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HARARE, November 30, 1999 Victoria Falls is Zimbabwe’s tourist town
– full of backpackers and sightseers.
This is the off-season so it wasn’t too congested, and in
fact, all the backpackers in the bars and the campsites kind of set me
off on a nostalgia trip. (The
backpackers seem awfully young these days, though…)
Vic Falls is lower in altitude than most of the rest of the country
(about 800 meters, 2900 feet). It
seemed like the rainy season hadn’t really started yet.
At any rate, it was righteous hot in the sun!
I acquired quite a burn on my right arm while driving, since that
arm isn’t accustomed to hanging out the window and isn’t nearly
as accustomed to sun as my left one. The Falls, itself, is an awesome sight! Not as massive as Niagara, with nowhere near the amount of water, especially now at the end of the dry season, but it is very pretty and the gorge is spectacular. The water plunges over the edge into a long, but very narrow gorge, which lies perpendicular to the river, so the falls are more than a kilometre wide. You can walk along the opposite side and look at the falling water across the gorge, which is only a 100 or so meters wide (and also 100 meters deep). Very spectacular! It would be more impressive at the end of the rainy season because there would be much more water falling, but people told us that then there is so much spray and mist that you have to wear raincoats and you can’t see nearly as well. The walkway winds alongside the falls and through a rainforest with frequent viewpoints so that one can see the falls from many angles. Little rainbows arch into the mist and the pathway is often dotted by small, three inch, fiery red balls of flowers about ten inches high which look ever so much like nature’s version of the patio lanterns we decorate our yards with at home. The small rainforest is draped with vines and I would not have been surprised if Tarzan had materialized in front of my eyes.
Just below the falls we saw people starting out on white-water
rafting trips down the gorge and tiny figures could be seen in kayaks
and on boogie boards in the water.
We watched several
people bungee-jumping off the bridge that crosses over to Zambia!
Just watching sets your pulse to pounding – god knows what
it would be like to do it. Apparently,
the guy who pushes you off the edge says:
“If the bungee breaks, don’t worry.
You will fall into the river and you just swim to shore.
But remember to swim to the right bank.
If you swim to the left bank, you will need a visa!”
There
are apparently very few “rules” on the Zambian side of the river.
People were swimming in a pool right at the edge of the falls.
Although there isn’t too much to do in Victoria
Falls, except to look at the falls, we spent a very pleasant day and a
half. We walked over to the
famous old Victoria Falls Hotel, built in 1904, and VERY elegant!
We
also walked through the craft village, but there is so much stuff you
can’t take it all in, nor can you begin to choose.
Various people approached us on the street, wanting to exchange
our money, as foreign currency is very scarce.
The general consensus is that the Zim dollar will be devalued again
in the near future. In
the evening we enjoyed a very popular Zimbabwean tradition: a sundowner
cruise on the Zambezi River, above the falls.
Free drinks and snacks, hippos, free drinks, crocodiles, more free
drinks and more hippos. We
met some people visiting from Botswana and England who really are rich;
not just pretending, like us. We
got back just as the sun was setting.
“Another boring day in Africa!!!” We left Vic Falls at 6:00 am because we intended to drive back to Harare in one day, a distance of 850 km. We stocked up on biltong, bottled water and snacks and did the trip in 10½ hours. A few kilometres outside of town, just as the sun was rising, we saw a “Buffalo Crossing Area” sign. A few meters later, three Cape Buffalo (that we didn’t see in Hwange) crossed the road in front of us. Boy, are they big! When we got
‘home’ to Harare, everyone wanted to hear about our adventures
and to ask which part of the country we liked the best.
Now there was a challenging question to answer! HARARE, DECEMBER 4, 1999 December? It can’t be December! The windows are all open, the sun is shining and it is 32C outside. After a day or two ‘at home’ to recover,
we set out on the last phase of our Grand Tour of Zimbabwe.
Di’s 12 year old daughter, Leanne, was just starting her summer
holidays so they came with us and we went to Kariba.
