Monday, January 25th - Beitbridge, South Africa to Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe

After an excellent night's sleep, having gone to bed and fallen asleep immediately at 09:30, we were up again at 5:45 to pack up and load up bags by 6:30, have breakfast and depart at 7:00.  Having to get up at 3:15 really makes you tired by the end of the day!!!

We had about an hour drive through countryside and one small town to get to the border.  The scenery was not as impressive or as varied as the previous day, but still nice.  It was just much less green and lush with very little agriculture, mainly just trees and shrubs.  There are a lot more baobab trees and they are so meet with their huge trunks and heavy branches.  There were also flame trees with their red flower and another similar red one called a flamboyant or flamboyance tree.  There was also one that was thick with yellow flowers and it looked very nice as well as one the refer to as the African Christmas tree that has yellow and pink flowers on it and they hang down for the branches like a Christmas decoration.

At the border we switched buses.  We said good-bye to our driver, Jocque, who had been absolutely wonderful - by far the best bus driver I've had on any tour.  He was an excellent driver and did a great job in navigating the roads and avoiding any animals or stupid drivers who got in our way, and it was always a smooth ride so motion sickness was never an issue.  And beside that he was a really nice guy with a great sense of humour - very dry wit that always surprised us with something unexpected.  He knew all of us and participated with us in meals and enjoyed seeing the animals as much as we each did.  He was also excellent at spotting the animals and was frequently pulling over or pointing before anyone else had spotted anything.  He will drive back to his home in Pretoria today on his own while we continue on.

We first cleared the South African immigration and that was a pretty quick process.  There were very few people in line and it was really just a formality.  We then moved on, a couple kilometres down the road, to the Zimbabwe customs.  That a took a bit longer as we were entering the country.  However, we did it quite comfortably.  We filled out the required form while sitting on our air conditioned bus.  Well, actually we only had to complete the forms.  Andrew, our new bus driver, had them partially filled out for us so that was a real bonus.  (He is a very young gentleman so quite a change from Jocque.)  We then had to walk into the building and stand in line for a while as each of us presented our passport, form and money to the cashier.  Then we went back out to the lovely air-conditioned bus and sat and waited while they processed the whole batch.  We are waiting as I type this.

The border crossing is not very busy according to our guide.  However, there are a lot of people around.  Everyone seems to be waiting so the process must be pretty much the same for everyone.  Aside from our group everyone is black so it's definitely a busy crossing for the locals.  There are lots of officials and customs employees around.  Labour is obviously cheap here and right now out the bus window I can see 23 customs and/or immigration employees just on my side of the bus.  There aren't many more people than that around.  There are a lot of trucks now lined up to get over the border into South Africa but I don't see any lined up to go into Zimbabwe.  I know we passed a lot of them on the road in so they must be somewhere.   The outside area is very clean and there is no garbage anywhere.  However, it is a very old looking building so looks quite dirty just because of that.  I would say the same is true on the inside of the building too.  It looks like an old factory on the inside and it was hot, but it was clean.

Finally at 12:30 we got our passports back and we were ready to go.  It was only a 2.5 hour wait and we had been warned for a three hour wait so it seemed okay.  We started out and had to had some paper work at the first stop.  Then the driver had to answer some questions for another group and eventually we were actually on our way.  

