Victoria Falls is in Zimbabwe our 4th country visited. It is also where Robert Mugabe runs things in a pretty corrupt manner. Zimbabwe, despite the highest literacy rate in Africa, has 80% unemployment and little outside investment due to the government. On the other hand, they have just discovered one of the largest diamond fields in the world, but it seems to be feeding the corruption machine, not the people. Also, I remember years ago, my mother telling me about relatives who fled Nazi Germany and moved to Southern Rhodesia where the capital city was called Salisbury. Today, that country is Zimbabwe and the capital is renamed Harare. Northern Rhodesia is now the bordering country of Zambia, which we will not be visiting. These areas had the typical African issue, minority whites held all the land and the money and it was only a matter of time until the local tribes would take over the government and repossess everything. Farmers are still being removed from their lands today and they are being redistributed to friends of the government, but the issue is, the new owners aren’t willing or able to work the land so the once productive farms are now producing nothing. Another thing is the flight of all young educated people (black and white) who can’t find jobs or social security. I’m told this is happening in South Africa too.
Everywhere we went in Vic Falls, there were street people hawking goods and looking to trade for our shoes. One of the popular things to sell is one trillion dollar bills printed by the Zimbabwe government. When that failed they converted to the U.S. dollar which makes it easy to buy things. Also, the town is maybe 5 streets in total and not very impressive. The falls, however, are spectacular but not safe for our cameras. This photo was taken with a small digital point and shoot we carry, thanks Chris D.! I took the time to get a haircut. I got a clipper cut with the #2 fitting so it’s really short.
Here's what Victoria Falls looks like...
We left Victoria Falls and headed to another camp in a park called Hwangi, where we had an exceptional local guide who took us on two game safaris and educated us on local people, plants used in the bush, animal activity, etc., quite an amazing guy. We saw lots of animals and birds but mostly different views of ones we had already seen, pretty nice viewing with close looks at elephants, giraffes, baboons, etc. We got a better view of a cheetah than before too.
We found a sable antelope there...
A young elephant
This is a cheetah resting on a huge termite mound. We have seen some mounds of amazing size...
A zebra up close...
A lilac breasted roller
Leaving Hwangi, we headed to another camp where we would stay two nights in Matapos National Park. The guide from the prior day pinch hit for the guide who usually does this part of the trip. Our goal was to see some ancient wall paintings done by the “bushmen” and then try to find rhinoceros in the park. The paintings were interesting and we were told there were at least 3,000 more caves like the one we visited.
We then went into the park and drove around looking for rhinos or hippos. After three hours of searching plus a stop for lunch, our guide had us dismount for a walk through the bush to track rhinos. Imagine walking through tall grass where you can’t see 10 feet ahead in land inhabited by rhinos, hippos, hyenas, lions, etc. I’m no hero so this was scary to me, too. The only reason any of us took even one step was the ability of the guide and his knowledge of the land, plus he was carrying a rather large rifle. This man is a very capable, well adapted fellow who knows what he’s doing. We walked through the brush for two hours and were hot and tired while he told us he was tracking a rhino and we just wanted to get back to the vehicle and have a drink and a rest. Well, sure enough, he found two white rhinos, each weighing around 2,000 pounds. We proceeded to track them until we were as close as twenty yards away. These animals are huge!. The sad thing is, to keep the rhinos alive; they have to cut off both of their horns. Otherwise, poachers will kill them and cut off the horns for sale in Chinese markets. It seems the rhino horn has some specific uses in Chinese medicine and for some, there are aphrodisiac qualities too. So, these rhinos have been darted and tagged (in the ear) and had their horns removed. Now poachers won’t kill them.
Finally, a hippo showing his open mouth as a warning...
We then headed to Harare for an afternoon to tour around. There was not much to see. The typical big city attractions like botanical gardens, National archives and galleries have been neglected and allowed to fall into disrepair. We walked toward the Presidential residence and had lunch in a sports club at a cricket field where everyone was watching the India-Pakistan match. Then back to the city center where there wasn’t much to do. Our group decided to make an early start and try to cross two borders in one day plus drive over 400 miles. This was going to cause a 15 hour travel day, but it would allow us one extra free day in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. We got to the Zimbabwe/Mozambique border and had a two hour wait while they manually wrote up our visas.
I don’t know much about Mozambique except they were a Portuguese colony at one time so the language is still used here. We drove across one section of the country and arrived at the Mozambique/Malawi border at 6:30 PM. The Mozambique exit office looked closed but it turned out they were using candles to work from due to lack of electricity. Since the border closes around this time, we felt lucky to get through. Then it was the Malawi border entry office for another stamp before driving 90 minutes to our camp where we upgraded to a bedroom for $2.50 per person.
Poor rhinos!
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