Zimbabwe Travel

A leap of faith?

, 1 November 2006

by Alison Westwood

"Zimbabwe?" I said - and there was a bit of a squeak in my voice when I said it. It was part excitement and part apprehension.

At last I was going to see this fabled land of lakes hopping with tiger fish, animal-carpeted plains devoid of people, and the mysterious ruins of lost civilizations.

So that was the excited squeak. The nervous squeak was caused by two thoughts.

Firstly, I was expected to bungee jump off the Victoria Falls bridge. I had never bungee jumped before, and at 111 metres the Vic Falls jump is not what anyone would call a junior jump, especially if you are not good friends with heights. Heights and I aren't on speaking terms.

And then of course, there was the whole Zim 'thing'. Once the bread basket of Africa, Zimbabwe is now the basket case of Africa. Thanks to paranoid politicians and brazen opportunists, Zimbabwe's story since the start of the new millennium has been a litany of hyperinflation, land grabbing, genocide, fuel shortages, rigged elections... you get the picture.

Setting foot in a country with so many issues, I felt, was just as much of a leap of faith as jumping into thin air with a piece of elastic tied to my ankles.

Perception vs. Reality

So I was a little jumpy when I arrived at Victoria Falls airport and handed over my passport and immigration form. "Miss Westwood," said the beetle-browed immigration official sternly, "you must tell me your secrets."

Oh dear! I was about to stammer out that I was only there to write an article about travel in Zimbabwe, not a political piece slating the government.

"Your birth date," he said, handing the form back to me. "You forgot to fill it in." The beetle-brows lifted to reveal twinkling eyes and a smile. "Don't worry - I won't tell anyone."

That's when it first occurred to me: my perceptions of Zimbabwe and the reality might well be quite different.

Everything, including the kitchen sink

We were met by Brett MacDonald, entrepreneur, storyteller, friend of Hwange National Park, and our host for the next five days. Rob and I piled into Brett's VX Cruiser. Brett cranked up the music on a flashy iPod stereo system, then opened the built in ice-making compartment and handed us each a frosty beer.

"Seems like your cruiser has everything but the kitchen sink," I joked, impressed with these arrangements. "Actually, it does have a kitchen sink. There it is in the back," said Brett, laughing. And there, indeed, was a kitchen sink.

We were on our way to Wankie - nowadays more accurately known as Hwange National Park. The road to Hwange was beautiful: straight and empty, through half-desiccated landscapes of miombo woodland, past neat villages of mud and straw. When we arrived at the park gate, a clockwork soldier opened the boom for us.

Heartbreak Hotel

The sun was setting and we stopped to look at the wildebeest around the water hole at the Hwange Safari Lodge. The hotel staff were packing up cushions around the poolside and setting the silver service in the dining room. They had polished the cutlery and starched the napkins, but there were no guests at all.

It was a similar story at Sikumi Tree Lodge where we spent the night. As we tucked into soup and stew and roast vegetables around a fire, we watched pennant-winged nightjars flutter over the floodlit waterhole and listened to lions roaring in the not-so-far distance.

"Some nights," said our ranger Bellamy with a sad look on his face, "there will be so many animals around this waterhole. Lions, buffalos, elephants, hyenas, everything. But there are no guests here to see them. It is just us sitting around the fire, watching them alone."

This seemed such a pity.[Sikumi Tree Lodge, with its romantic chalets built up in the trees, is gifted with a unique setting and fabulous game viewing. It also has the best-trained rangers in the world waiting to share their knowledge and love of the bush with guests who arrive all too seldom.

The Presidential Herd

The next morning we were fortunate enough to meet the Presidential Herd.

Hwange is home to 18,000 or so elephants. One group is particularly accustomed to people due to the efforts of a rather legendary man called Allan Elliot, who also trained the rangers at Sikumi.

It was an experience that gives me goose bumps to remember - the good kind of goose bumps. As the herd came towards us along the road, Bellamy stopped the Land Rover and within moments, we were surrounded by the silent grey masses of magnificent elephants. I took photographs at first, but in the end, I just sat there with a goofy grin on my face.

Baby elephants experimentally slurped water and toddled between the adults' legs. The matriarch of the herd, a huge tuskless female, came so close to us that the air stirred over my face when her ears moved. She regarded us solemnly for some time, then turned and moved away.

Something wet ran down my cheek and I was surprised to discover it was a tear. I felt somewhat embarrassed until I realized that Rob and Bellamy and Brett were equally affected by these remarkable animals. The elephants faded back into the bush, and we drove on - but the sense of connection is with me still.

Friends of Hwange

The elephants had been drinking from a puddle of rainwater, but the main source of water for Hwange's animals, is man made waterholes, filled by pumps. If the pumps aren't working, the waterholes dry up and the animals die of thirst.

Brett took us to see the workshop for the pumps and told us about the Friends of Hwange and the Save Hwange National Park initiative.

A year ago, there were only 5 out of 38 pumps working in the park and Zimbabwe was experiencing a terrible drought. Animals were trampling each other to death in their struggle for water. Now there are 35 pumps chugging away, the waterholes are full, and the animals look fat and healthy.

Without the Friends of Hwange and the fighting spirit of normal Zimbabweans, however, it would be a very different story.

