ZIMBABWE AND ZAMBIA

Mickael Preston - 17 years in South Africa - proposes to us  a text about Zimbabwe and Zambia.

I enjoyed two weeks in Harare, still a beautiful city especially when the Jacarandas are in bloom, and relatively safe to walk around. The lack of tension and the smiling courtesy of both black and white Zimbabweans is very noticeable after the tenseness of Johannesburg. Unfortunately the economic situation is grim and this is a grave concern to all sectors of the community.  Under Ian Smith's government, and despite sanctions (which in many ways aided the economy, encouraging self-sufficiency), the Rhodesian Dollar was worth more than the Pound Sterling (£1.45 in 1980) and per capita income was US$950..  Under Mugabe's corrupt and incompetent mismanagement, the Zimbabwe Dollar has been fallen to less than 1% of its 1980 value, at £0.012, and per capita income to US$600. 

Mugabe, held in almost universal disdain, is referred to by many as 'our friend' or 'you know who', a despicable tyrant who holds the country in the grip of such fear that many people will not speak his name without looking over their shoulder.

 The current land crisis over the occupation by Blacks of White owned farms is likely to escalate.  Mugabe's thugs claim that their land was 'stolen' from their forefathers by the British.  It is true that White farmers now own about 70% of the most fertile farmland,  but to say that this is simply because they were given the best land is to ignore the fact that the Whites worked hard to make their land fertile and productive,  also providing employment for Africans.  Meanwhile on the African owned farms,  the farmers,  largely ignorant of crop rotation and irrigation techniques,  waited for the crops to grow as if by magic.  Although it happens to be politically incorrect to state these facts, this statement is no more racist than Mugabe's current behaviour.

As a visitor, none of this is apparent, and you can relax and appreciate the astounding value which the low value of the currency brings. A beer at the Explorer's bar in Meikles Hotel costs 20 ZWD (25p.), for which you are likely to get a bonus - being drawn into an eccentric and rambling conversation with one of the many fascinating characters who frequent this bar and give it a real character of its own. Pigging out at Wombles - probably Southern Africa's best steakhouse - in Borrowdale on a superb 14oz. fillet steak costs 160 ZWD (£2.00). Meat lovers won't find a better deal than this.  Unfortunately accommodation is not such a bargain as multi-level pricing means that visitors from outside Southern Africa have to pay inflated rates in hard currency, another example of Mugabe's killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

 Cecil Square, in front of Meikles Hotel, is now known as African Unity Square - a paradoxical name if ever there was one. Beggars sit around waiting for handouts, whilst traders sell a wide range of attractive curios, mainly wood carvings and soapstone. I had my eye on a large soapstone buffalo which the seller offered me at the 'special' price of 7,000 Zimbabwe dollars (just over £90). A few minutes' good natured bargaining got this down to 3,000, the deal was struck, and I said I'd return later in the afternoon to pick up the buffalo. When I went back and pointed out the beast, I was quoted 15,000 dollars. Why, I queried, had the asking price doubled in just a couple of hours. Even in Zimbabwe, inflation never reached those levels. Alas, the poor man had failed to recognise me, but once reminded that we'd agreed on 3,000 dollars, he was barely able to conceal his embarrassment as he wrapped my animal for me, carried it to the hotel, and refused to accept even a small tip.

From Harare, I flew to Victoria Falls.

Air Zimbabwe is in a lamentable state, a reflection in many ways of the country itself, with aircraft unserviceable (at least they aren't flying them!) due to lack of foreign exchange for maintenance and parts. Flights are cancelled at short or no notice and many of the destinations which Air Rhodesia used to serve so well no longer have air service at all. After a long wait for my flight to Victoria Falls, an elderly 727 chartered from South Africa operated the service. Elderly it may have been but I felt safe knowing it was likely to be properly flown and maintained. The return flight, on an Air Zimbabwe aircraft, is an experience I would not wish to repeat. Across the Zambezi, Zambia's air services are in a worse state, with no national carrier since Zambia Airways went into liquidation a few years ago, and Zambia Express, a private company which was supposed to have filled the gap, meeting the same fate.

I spent a delightfully lazy long weekend on the Zambian side of the magnificent Zambesi River, at River Club, a lodge about 16 miles upstream from Livingstone. This owner-managed colonial style lodge has about 12 guest rondavels, and exceptional meals and service. Guests are treated like guests .... not clients .... waited on hand and foot, with  drinks and individual excursions included. Nothing  detracts from the totality of this African experience, and yet the comfort levels are superb. The split-level rondavels are open on the side facing the river, and I was able to relax in my bath watching and listening to the hippos just a few yards away. Relax is the word - late in the afternoon I fell asleep in the bath and awoke some two hours later. As I wrote in the visitors' book on departure :

"If I had been asked to design my own corner of paradise, I could not have achieved such perfect peace and simple luxury." 

Tearing myself away, I visited Livingstone's interesting but shabby history and railway museums, relics of a former colonial age in which things were somewhat better run.  The railway museum, in particular, merits a few hours enjoying the magnificent steam locomotives and rolling stock. most of which is still in Rhodesia Railways brown and cream livery.  The town itself is dusty and crumbling and boasts little else of note apart from a Fawlty Towers Backpackers' Hotel. 

I borrowed a motor launch, weaving around basking hippos, to go to an island in the Zambezi to watch families of elephants crossing the river, free to wander at will between Zambia and Zimbabwe, at close quarters.  Later in the day I walked from Zambia into Zimbabwe, across Cecil Rhodes' railway bridge which crosses the Zambesi in a single soaring arch, and is the most photographed structure in Africa, designed so that passengers in passing trains could feel the spray of the Falls.  The bridge was officially closed for many years due to the hypocritical stance of the rest of the world against the Rhodesian regime, and it was an odd sensation now to walk freely across it. Admiring the majesty and power of these falls and the forces of nature which have carved out a series of gorges over millions of years is a humbling experience.

 Back to South Africa, and a pleasant week in Johannesburg, where despite perceptions, life goes on as normal, and then to Cape Town. Friends from Switzerland came out to meet us and within an hour of getting off the 'plane had been the victims of an attempted mugging on the Foreshore whilst walking on a signposted route to the Waterfront. Fortunately they scared off the would-be muggers but this first impression coloured (pun intended) their judgement of South Africa and despite the overwhelming beauty of the Western Cape, the friendliness of the people, and the high standards of accommodation and food they enjoyed, they have no wish to return to a country where they feel they have to keep looking over their shoulders.

 The highlight of our trip was the beautiful coastal drive to Hermanus, once a sleepy little seaside village, now unfortunately overdeveloped and swarming with tourists, where we stayed for two days and indulged in some whale watching.

From there I went to Argentina, Colombia and Peru, and I particularly enjoyed the warm and polite Colombian people in their much maligned capital, Bogota. In Peru I was fortunate to have time to visit the lost Inca city of Macchu Picchu, truly one of the wonders of the world, and to appreciate the uncanny accuracy of the building techniques of an ancient civilisation. 

That's another 'postcardhome'.