Reflections and hindsight are both rosy and shaded grey. We are now done our little overland tour and are sitting across the Zambezi River and the mighty Victoria Falls, reflecting on the last few days of the tour.
From the Okavanga Delta, eastwards we travelled to Chobe National Park in Botswana where we once again took in a few game drives, these ones bringing a smile to our faces. We were finally rewarded with a lion sighting, and this one included lion cubs only a few metres from our truck. The early morning start not only yielded lions basking the morning sun, but baboons humping and a herd of buffalo drinking water at the water hole.
Our last few nights outside Chobe National Park were of course spent drinking and taking in a variety of drinking games, that although we might scoff at them, still served to bring our little group closer together. From what we can gather, not all overland tours are created equal, and in fact there is often a lot of squabbling and clashing of egos, ours did not end up this way. Although it has to be admitted by us, that there were a few annoying habits and sayings of the group, in all laughter often filled the air and there were no real blow ups to speak of.
The last night in Botswana was spent beside the river where a hippo grazed about 5 metres from our tent (on the other side of the electric fence, thankfully) and apparently a croc lived in the tree beside our tent, although this cannot be confirmed. The sounds of hippos called from the river and mongoose occasionally raded the campground for food.
We then crossed into Vic Falls, Zimbabwe for probably one of the most interesting 24 hours we have had in Africa to date.
Zimbabwe is in the middle of a political and economical crisis. Inflation is in the hundreds, if not thousands of percents. Long story cut short, the situation is not good and the Zim Dollar has been frozen by the government at 1 USD = 250 Zim Dollars. This means if you take money out of an ATM this is the rate the banks must charge you. The unofficial "blackmarket" rate is about 1USD = 20,000 Zim Dollars, but that changes daily. To buy a tiny pizza it cost us around 90,000 Zim Dollars, if we paid the offical rate, you can just calculate what that would have cost us. All this means that savings have been entirely wiped out and salaries are not keeping up with the inflation.
Victoria Falls is somewhat of an anomily, as the falls keeps tourists visiting, although the amount of people there has dropped dramatically. Outside of the small town, things are very much different with prices constantly fluctuating and doubling, tripling overnight. We have heard stories of 8 hour lines, just to buy tickets for transport.
But still the people we met, were all very friendly. Competition is fierce for souvenirs, but the sellers are all still friendly, even remembering our names the next day when we returned (although this also goes to show how few people are actually in the town and spending money). It is a tough situation, as it can be intimidating in the market, as people meet you blocks away, trying to get you to buy something, anything. They will even trade for the shirt off your back, literally. They wanted our shoes, hats, shirts, backpacks, anything we could give them because buying clothes is just too expensive for them. People ending their trip in Vic Falls went down to the market with armloads of clothes, sleeping bags and mattresses and came out with masks, intricately carved giraffes, spoons and other knick knacks.
As it stands we bought a two foot long mask, carved out of heavy wood for about 7USD, and we could have gotten them lower. And although they sold it to us for so little, they still patted us on the back and had a smile for us. We paid in Zim Dollars, although they all want USD because it is at least stable.
We also visited Vic Falls, which was a crazy experience. Right now the water is at an all time high and the falls are spread out over a kilometer, much like Igauzu Falls. But instead of the beautiful thin rivelets of Igauzu, Victoria Falls is a pumping, seething froth of water flying into a giant gorge. The mist churned up is so thick that you can literally step from sunshine into a downpour of mist. We were drenched in seconds taking in the rainbows caused by the mists. Really was a beautiful experience and worth the 65 USD ea for a visa into Zimbabwe (Canadians have one of the highest visas because of our political stance on the country's situation) and the20 USD ea park entrance. What a rush though.
And for others the rush didn't stop there. You can bungee jump and zip line the gorge, do flights and when the water isn't so high you can white water raft the Zambezi. Right now though rafting is apparently something akin to being suicidal, although we heard a story about when the water was low, and even then it involved a floating body.
Of course there was the last night party which involved eating out at a restaurant. In a group this is never that easy, but in a group, combined with a town that has limited resources can be hard. Some people just couldn't grasp that yes, they are in Africa and in a country with some issues and that why the hell don't they have everything on the menu and why does it taste like crap? Our waiter came out with a list of what they had (something like 7 t-bones, 6 half chickens, some snitzel etc and we had to figure it out for ourselves). As is, they had 3 bottles of wine, all different and only a few bottles of beer. We drank them out of all of that and headed to a local bar for a few drinks and some local nuts. Mingling was enough for people after a while, so they headed off to a gringo bar, where the rest of the night was spent partying with tourists and overlanders, we left them at 2am, while they were still going strong.
Oh - Did we mention we got to pet Cheetahs in Namibia? Wow, they purr like a motorbike, crazy freaky experience, how did we forget to mention that?
You have to love hindsight, and thinking back what a trip it was, cheetahs, seals and lions, desert dunes, gemsbok and tiny spiders, hippos, crocs, beers, tents, corks, long days, wooden masks, dead vleis and so much more that we will remember with time, once we have finally digested the hectic, whirlwind of the last 3 weeks.
So suffice of to say our 24 hours in Zimbabwe including the falls, the market, getting to and from the market, drinking at a local bar and onwards to a tourist haunt. Completely exhausted we packed up the following morning and caught a taxi to the border to Zambia where we are enjoying fending for ourselves in one of the best hostels in the last 8 months, Jolly Boys. Crossing the border was kind of a sad thing, we say we are looking for what Africa really is, and waiting for our transport we sat there talking with a young man, who remembered us from the market the day before. We weren't going to buy anything from him, and even though he probably could be off trying to sell wares and make ends meet elsewhere he sat there telling us about his country, his language and his life. No matter how hard things were for him, he had a smile and we joked freely with him like we had known him all his life. Sometimes when travelling you get your guard up, you have to becareful after all, but it was a reminder that there are great people out there, and of all the places we have travelled so far Zimbabwe has been in the worst of states, but we would have loved to have more time to travel it. We left it with a smile, but with a heart wishing for more.
For now we are just happy to be on our own, back on the road again.
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