At home on a house boat

Brett regaled us with funny stories of the bad old days when his farm was grabbed, as he drove us to the southern corner of Lake Kariba, where his houseboat, the Lady Jacqueline, was waiting.

If, like me, you've never been on a three-storey houseboat on a 300 kilometre long lake, I can assure you that you will get used to it very quickly. I was shown below to my luxurious cabin with a double bed and en suite bathroom, browsed through the book and DVD library in the lounge upstairs, and settled for drinking gin and tonic on the roof deck as we set our course for Sandy Bay.

Later, while we were fishing, the full moon rose over one side of the fiery-red lake as the sun did a swan dive into the other. I felt as though I was watching some kind of planetary balancing act. We sat next to a driftwood campfire on the sandy beach before dinner and watched orange sparks float into the moonlight.

The still silver waters shone back at the moon as it floated over Lake Kariba. I slept on the roof of the boat and woke every hour to watch the moon trace its course across the sky. As the sun rose the next day, the moon lingered long enough to blush, then vanished beneath the skeletons of petrified trees.

Vic Falls and a village visit

After the tranquility and solitude of Lake Kariba, the small town of Victoria Falls felt like a bustling metropolis. There was so much to do that I raced about like a chicken being chased for the pot. Sean from Shearwater, who run many activities in Victoria Falls, drove me around and tried to keep up.

First on my agenda was shopping (naturally), and even my inexpert haggling at a roadside market procured assorted curios for a tiny amount of money. Next I asked Sean if we could visit a village.

I was expecting something organised and touristy, but we simply drove down a dirt road until we found a sign for a little village called Mande. Mr Mpala, the village head, greeted us warmly, asked Sean politely to move his truck out of the village meeting area, and welcomed us into his kraal.

Making sure that we were seated comfortably on the chairs of honour, Mr Mpala took a stool and prepared to embark on a long history of his forefathers. He got as far as a story about Chief Hwange when Sean noticed the time and we had to cut our visit short.

The lunar rainbow

That evening, after we had bobbed about on the Zambezi drinking lager by the same name and being haw hawed at by hippos, Brett asked us if we would like to see the lunar rainbow over the falls.

Imagine a rainbow in seven different shades of white hanging over the grey roar of the Victoria Falls at nightâ€¦ Then imagine that you wait for all the other people with their cameras and flashes and loud voices to disappear, leaving you to enjoy it in peace.

We stood in the mist and the darkness and listened to the thunder of the water long after the ghostly rainbow and the tourists had vanished. We were the last people to leave.

Back to the wilderness

The rest of my time at Victoria Falls passed in a blur of walking with lions, riding on an elephant, flying over the falls, and bungee jumping off the bridge (yes, I did it). These adventures were punctuated with high tea, dinner parties on the river and hurried breakfasts.

It was almost with a sigh of relief that I climbed into the tiny plane that would take us back to the wilderness.

I had been to the lower Zambezi before, but on the other side of the river, in Zambia's Lower Zambezi National Park. My experience at Mana Pools was similar in some ways, completely different in others.

The first thing that struck me was the number and variety of animals. In our short time there, we had such excellent game sightings that it felt a little surreal. Within minutes of our arrival we were watching two young male lions try to track down an older male lion so that they could pick a fight.

Then there were the elephants. So many elephants. They were everywhere you looked, including the camp itself. At breakfast, we watched as a mother walked right past our table with her young son. Rob went to take a photo and got head-butted by the baby.

On my way back to my room after breakfast, I had to walk past the cheeky young fellow and he actually charged me! I am proud to say I stood my ground for fully three seconds.

Hang on to your heart

Beyond the river and the floodplains and the acacia forests, were the mountains of the Zambezi Escarpment. You can't really see them in Zambia, but they light up the horizon across the Zambezi at Mana Pools and send your heart soaring.

If your heart isn't already halfway to heaven, the clouds of carmine bee-eaters will carry it away with them as they swirl around and above you while you drift down the river in a canoe, or a tiger fish will swallow it when you reel him in thrashing and sparkling and splendid, and swim away with it forever when you throw him back into the river.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I arrived in Zimbabwe. It's a crazy mixed up country, but it's heartbreakingly beautiful when it smiles at you. And Zimbabwe still smiles at travelers.

Experience this for yourself

In Hwange, we stayed at Sikumi Tree Lodge in their romantic tree-house chalets and at Makalolo Plains in luxury tented accommodation. For a real bush experience, you could also try the intimate and isolated tented camp of Little Makalolo.

On Kariba, we boarded the Lady Jacqueline at Binga. If you don't have a fancy cruiser with a kitchen sink to get there with, Binga is just a short charter flight from Vic Falls. One night on a houseboat is not enough, though. Give yourself at least three or four.

At Victoria Falls, we stayed at the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge and Matetsi Water Lodge. Both are great, although Matetsi is very upmarket and is some distance from the town and the Falls.

We caught a charter flight with Sefofane to Ruckomechi Camp in Mana Pools National Park. Here you can do a whole range of bush activities: day and night game drives, walking safaris, canoing safaris, river cruises and fishing. Ruckomechi is also the starting point of the four-day Mana Canoe Trail.

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