Pulling into the Zimbabwe border-crossing at Beitbridge, I realised that I was in for a long wait. It was chaos. In a wasteland of rubble and half-built buildings, there were people everywhere. Cars and trucks lined the side of the road, loaded down with goods of every description. It was more like a municipal rubbish tip than a border control.
This was the first leg of my African adventure. My plan is to travel up through Zimbabwe, briefly transit Mozambique and then cross into Malawi, where I'll spend four weeks with my girlfriend (hooray!). Then I have two choices - either continue with my original plan and go up through Tanzania, Kenya and fly home from Nairobi, or come back to Victoria Falls and pick up an overland tour through Botswana, Namibia and down to Cape Town. I'm leaning more and more towards this southern route, but I'll wait until I get to Malawi before I decide.
The journey up from Johannesburg to the border was relatively comfortable. I was on an air conditioned bus and they played videos (actually they only played one video - twice, and at full volume).
My fellow passengers were all Zimbabweans returning from work or visiting relatives in South Africa. Having got through immigration, we had to haul all our bags off the bus for inspection by customs. The officials are pretty keen to catch locals trying to smuggle in South African goods without paying the duty. I couldn't see any likely looking smugglers amongst our little group but there was a palpable air of nervousness as we waited with our belongings. This was catching and even I began to feel worried. We did seem to have a lot of gear between us. Numerous huge, woven plastic laundry bags full of blankets and second hand clothes sat on the ground.
After about an hour, an official swaggered over, made the most cursory of checks (he completely ignored my bag) and waved us through. We all got back on the bus with big smiles and sighs of relief. I almost felt like clapping as we crossed the border.
14 hours after we'd started out I arrived in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city. I spent a few days there and liked it a lot. I wandered down the big wide streets and stopped for lunch in noisy, greasy-spoon cafes. I visited the local arts and crafts centre and watched the students carving new pieces. There was also a small gallery of established work in an old colonial building which was very interesting. I stayed just south of the centre at a lovely place called the Travellers' Guesthouse. It was empty except for me. In fact, I've seen very few tourists - the current poltical uncertainties seem to be keeping them away. While this is quite refreshing for me, it's a disaster for the local economy.
Leaving Bulawayo, I caught the overnight train to Victoria Falls. I had booked a sleeper compartment which I shared with a pleasant young Zimbabwean called Muny. Muny was very chatty, telling me about his job (he repaired electronic scales), his girlfriend problems (he had two), and his deep longing to buy a motorcycle. Finally, with the night slipping by and a thunderstorm building on the horizon, we clambered up into our narrow bunks and went to sleep.
I remember waking in the early hours to sound of cowbells and children calling to each other. I peeked out the window and in the moonlight I saw we had stopped at a station on the edge of the jungle. Dark shapes were moving along the horizon. The local boys were runinng a taxi service to the nearby town using donkey-carts to whisk their passengers away. I went back to sleep as the train continued its excruciatingly slow progress.
We reached Victoria Falls seven hours late - which wasn't too bad, apparently. Dumping my rucksack at the hostel, I went straight down to the Falls themselves. I have seen literally hundreds of waterfalls on my travels, but this was the mother of them all. It really was incredibly impressive (look at Sam's photos).
The local name for the Falls is 'Mosi-ou-Tunya' - 'the smoke that thunders'. I could see why. The river was at full flood and something like five million cubic metres of water were rushing over the edge every minute. The noise was deafening. Huge plumes of spray billowed up from the gorge and rose high above my head, drenching me on the way back down.
I walked though the rainforest at the top of the gorge to the bridge where mad people were doing bungee jumps. They had an unusual way of getting people back up. A little chap (who must win the award for the job with the best view in the world) was winched down to grab the jumper, and then they were both pulled back up to the bridge.
Tomorrow, I'm going white water rafting on the mighty Zambezi below the Falls. Tune in next week to see if I survive.
