot of nice people, had interesting talks and must say that we really like the comradship and mentality of Zimbabweans, they somehow hold together, unlike us Europeans!

Monday, 25th May - Sunday, 31st May 2009

...Monday was "Africa Day" and people had free. We left the 4x4 club with Mark and Hillary Benzon - in his workshop Rene greased the car and changed the front bushes. In the late afternoon we went on a little drive and picnic to Moon Rock in Domboshawa, a nice rock overlooking the whole surrounding area. We had a magnificient sunset and a comfortable evening with snacks and wine with Mike and Pat, Mark and Hillary and Ralph and Rose. When meeting Hillary the first time on the Spar parking we hadn't expected to sit with them up on moon rock sipping wine! :o) The night we spent in Mark and Hillary's house and after a nice breakfast we said goodbye and left for Bally Vaughan, some sort of orphanage-zoo, Well, it looked a little run down because of lacking finances, but when seeing the animals we were convinced that they were not hungry! They boast to have the fattest leopard (we stroked it) and also the lions are huge! Other animals were 2 fat hyenas, a "zorse" (zebra-horse crossing) and cute mongoose and some sort of Southamerican monkeys (one of them was so happy to see us that he nearly peed on Rene!)
In town we had a look at the handcraft market in Avondale, but a lot of it was very touristy and also here a lot of Chinese "rubbish". We didn't buy anything, but still, the carvings from wood or stone are really nice. In the evening we drove to Lyn, as she is home alone when Colin is on his work trips in Zambia. Together with her we laughed a lot, had nice dinner and sat around the fire place watching animal planet.

On the way to one shop with all sorts of meat (giraffe, antelopes etc. - Rene wanted to try the giraffe), we stopped by Carolin's place for a coffee. Of course, Rene hadn't forgotten to buy some "Chibuku" as well - local Zimbabwean sorghum beer. During the day Rene had helped Lyn painting all her doors around the house and the evening we again spent by a nice and cozy fire. The next morning, after a nice English breakfast we said a sad goodbye to Lyn and went back to Harare to do some shopping. We met up with Cherylyn who had a special hint for fresh milk and homemade yoghurt for 2 USD per litre! And just around the corner we bought a big bag full of greens for 3 USD! Before going back to Cherylyn's and Ross's place, we stopped to say hello to Mike and Sue, whom we had met on the Jamboree as well. In the evening we had a very nice BBQ (braai) with Ross, Cherylyn, Becky and Tayla - we had peri peri chicken, very hot and very yummy! :o) After we still sat around the fire, chatting and sipping wine. Very enjoyable and comfy!
The next day wasn't so successful for Rene, who had stomache cramps and felt very sick after the Chibuku (which normally white Zimbabweans don't touch!) - he spent the whole day in bed with a green face colour! But on Saturday morning he felt better and we finally left Harare - after more than a week of lovely time among very nice, open and kind Zimbabweans! So we left Harare with the car clean and the fridge full of ostrich meat and milk products as well as veggies and fruits. And everybody told us there is no food in Zimbabwe - there is and the prices are ok as well!

In the afternoon we came to the place which interested Andrea most, but we left the event for the next day morning. The Chengeta game park didn't offer any camping, but we were lucky to meet Kevin, a white farmer and hunter who was to hunt a few impalas and wildebeest for the owner. He took us with him and his son Keren to his camp spot on a little rocky plateau overlooking the plain. In the evening around the fire we chatted - and found out that Kevin doesn't have a good time at the moment - Mugabe is about to take his farm, his thugs are in front of the house and Kevin already got beaten up several times. To the sounds of jackals we went to bed relatively early, because the alarm would ring early the next day. Finally, early we got up and were about to meet "Kenny" and "Big Boy" - 2 11month old lions! We would go on a bushwalk with them! It was lovely to walk around and play with them! And, lucky enough, in the 2nd part of the park we met the owner and were allowed 10-15min with 2 5months old cubs "Chaka" and "White man". It was amazing! The night we spent halfway towards Bulawayo in the Antelope park in Gweru, where we cooked "banana-kiwi-orange" jam, had a veggie stew and giraffe meat. That night it was very cold - 10 degrees!

