Zimbabwe & Victoria Falls

From the very early planning stages of this excursion, one of our dilemmas was if we should visit Victoria Falls. Victoria Falls is one of the wonders of the natural world, and we would be within a few miles of them. However, in order to visit the falls we had to make one of two choices, each with its own set of problems. We could go to Zambia, which was not the prime viewing location and presented some logistics difficulties, or we could travel into troubled Zimbabwe to see the falls from the best location.

The troubles in Zimbabwe stem from a series of bad decisions made by its dictatorial government led by President Robert Mugabe. A few words about the history of Zimbabwe for perspective: The British colony of Rhodesia, which became Zimbabwe was controlled by a minority white elite for the entirety of its existence. Blacks had no political power and were forced to live on the least productive land, while the whites, who made up less than 1% of the population owned over 70% of the most productive land.

This disparity resulted in confrontations between the black and white populations which escalated into a racial civil war in the 1970’s known as the Bush War (no connection with either former U.S. President). The war ended with a British-brokered peace. The country of Rhodesia ceased to exist, and the country of Zimbabwe came into being. Fair elections were held, and the Presidency was won by Robert Mugabe. He has controlled the country since his election.
Governance, which started out as a fair, democratic process, descended slowly into a morass of inefficacy, corruption, and one-party rule.

Land reform efforts started with a relatively fair "willing seller, willing buyer” effort, but in 1992, with the Land Acquisition Act, the government became empowered to buy land from white farmers compulsorily. Due to corruption, most of the land the government acquired ended up in the hands of government officials and their friends. Around 70,000 Zimbabwean blacks have, in fact, been relocated to farms, but lack the infrastructure and knowledge necessary to farm. Only 300 of the original 4500 white commercial farmers remain. Because of the disappearance of viable farms in Zimbabwe, the country has gone from being a net exporter of food, to a country facing starvation. It is estimated that that about two-thirds of the county’s 11.6 million people face severe food shortages. Mugabe has thrown the international media out of the country which has prevented any sort of external examination of the extent of the current famine.

The loss of the agricultural economy, the eroding economy, and the disappearance of tourism due to the country’s instability has resulted in virtual economic collapse of the country. There has been triple digit inflation and numerous currency revaluations in the last ten years. The government has printed trillion dollar bills, and the official exchange rate is 15 million Zimbabwean dollars to the US dollar. For all intents and purposes, the currency is worthless, and U.S. dollars, South African rand, and Botswanan pula are the preferred currencies with merchants and even government offices.

This is the unstable situation we encountered as we entered Zimbabwe. To get to Victoria Falls from Kasane, you drive a half-hour to the Zimbabwe border, go through some border formalities and then drive about another half-hour to reach the town of Victoria Falls. Almost the entire drive, on both sides of the border, is within national parks. I counted more elephants than humans on the drive. Our excursion was in a van and with a driver provided by the Chobe Safari Lodge. There were three other lodge guests in our group, a young guy from California (but originally from Iowa), a woman from Ireland, and her French boyfriend. The American and Irish woman both worked for a software company that was doing work for the government of Botswana in Gaborone. They were taking a break and doing some sightseeing.

Though it was early, the day was already hot by the time we reached the border crossing. All five of us climbed out of the air-conditioned coolness of the van to buy a visa and fill out the necessary forms. The doors and windows to the small station were open for air circulation. The public area was bare of any kind of furniture except for a bench built into the wall. Some yellowing documents posted on a bulletin board announced the visa requirements for various countries. A radio on a windowsill cranked out American pop music. Behind the counter, three young uniformed guards handled the forms and paperwork. Since the Zimbabwean government has given up on its own currency, we purchased our visas with U.S. dollars. As we stood at the counter waiting for our forms to be processed, Beyonce’s song “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” came on the radio. Never one to be shy when there’s good music, Kathy started singing along. By the time the song was into its first chorus, she was moving to the beat. Not necessarily exactly the way Beyonce does it in the video, but Kathy was definitely being rhythmic. I was a little concerned at her irreverence during these solemn border crossing formalities and put a controlling hand on her shoulder. The guards were all grinning. They probably all laughed over beer after work about the crazy American woman and her discomfited husband.

When we arrived at the town of Victoria Falls, we parked in a fenced parking area directly across the street from the entrance to Victoria Falls National Park. All we had to do was pay the park fee at the gate and walk a short distance, and there was the falls. There were a few other tourists at the falls, but not the numbers one would expect at this wonder of the natural world. Tourism in Zimbabwe has dried up due to the unstable conditions. Almost everyone is now seeing the falls from less desirable vantage point but potentially safer Zambia.