Zimbabwe's history is as convoluted as any country's.  The original tribes came from North Africa and from east Africa.   At one point they had dealings with China and Arabia.  The two main tribes now are the Ndebele and Shana (and please don't check the spelling on those).  In the 1880's, Rhodes, who made his money from diamonds and gold in Southern Africa, got a lot of people to head north to current Zimbabwe.  He originally wanted to build a corridor from Cape Town to Cairo for his Queen.  Matobo used to be Fort Victoria and was named for the Queen at the time it was built by the trekkers when they arrived.  Rhodes took more land than the tribes actually gave him and got away with it.  He found diamonds and some gold and other minerals, and the soil was also good for agriculture so it was a good settlement.  The area became South and North Rhodesia.  The North is now Zambia.and the South is Zimbabwe.  In the late '70s, Ian Smith was president and had a system of apartheid in Zimbabwe that was similar to South Africa's.  There were lots of jungle areas in the country and the "bush war" happened as the people revolted not only here but all around Southern Africa.  Russia and Cuba got involved at some point and the fighting really ravaged the area.  In 1980, Smith realized he couldn't hang on to the country any longer and  Rhodesia became independent as Zimbabwe and Mugabe took over.  Mugabe won the first election fairly but after that he started changing the constitution and making other changes to the way the country was governed.  Blacks started attacking whites.  White farms were taken over and destroyed and the people killed.  Mugabe and his people wanted the whites out because the whites were making money that Mugabe wanted.  In 1980 Zimbabwe produced 80% of its own needs.  Now they can't produce even 15%.  The people who took over the farms (and destroyed them) didn't know how to run them so nothing was being produced.  By 1995, just 15 years after independence, Zimbabwe could no longer support itself and inflation rose dramatically.  Mugabe changed the national currency to the US dollar, without US permission, which is why the paper currency in Zimbabwe is so old and dirty now since they can't exactly print any more.  Mugabe gets along well with the Asian countries and especially China.  China paid off $40 billion of debt for Zimbabwe so they are now tied very closely.  Mugabe has even decided to change its currency to the Chinese yuan - supposedly as of January 1st 2016 but we don't think it's instituted yet.   The US dollar and the South African Rand are still accepted as currency.

Mugabe and his people, including his wife, look after themselves only while the rest of the people suffer.  Prices are incredibly high and unemployment is at 65%.  Mugabe is 91 now and has been in power for 46 years, which is totally against the constitution.  However, he is apparently in very poor health, maybe even critical, so the people believe there is hope for the future - assuming his wife or the generals don't decide to try and continue his ways!  On the plus side, the people are wonderful and friendly and the country is safe.  And as another plus, the literacy rate is 91% in Zimbabwe as education is a high priority so Mugabe did get some things right, at least at the beginning.

The landscape was pretty barren as we drove along and the highway was certainly not of the same quality but still reasonably good.  The land is very dry and the drought is affecting Zimbabwe too.  There are lots of bushes and short trees and since they have leaves the area still looks green.  It just doesn't look like very good farm land.  Most of the time it is just flat land with very few hills and no mountains.  That may change as we get further into the country.  There is little wildlife here now.  There were many deer and antelope and similar animals but they were all killed by the locals as food so there is very little left.  I guess if you can't afford to buy food because your economy is so bad (very high prices and 65% unemployment!) you must provide for your family in whatever way you can so you really can't blame them.

Today we had to drive 380 km and we definitely wanted to get to our next stop before dark as the roads are not that great for night driving.  We are counting the number of times we get stopped by the police today.  Then we are having a lottery to guess how many times we will get stopped before we get out of the country in five days.  Apparently they have many road checks so it should be interesting.  Today's count was 5 stops.  Most were quick but the one was a bit longer as Andrew, our new driver, had to argue that the reflectors on the trailer behind the bus really were applied correctly.  It took a while but he did win the argument and we were able to continue with no fines or other problems.

Part way through our journey we entered a very different landscape with lots of huge boulders or rocks piled on top of each other to form hills.  It's a strange landscape but the rounded mounds are really quite pretty.  The name Zimbabwe actually comes from these hills and means something like the big house of rocks or something similar.  From a distance they just look like rounded hills standing on their own but when you get closer you realize they really are just a huge pile of boulders.  They are granitic rocks but cannot be mined for granite and that is about all I know about them.

We arrived at our hotel about 5:30 and it is in a beautiful setting.  We are up on a hillside overlooking a dam and the lake behind it.  Oh yeah, Zimbabwe rivers and lakes actually have water in them so that's definitely different than most of South Africa.   Anyway the resort is and old English style homestead and the gardens are amazing.  It was raining slightly when we arrived but the views were still spectacular.  The unit we are in could hold 10 people but there are just 5 of us in three separate rooms.  Our room has four twin beds in it but is big enough to hold about eight if needed.  There is also a kitchen and really large sitting/eating area with another two twin beds.  And we have a lovely porch overlooking the garden and lake so it's quite nice.  Some of the others weren't quite so lucky.  They have smaller rooms looking to the back and they have shared facilities.

Our dinner was very nice and shortly thereafter we all retired to our rooms because the generator was only working until 10 so we all wanted to get settled in before the lights went out.  I am typing this now as the frogs and cicadas and who knows what else are singing loudly.  The air has cooled off so it should be a good night for sleeping.