2007
03 21 (Wed) Cross the Border to
Watched
CNN news in the morning. Zimbabwe
is still in chaotic situation.
President Robert Mugabe said he would expel all the foreign diplomatic
persons who had supported the opposition party. About two weeks ago, the leader of the
opposition party got beaten
up by the police
during a demonstration in the street.
The police had broken his jaw.
Took
the hostel’s 10:00 free shuttle to the border. It was only 15 minutes ride. Going through the immigration was
smooth. Visa free for HKSAR
passport (save
US$30). When passing by the Victoria Fall
Bridge, some people were doing bungee jump on the bridge. Victoria Falls not only is the name of
the Falls but also the name of the border town in Zimbabwe. Check in at
In
the year 2000, President of the Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe started to expel the
Whites, confiscating the land and caused some Western countries to put
sanctions to this country. In 2006, these sanctions started to
ferment causing the Economic Crisis. Zimbabwean Dollar began to depreciate. They said in around October, 2006, the
shops were empty with no goods on the shelves. There was even price difference
between
morning and afternoon. I
never planned to come to
Went to Victoria Falls aquarium after lunch. The entrance fee showed either US$5 or
Z$10,000. Of course I paid by
Zimbabwean Dollar. It’s 5 times
difference. According to leaflet,
there are more than 144 different fish in this aquarium. The most interesting one was the
electric catfish. However, I looked
around and couldn’t find it. Later
I was told by the staff that the fish was dead already. I asked why not catch another one. The man said this kind of catfish was
very difficult to catch. It could
give out 400V of electricity. It
might not kill you instantly, but no one wanted to get close to it.
Joined the Lion Walk tour in the evening. The fee was US$100. Due to the decrease of lion numbers,
there is a company named Lion Encounter trying to breed artificially to
increase the number of lions. And
once the lions have grown up, these lions will be released back to the
nature. When the lions are 7 to 16
months old, and they do not know how to hunt yet, they can let the people to
play around and take phones. The
income for the visit will be used to support this program. Till now, the program has been running
for more than 10 years. Currently,
they have got 89 lions, but so far none of them has ever been released to the
nature yet. For this trip, there
are two male lions. They are 10
months old, still very naughty and love to play. We can walk together within the park and
take photos in a close range. Along
the way, we have the rangers accompany with us. Although they said there were not even
one accident happened, I still quite worried during the trip. This is because the lions are quite big
and animals are animals. You never
know when they are going to bit you.
2007
03 22 (Thu) To Bulawayo
Went
to Victoria Falls National Park very early in the morning. The entrance ticket
is more expensive than the Zambia (US$20), because this side could see more of
the Falls. Entering the park, there
is an exhibition room but most of exhibits are torn with a lot of graffiti on
the wall. There are so many
tourists everyday and why don’t they clean it and fix it? Maybe the country is running out of
money. The most magnificent view of
the Falls is the Devil’s Contaract.
Others are also spectacular.
However, the viewing location was too close to the Falls and the water
flow was huge. It caused quite
misty and very difficult to take photos.
I wore the raincoat, but got wet.
After
touring the park, I went to the bus station at around 10:15. It wasn’t a bus station. In fact, there was just a mini van
stopping at the road side. Right
after I got on the van, the van took off, departing to Bulawayo, the second
largest city in Zimbabwe. I thought
I was quite lucky, but it was too early to say that. On the way, some passengers got off
after a while. After we had passed
a small town, there were only 6 passengers (including me) left in the van. Out of no expectation, the driver
stopped at the road side and said to us that he was not going anymore. He gave us back about 3/4 of the ticket
price and we were left in the middle of no where. We waited and waited. Not even a car passed by. About 20 minutes later, there was a
truck coming. One of the passengers
waved and stopped the truck. The
truck driver allowed us to get in but we had to pay some money. It was not a problem as we didn’t know
how long we had to wait. There was
almost no sight of car or even a shop for food and drinks. The truck was the normal container truck
with two seats and one tiny sleeping bed behind. We altogether 13 people, including the
truck driver were all cramped in this tiny little room. It was so hot and tight inside, and we
almost couldn’t breathe at all. The
truck was driving very slowly. The
journey was supposed to be 5 hours, but it took us 9 hours to get to
Bulawayo. At around 20:00, the
driver dropped us off at the suburb of Bulawayo and I had to find a shared taxi
to get into town. It was quite
scary because it was all dark with no street lights and I had to take a shared
taxi with a few black guys that already inside the car. Fortunately, nothing happened. Checked in at Berkeley Place. Nearby there was a BP Express. A 750ml mineral water cost Z$10,000, a
pack of biscuit cost Z$12,000. This
morning, the mineral water cost only Z$4,300 and the biscuit only Z$5,400 (same
brand). The price here was almost
double. The 340ml Coca-Cola sold
inside the Berkeley Place was quite reasonable, only Z$2,000. I bought two bottles and drank it all in
seconds.
