Week 5 has been another case of three countries in one week as I zigzag my way up the continent. I know I'm not taking the fastest or most direct route but after spending 5 weeks and over 8000 kilometres covering approximately a quarter of the way (and the easy quarter where there are no travel restrictions or visa issue problems) I am beginning to get a feel for the immensity of Africa. It is also making me reassess how long it will take me to get to Cairo. I don't want to race through but rather continue to travel at a pace I'll enjoy and give me enough time to see things rather than just race through; the original plan of February is looking unachievable March or April is now looking more practical.
This week I have finished traveling through Zimbabwe, passed through Zambia (which I feel I have given short shrift) and arrived in Malawi.
After the ruins at Great Zimbabwe, which is where I was at the end of last week, I rode up to the countries capital Harare, in part because that was where my only Uncle and Aunt had lived in the 50's and early 60's (when the country was still Southern Rhodesia) and to me as a child growing up in Wales this seemed impossibly remote. Harere is my favorite african capital city to date. It is relatively small and compact, easy to walk around and has some character in its mix of a few old colonial buildings and lots of 50's and 60's brutalist concrete public architecture interspersed with some more modern towers which are tending to look old before their time. All this is combined with hectic life continuously pouring up and down the streets with continuous good cheer and friendly greetings. It's not pretty but the pictures below don't do it justice.
One thing that is noticeable in Zimbabwe is that street names, unlike in most other african countries I've visited to date, have not been changed from their colonial originals (on fact many of the signs look like they are the colonial originals). For a country that is now fairly stridently anti-west it seems strange and does lead to some peculiarities - the sign below was pointing to a street called "Rotten Row" that appeared to contain the head quarters of Mugabe's despotic ruling Zanu PF party - a party that it is a criminal offence to criticise.
From Harare it was on to Kariba, which is on the edge of a lake of the same name which forms part of the border with Zambia. The lake is artificial, formed by a dam and designed to supply both Zimbabwe and Zambia with electricity via a hydro electric scheme - something it is failing to achieve at the moment as water levels are so low due to drought and late rains that during my time in the two countries the electricity was off as often as it was on; and a lot of time it appears both countries only function via small Chinese generators sitting on many shops verandah. The reason for visiting Kariba to see more wildlife, it was reputed to be a great area to see elephants and hippos and there were certainly some, but the campsite proved shadeless (and its only character was not its facility or location but a manageress who became increasingly drunk as the day progressed), it was also 43 degrees during the day and still 34 at 9 pm at night so instead of spending the planned two days there I left after one.
That next day took me onto Zambia, a straightforward border crossing but one that liked both its paperwork and revenue collection; by the time I left I'd purchased a visa (US $50), Carbon Tax ($5), Road Tax ($20) and local council tax ($4) plus insurance for a month ($20). After the border I did Zambia a disservice by whizzing through it but I did, amongst other places, manage to stay at another national park called South Luanga, for two days. Here the elephants were definitely plentiful, roaming freely around the campsite. On the first night the manager came up to me at the bar and said "I don't want to worry you but one of the elephants is nuzzling your bike with its trunk". Apparently it could smell lingering traces of some mangos I'd carried on it earlier in the day - and elephants love mangos. No harm was done. The second night they left the bike alone and decided to walk past my tent instead. Fortunately the hippos and big cats in the park stayed out of the campsite but during the night you could hear them roaring on the opposite side river bank (and the river was nearly dry so no barrier). Locals assure you lions (or any of the big cats) have never been known to attack anyone inside a tent, nor elephants stand on them - but hippos strangely weren't mentioned.
After that very restful interlude it was onto Malawi at the very tail end of the week - but we'll leave that to next week's update.
This week I have finished traveling through Zimbabwe, passed through Zambia (which I feel I have given short shrift) and arrived in Malawi.
After the ruins at Great Zimbabwe, which is where I was at the end of last week, I rode up to the countries capital Harare, in part because that was where my only Uncle and Aunt had lived in the 50's and early 60's (when the country was still Southern Rhodesia) and to me as a child growing up in Wales this seemed impossibly remote. Harere is my favorite african capital city to date. It is relatively small and compact, easy to walk around and has some character in its mix of a few old colonial buildings and lots of 50's and 60's brutalist concrete public architecture interspersed with some more modern towers which are tending to look old before their time. All this is combined with hectic life continuously pouring up and down the streets with continuous good cheer and friendly greetings. It's not pretty but the pictures below don't do it justice.
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| An organisation with a big job on front of it. |
One thing that is noticeable in Zimbabwe is that street names, unlike in most other african countries I've visited to date, have not been changed from their colonial originals (on fact many of the signs look like they are the colonial originals). For a country that is now fairly stridently anti-west it seems strange and does lead to some peculiarities - the sign below was pointing to a street called "Rotten Row" that appeared to contain the head quarters of Mugabe's despotic ruling Zanu PF party - a party that it is a criminal offence to criticise.
From Harare it was on to Kariba, which is on the edge of a lake of the same name which forms part of the border with Zambia. The lake is artificial, formed by a dam and designed to supply both Zimbabwe and Zambia with electricity via a hydro electric scheme - something it is failing to achieve at the moment as water levels are so low due to drought and late rains that during my time in the two countries the electricity was off as often as it was on; and a lot of time it appears both countries only function via small Chinese generators sitting on many shops verandah. The reason for visiting Kariba to see more wildlife, it was reputed to be a great area to see elephants and hippos and there were certainly some, but the campsite proved shadeless (and its only character was not its facility or location but a manageress who became increasingly drunk as the day progressed), it was also 43 degrees during the day and still 34 at 9 pm at night so instead of spending the planned two days there I left after one.
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| Elephants wandering in front of the campsite |
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| This may not look like much but it's as close as I want to get to a pod of hippo's |
That next day took me onto Zambia, a straightforward border crossing but one that liked both its paperwork and revenue collection; by the time I left I'd purchased a visa (US $50), Carbon Tax ($5), Road Tax ($20) and local council tax ($4) plus insurance for a month ($20). After the border I did Zambia a disservice by whizzing through it but I did, amongst other places, manage to stay at another national park called South Luanga, for two days. Here the elephants were definitely plentiful, roaming freely around the campsite. On the first night the manager came up to me at the bar and said "I don't want to worry you but one of the elephants is nuzzling your bike with its trunk". Apparently it could smell lingering traces of some mangos I'd carried on it earlier in the day - and elephants love mangos. No harm was done. The second night they left the bike alone and decided to walk past my tent instead. Fortunately the hippos and big cats in the park stayed out of the campsite but during the night you could hear them roaring on the opposite side river bank (and the river was nearly dry so no barrier). Locals assure you lions (or any of the big cats) have never been known to attack anyone inside a tent, nor elephants stand on them - but hippos strangely weren't mentioned.
After that very restful interlude it was onto Malawi at the very tail end of the week - but we'll leave that to next week's update.
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