On
the way, we
saw more of the amazing countryside:
lots of tobacco and maize crops, all intensively irrigated, can
be found in this area. Roadside
vendors were selling the usual stone and wood carvings and many were offering
worms for fishing (one sign read:
“WEMS FO SEL”) and lots of watermelon and mealies.
We stopped for lunch near Chinhoyi and toured the limestone caves.
The roof of one of the caves has fallen in creating a huge opening
at the top.
The water in the
cave is the most incredible sapphire blue!
Once we were beyond the farm country, we saw people gathering thatch
for roofs. It was stacked
in big neat piles for sale along the roadside.
It must be brutal work. In the 1950’s a huge dam was built where
the Zambezi River flows through a deep, narrow gorge, near the tiny settlement
of Kariba. The dam created
Lake Kariba, which is 250 km long and up to 40 km wide.
It generates hydro for both Zimbabwe and Zambia and the
area has developed into a holiday resort with a thriving tourist industry.
There are many hotels and resorts and it is a popular spot
for fishing, houseboating and holidaying and has the hottest weather in
the country. The town of Kariba,
itself, sits on a very high hill and every restaurant has a patio with
a fabulous view for miles out over the lake.
There are many islands, which were hilltops before the valley was
flooded and in the distance is the high escarpment, which forms the side
of the Zambezi valley. Fishermen
come from all over the world to catch the Tigerfish, which has huge teeth
and beautiful coloured stripes, and is related to the Pirhanna. We stayed at Tamarind Lodges, in a low-budget
cottage that was very quaint. It
was quite comfortable, if a bit rustic.
The front of the cottage was open and larger livestock were denied
access by a wire grill. Bamboo
curtains rolled down for privacy.
A variety of insect life shared our quarters, but we had mosquito
netting, so that wasn’t a problem.
Leanne, however, being a typical 12-year-old girl, was
less than amused
to find three toads in her bathroom and a Chongololo worm in the sink.
Susan was a little surprised when she was awakened in the middle
of the night by a rustling noise and saw a monkey making off with some
of our groceries. Hot water
was heated by a solar panel on the roof and in the bathroom there was
a shower—no shower enclosure or cubicle, just a showerhead in the
middle of the room—and a drain in the floor.
We dined on the patio of the Cutty Sark Hotel,
looking out over the lake shining in the moonlight.
Di told us that it isn’t uncommon to see elephants sauntering
through the hotel grounds and in dry years, they often stop and drink
out of the swimming pool. No
elephants joined us at the dinner table that night, but we did see some
the next day swimming at the edge of the lake.
At night, you can see the lights of the kapenta boats all over the lake. Kapenta is a small fish, like a minnow, which flourishes in huge populations. The boats go out at night using bright lights to attract the fish, which they scoop up with big dipnets. Kapenta are an important protein source in the diet of the African people. White people feed them to their cats. In the evening we went on another sundowner cruise (more free drinks). It was just beautiful out on the lake, with a cool, evening breeze. We didn’t see much wildlife on this cruise, but we did get to see some hippos up on shore. As the lake is man-made, when the water level is low, the trees that once covered the valley can be seen poking their petrified branches out of the water. There are some rather odd sights, like the tops of old hydro poles, far out in the lake with the lines still hanging from them! If one were willing to brave the crocodiles, tigerfish and hippos, one would find the remnants of abandoned villages and homes beneath the waters of Kariba.
While the creation of the dam has been
enormously beneficial to both Zimbabwe and Zambia economically,
we cannot
help but wonder about the fate of the wildlife.
The numbers listed as being rescued by “Operation Noah”
seem to be pathetically small. The
original Valley Batonka tribe didn’t fare so well either.
They were forcibly resettled from their fertile lands along both
sides of the river, to dry sandy areas above the escarpment.
Still,
the dam and the lake are an amazing accomplishment and certainly, it is
one of the beautiful places on earth. We watched the African
sun drop into the water just as
our cruise ended.
We thought our sailboat might like it here.
On the other hand, sailing in the same waters as hippos and crocodiles
has a somewhat limited appeal. Between the two of us, we have shot over 1,000 photographs! If we ever manage to get them sorted and organized when we get home, we will have quite a show for you.
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