2007 03 23 (Fri) Bulawayo
Went to Natural History Museum in the morning. Foreigners have to pay US$10 for the
entrance fee. It was the best
natural history museum I have seen in Africa. The stuff animals are very well made and
look vey real. They also created
the field environments so the animals are like display in the wild. Besides, there were also Earth Science
exhibition on minerals and paleontology.
Among the minerals shown, the most interesting to me was the radioactive
and rare earth minerals which I seldom seen before. In addition, the lightings were good and
the exhibitions were well documented.
It was very difficult to image an economic collapsed country could make
such a very nice museum like this.
These could have done during the Rhodesia era. The good thing is the museum is still
well-maintained after Mugabe administration took over.
After visiting the museum, I was thinking to go to Masvingo. On my way to the hostel, I passed by
Bulawayo Theatre. It said
that Shakespeare’s play “12 Nights” will be performed this afternoon. The ticket was cheap, only Z$2,000. The play will be performed by a group of
high school students. I thought it
should be interesting to see it, so I decided to stay in this town for one more
day. Back to the hostel, I was so
thirsty and tried to buy the Coca-Cola but the price had already went up to
Z$5,000 per bottle. It was only one
day and the price went up double.
What was happening here? The
owner told me that he tried to order some Coca-Cola from the vender and the
price had gone up so he had to increase the price. I asked to change some money. It was US$1.0 to Z$15,000.0. Just two days, the exchange rated has
gone up 25%.
At noon, I went to the National Gallery. It was located at a very beautiful
colonial building, Douslin House.
Entering the gallery, I saws paintings of Picasso, Monet, Paul Klee,
Chagall, etc. Wow! I couldn’t believe my eyes. But when l looked closer, they were all
reproductions. None of them was
genuine. There were some paintings
and sculptures done by the local artists.
At the back of the gallery, there were some workshops for the local
artists.
In the afternoon, I went to see the play “12 Nights”. Almost the whole audiences were
students, hardly seen any adults, only one or two teachers. I think I was the only outsider
audience. The show was very well
performed. Besides, you can see
that the students had spent a lot of efforts on the costumes. Among these students, there were a lot
of white students too. Some of the
black students had very strong accent, and it didn’t sound like speaking
English. It was quite interesting.
In the evening, I went to the city center and took a walk. Bulawayo is in fact a very beautiful city. It hasn’t got a lot of high-rise buildings, but it has a lot of old beautiful architectures. It also got some newly decorated shopping arcades. You wouldn’t feel like there is economic crisis in this country. The shelves have got plenty of goods and people just like living in a normal life. On the street, no one asked me to buy anything or money exchange. It is quite different from other African cities.
2007
03 24 (Sat) To Great Zimbabwe National Monument
Went
to BP Express before 07:00 and waited for the bus there to Masvingo. About an hour later, there came a bus
from Zupco Bus Company. The bus was
mostly full but I still got a seat.
How lucky I was? Again, it
was too early to say that. About
half an hour ride, the bus broke down and we all had to get off the bus. We waited at the road side for more than
one hour and finally another bus came.
But this time I had no seat to sit.
Arrived Masvingo at about 13:00.
A 3-hour journey took me 5 hours.
It is normal in Africa. Time
is not money. Change bus at
Masvingo to Great Zimbabwe National Monument. However, the minibus didn’t go all the
way to the entrance. It stopped at
about 2 kilometers away from where I wanted to go. I had to carry my 25-kg backpack walked
under the sun at 33oC.
It was no fun at all.