The falls themselves are beyond description, but I shall make a lame attempt. We were there while the river was in flood stage so the amount of water going over the falls was phenomenal. A permanent cloud hangs over the falls during the wet season, and as one gets close to the falls one becomes enveloped in a mist which turns into rain, the rain falls from the sky, but also comes from all other possible directions, including up out of the chasm. The vegetation changes as you near the falls and you find yourself in the midst of a lush tropical rain forest. You become very wet. We were covered with rain coats that we bought at the hotel, or we would have been soaked. I had my camera in a plastic bag with the lens protruding through a hole. The sound of the falls is noticeable from a distance and increases in volume to a roar by the time you reach the mist. From our vantage point the mile-wide river was flowing directly towards us and then plummeting into a 300 ft. deep narrow chasm that runs perpendicular to the river. At the bottom of the chasm the churning water follows the deep cut in the earth around a corner beyond the falls and then through a series of boiling swirling gorges. The gorges are where you wash up eventually if you go over the falls. And people do. So do hippos.

Kathy and I walked along the edge of the gorge for the full mile—the width of the falls. At the end of the falls, where the river bends, there is, unbelievably, a bridge. The Victoria Falls Bridge was conceived of by Cecil Rhodes who wanted “the spray of the falls over the train carriages.” It was completed in 1905, and with completion of the bridge and the rail line, Victoria Falls became a tourist destination. The bridge spans 650 feet from end to end and is over 400 ft. above the base of the chasm. Today, due to the age and condition of the bridge there are strict restrictions on both weight and speed of vehicles traversing it. In addition to linking Zambia with Zimbabwe, it also serves as the platform for a bungee jump—a jump that takes the foolhardy 360 feet into the chasm.

After leaving the park we decided that it might be worthwhile, just for fun, to cross over the bridge and get a temporary permit to enter Zambia, just to say we did it. As we left the park and started walking toward the bridge, a throng of roving merchants attached themselves to us. The merchants probably outnumbered the tourists by a significant ratio. As I said, there were hardly any tourists here. Kathy, I, and our throng reached the guard post by the bridge. I was feeling a little too hassled by the merchants, and when I realized that there would be a significant fee to enter Zambia for even a short time, I lost all of my enthusiasm for that venture. So we turned around walked back to the parking lot where our van was parked. As we walked, one particularly persistent seller of carved animals stuck up a conversation with Kathy and tried in every way he knew to convince her she needed to buy a carved giraffe. She finally told him, “Look, I don’t want a carved giraffe. If you had a carved hippo, I might consider it.”

“You want a carved hippo? I can get you a carved hippo.”

“OK, you do that. I’ll be there." She indicated the fenced parking lot where our van was parked.

“They won’t let me in there,” he explained. “You watch for me and when I come, I will sell it to you through the fence.”

He did show up, about twenty minutes later with a hippo. There was some bargaining through the fence, and Kathy became the owner of a very nice carved hippo. By the time the transaction was over, there was a crowd of people outside the fence, all with something to sell.

We had much the same experience when we went to a nearby outdoor market where local artisans were displaying their goods. The five people in our van were the only customers. The shopkeepers, I think, did not want to seem too desperate and drive us away, so they didn’t pursue us down the street as the people by the falls had done, but they practically pounced when we showed any interest in their products. Perhaps we would be the only customers that day. We spent all the money we had. I bought a set of carved soapstone giraffe bookends. Kathy bought a lot of fabric. I also bought a cheap little kalimba. When we had spent all of our money, people asked if we could trade our jackets for their goods. There so little goods or money coming into the country that people are that desperate. After we were back in the van, Kathy and I pooled our last bits of change and Kathy went back to the bookend seller to bargain for a hippo soap dish we had both liked. She explained that this was all the money we had left. She got the soap dish. We both admired our purchases all the way back to Kasane. Then, as we were unloading our purchases in our room, the hippo soap dish fell from the bag and broke into pieces on the floor. (Fortunately, when Madeline made a trip to Victoria Falls later, we told her where to find the seller of hippo soap dishes and she purchased one for us!)

On the way out of Zimbabwe, we stopped at a park containing a baobab tree under which Livingston used to sleep. It was in a wooded area, with nothing nearby but the road. Crazily, as soon as the van stopped a group of people materialized out of the woods wanting to sell or exchange goods. Our only other stop was at the border, where we once again had to fill out the requisite forms, and, interestingly enough, to walk single file through a trough of disinfectant, while the van drove through a larger trough of disinfectant, as a control for hoof and mouth disease. Then it was back to the Chobe Lodge for another night.