Monday, 1st June - Sunday, 7th June 2009

After that cold night we had a sleep in and took our time with breakfast and packing up. Just before leaving we met Dora and Ari, 2 Angolans who at the moment live in Zimbabwe. They made us eager to see Angola! Then, after 150km more we reached Bulawayo, once the capital of Rhodesia (till 1981 Zimbabwe was a British colony, called Rhodesia after the main "colonializer" from 1888 John Rhodes). Here in and around Bulawayo lives Zimbabwes second big tribe - the Ndebele or Matebele. In Harare and Northern Zimbabwe it's the Shona people. Bulawayo has a 70s/80s charme, somehow frozen in time, typical colonial architecture but still nice and relatively calm and relaxed. Around 40km from town is the "Rhodes Matopos" National Park, that's where we went. Animals we didn't see any, only rhino and gazelle tracks, but live ones we didn't see. Anyway we liked the park because of its different landscape, there were "balancing rocks", rivers and a very quiet atmosphere. And the other very interesting things were the old rock paintings of the long-gone San people, we visited their caves and were amazed! Still on the same day we went back towards Bulawayo and on towards the Victoria Falls.

The main road to the falls is relatively boring, so, as our name says, we turned off the main road and took a very nice detour to the falls, going towards Lake Kariba and the Zambezi and then turning away from it towards the Falls. The road was relatively good and led through nice, calm landscapes, past little villages and over hills. From one of these we suddenly saw a big cloud hanging over the green bushland - we realized these were the Victoria Falls! A big steaming scar in the green bush surrounding it! Our last night in Zimbabwe we did what people didn't recommend us - we camped in the bush, it was a nice place looking over the Zambezi and we even heard the thundering of the falls in the distance. The next morning we got up very early - we wanted to be at the falls before sunrise. At 6.30 we bought the tickets to the "Mosi-o-Tunya" National Park, looked for a nice spot and waited...it was quite a mysterious, magical moment to see the fireball rise over the steaming falls. We think, photos will express better what we felt and saw. The main falls are 95 m high and very impressive, even the devil's cataract with 70m is gigantic. And seeing the falls in Zimbabwe is definitely much better than on the Zambian side. Just take a rain jacket!!! For 30 USD one can also visit the falls in full moon - seeing the spectacular lunar rainbow. After we had dried off a little bit we decided to visit a crocodile farm before leaving Zimbabwe. We didn't really want to buy skin, which is very expensive, but wanted to try the meat. We met Mike, who told us about the farm, they have around 20.000 crocs on this farm, he gave us all sorts of hints about the meat and how to cook it. He recommended us tail and neck, so we ordered 2 kg, just to finish off our last USD in Zimbabwe. And instead of getting 2 kg, Mike gave us nearly 5! Rene's eyes were lighting like 100W bulbs! yahooooo...
And in the afternoon, we left the 2nd one of our most favourite countries in Africa...

The 9th country of our tour took us into the 2nd country with a very bad reputation. From the beginning on we wanted to see this country, just had to be careful. Whenever one opens a link in the internet one mostly finds "black chronicles" about killing, famine and outbreaks of cholera and Aids. We expected the worst but after talking to Colin a big stone fell from our hearts, and after talking to Miss Beranova from the embassy we were assured that the shops were full and that there was diesel. So we could go there relatively calm and spent our first nice days in Mana Pools and found out that Zim is not like European media advertises. Of course, you read here our experiences, someone else might think different about this or have different stories to tell. We always felt safe and good, police was friendly and "hassle-free" and even the locals seemed to be happy and no envy looked from their eyes. They were surprised and eager to know about our travels through Africa and were happy about our interest in Zim. Because of approaching obligations we have to make our stays in each country a bit shorter, 3 weeks for Zim is not much, but a good start. We will be back next year anyway, because Bumblebee will stay somewhere on the Indian ocean. We can't look at everything in one trip, in each country we could have stayed months, but that's impossible...

Zim is quite mountainous, Harare already is at 1500m above sea level, and at our time of visit was relatively cold at night. Zim has fertile soil, a good infrastructure compared to its neighbours, its national parks are still wild, not overrun and well priced, have a lot of wildlife and flora. We visited 3 and all of these were different, we liked them all, because here it really feels like "discovering" animals, one still has to work for them and look for them, safari here is not like "Maasai Mara", not like a zoo or the big commercialized parks. There are sights for tourists, perfect fishing conditions and loads of mountains for hikers as well as animals for nature lovers. And culture there is as well, there are a few tribes to be discovered. We didn't turn off the main roads so much because of money reasons - after cancelling the Zimbabwe Dollar there is not enough USD and SAR in circulation to stock all the ATMs, so we couldn't use our credit card and were not really prepared for this. But otherwise, who wants to see the beauties of the once "bread basket" of Africa, we can only recommend it! We were positively surprised by the mentality of the Zimbabweans and we admire their "We Make a Plan" mentality!