Arrived at Great Zimbabwe, and checked in at the Great Zimbabwe
Campground. The entrance ticket and
accommodation had increased tremendously since October, 2006. About two years ago, the entrance ticket
was only US$5 and a dormitory bed was only US$1.5. And now the entrance ticket is US$15 and
a dormitory bed is US$15. It is a
rip-off according to the Zimbabwe living standard nowadays. It could be due to the economic
situation, nobody came to visit this place. There was only me who stay at the
dormitory. At night, only the
symphony of the bugs could be heard.
Besides, the power was off for more than an hour between 20:00 and
21:00.
Great
Zimbabwe National Monument is a historic relic. From 13th to 17th
century, there was a tribe living here.
According to the anthropological study, they should belong to the
ancestor of Shona. During the
heydays, there were about 25,000 people living here. Around this area, they not only built
the hut, but also built a lot of stone walls. These people built their granitic stone
walls without using cement mortar.
Instead, they used mosaic stacking to build. They were not only good at farming, but
also good at metal work. Iron and
gold metal works had been dug out.
Among these things, some even came from Arabic, China and India, which
proofs these people had gone to the East Coast of Africa and traded with the
Arabians and Asians. The site is
the largest ancient architectural group south of the Great Pyramid. The site had become the National
Monument since 1935. In 1985, it
was named as the UNESCO site.
2007
03 25 (Sun) to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe
Took
off in dawn and hiked up the mountains.
There were some relics of the walls in the mountains. Some area looks like a castle. Others just walls after walls. The Zimbabweans are very proud of this
site, so they named it Great Zimbabwe Monument. Not only the scale is large but also it
is well preserved. In addition,
there are not that many places with ancient culture in Africa. And this is one of the most important
ones. Although people in this area
knew how to make iron tools, these granite stone walls were not cut or chisel
out by iron tools. They were
instead used fire to burn and then use water to give rapid cooling. The rapid heating and cooling cut the
granite into the block size as they wanted. There is also a museum at the site. However, inside the museum, they did not
mention why these people wanted to build these stone walls. Besides, the people here only built
these stone walls, but they used wood and grass leaves for their houses. Quite a mystery.
Leaving
Great Zimbabwe Monument, I decided to go to the capital, Harare to take a
look. After staying in Zimbabwe for
a few days, it didn’t seem too chaotic and dangerous. In addition, the thing that worried me
the most was the shortage of gasoline, which might stuck me in the middle of
nowhere. But it didn’t happen. Besides, nobody queued at the bank for
cash and nobody queued at the grocery shops for food. So I guess the situation wasn’t that
bad. I took a minibus to Masvingo
and then changed to a big bus to Harare.
Waiting at the bus station took a lot of time. The bus ride took 4.5 hours to the
capital, Harare. The Harare bus
station was in the suburb. I had to
change a minibus to the city and then walked to find a hotel. There are lots of high rise buildings
and the roads are wide. It is more
well-developed than the capital of Tanzania. Checking in at Fife Avenue Hotel. Later, I found someone to change some
money. It’s US$1.0 =
Z$19.000.0. The guy said it was
US$1.0 = Z$21,000.0 two days ago.
It was quite scary. Later, I
realized it wasn’t mainly due to the depreciation of the currency, it could be
the demand for US Dollars. As
Harare is a commercial center, the demand for US Dollars is higher than other
small towns, which caused a higher exchange rate. In addition, the cost of living in
Harare is higher than other Zimbabwean cities.
2007
03 26 (Mon) Touring Harare
Harare
is situated at the attitude of 1,400m above sea level. It was quite chilly cool in the early
morning. I went to the train
station, hopefully to get a sleeping coach back to Bulawayo tonight. However, all the sleeping coach had sold
out. The queue was long and I
didn’t want to queue. So I decided
to go back to Bulawayo by minibus.
It was the rush hour time, lots of people on the street rushing to
work. But I saw very few white
faces. Were the whites all expelled
by President Robert Mugabe?
After
checking out the hotel, I went to the National Gallery. Unfortunately they are closed for Monday. Then I went to Zimbabwe Museum of Human
Sciences. This is another very good
museum. There are exhibitions on
paleontology, biology, the origins of human life, and the tribes of
Zimbabwe. Among these, there is an
exhibition on Stromatolite fossil.
I remember I saw once in Norway back to July, 2002. I never expect to see something like
this in African country. This is a
kind of algae with about 3 billion history. It belongs to Cambrian geologic time
where only algae and plants were found on earth. A question popped up during the
visit. The origin of human being
was from Africa had been confirmed by the scientists. However, it seems like they were very
slow in evolution in Africa. Those
who had migrated to Europe and Asia had gone much faster evolution. For instance, the African here knew how
to make pottery in 300AD and iron tools in 1,250AD. It’s thousands of years later than the
people in Europe and Asia.
Around noon, I took the minibus back to Bulawayo. The bus ride would take about 6 hours to
get to Bulawayo. This trip was the
most comfortable minibus ride in Africa.
The minibus was still compact inside. However, I got a nice seat which had a
lot of room space. I could also
borrow some newspaper from my neighbor.
The news said someone threw a petro-bomb into a running train that went
from Harare to Bulawayo on the 24th and burnt some of the passengers. On the 25th, someone threw a petro-bomb
into a super-market. If the economy
situation turns into violent, that would be the worst chaotic for Zimbabwean.
2007
03 27 (Tue) Cross the border to Gaborone, Botswana
In
early morning, I was planning to take a taxi to Nkulumane Complex where I could
take a minibus to the border. But
the taxi driver asked for Z$100,000.
I said to him yesterday I came from Harare to Bulawayo only cost me
Z$100,000. It’s just too
expensive. The taxi driver said the
petro had gone up every day. In
order to save some money, I walked for about 3 km with my 25-kg backpack where
I could find a minibus. In fact, it
wasn’t that I couldn’t afford a taxi.
It’s because I didn’t have much Zimbabwean dollars left and I didn’t
want to change anymore. Changing
money is risky here. The fare for
the minibus only cost me Z$5,000 to get to Nkulumane Complex.
Took a minibus from Nkulumane Complex to Plumtree. Plumtree is the border town of Zimbabwe
and it took me one hour to get there. Exit Zimbabwe and entering Botswana is
easy. Hong Kong SAR passport is
granted visa free. However, the
immigration officer needed to check my credit card as he suspect I bought too
little cash. This was the first
time that an immigration officer check my credit card. When going through the customs, they not
only checked my luggage, but also had to walk through a sterilized carpet
without shoes. They said all these
was to prevent foot and mouth disease.
After crossing the border, I saw a few minibus carrying a huge oil
tanks. I guess they could make more
money by carrying petro fuel instead of carrying passengers. There were some women carrying petro
fuel barrels on their head and I think these are the oil smugglers. It might be the reason that a lot of the
transportations were used to transport oil and fuel, we had to wait for a long
time for the bus to Francistown.
After taking off, within less than 10 minutes ride, two soldiers with
M-16 automatic rifles stopped our bus.
We all needed to get off the bus and had our ID checked. After the ID check, they searched
through all our luggages. All these
were done on the road side. It took
more than half an hour to get all luggages searched and nothing was found. It appeared to me that they didn’t have
a clue of what they were searching for.
Arrived Francistown bus terminal at 13:25. I checked around and there was a bus leaving
at 13:30. I asked the ticket
price. It’s 51 Pula (Botswana
currency, literally means water, US$1.0 = 6.29 Pula). I changed some cash at the border this
morning, but only got 50 Pula left.
So I ran into a shopping mall across the bus terminal and got some money
at the ATM. After that, I
immediately bought a lunch box and jumped on the bus. The bus left the terminal on time. If I missed this bus, I might have to
stay till tomorrow. Since I entered
Africa, I hadn’t had a bus that ran according to schedule since Morocco. It was like back to civilization
again. In less than 6 hours, the
bus arrived the capital, Gaborone. On the way, we passed the Tropic of
Capricorn. It was already dark when
I got off the bus. I immediately
jumped on a taxi to Brakendene Lodge.
The accommodation in Botswana is expensive. A very cheap accommodation cost
US$40. This is very expensive for
backpacker travel. That’s why very
little backpackers coming to Botswana.
In the northern area of Okavango delta located at the border between
Namibia and Botswana, there is a popular sight-seeing place where you can
kayaking in the swamp area, watching the wild animals. A single room cost US$240 about two
years ago. It seems like that place
is definitely not for backpackers.
In addition, Gaborone is one of the most expensive capitals in
Africa. I will leave here as soon
as I can; won’t stay long.