Afrique 23 – ZIMBABWE 1 – BAYBRIDGE TILL MASVINGO

 

Bay Bridge-Masvingo

First difficulty is to get the visa at the border. There is a long queue so Martine starts the queue while I keep the bicycles. But I see that we would have to go at various tellers, so I hide in the panniers all the little things which are on the bikes, and lock them together. Then I join Martine when she is near the first teller. She tells me I have to take my dollars with me to pay the visas. So I go back to my bike and look in the panniers, and of course in the hurry I dont find the notes easily. Well I come back to join Martine, and she tells me we have to fill a form. We have to indicate an adress in Zimbabwe, where we would stay. Martine explains to the teller that as we are cycling we would change everyday and we can’t do plan, but noway. So I look on my phone if I have the adress of a warmshowers cyclist in Zimbabwe, no I don’t have. Fortunately Martine, using the last of her phone credit, find by internet the adress of a big hotel in Harare. We fill a new form with that adress, and that is OK now we can go to the other teller to pay. After a short waiting he attend us. I have to pay 30$ so I give my 20$ notes I get last January in NY airport. The teller refuses them, telling they are too old. Well they are rather new and in perfect state, but the head of Lincoln is small, and he wants notes with a big head. Luckily Martine gets notes with big head, so she can pay for me. Then we go to a third teller who would put the visa stamp on the passeport. She puts just half of the carbon page between the original and the registre book, so she has to do it again by overwriting. Well I get back the passeport with the visa and I go back to the bicycles, while Martine waits for hers. Suddenly she asks my passeport back, the teller forgot some writing. Finally it is done, and after joking a bit with the police at the gate, we enter in Zimbabwe at 1h30.
Baybridge is not really a town. There are a supermarket Spar, 4 gazoline station, 3 big hotels, and a district hidden on left side. We choose the cheapest hotel, which is too near the supermarket, 40$ a room, no way to bargain. We go to the Spar, but as it is Saturday afternoon it is closed, so we take a lunch at the gazoline station in front, a very oily pizza. Then we go back to the hotel.
On sunday 21 of October we awake early, but we wait till 8 am to go to the supermarket. It is closed that Sunday, for inventory, we just waste time. We pack and we move, way to Masvingo, east side of Zimbabwe. The road is undulating, and narrow, without shoulders, with few traffic, but big trucks. Sometime we have to get off the road to let trucks overpass us. Around is the bush, trees 5 to 10 m high, with a canopy of shrubs 2 m high, and with big baobabs upper all trees. As it is the start of the raining season, most of the trees are becoming green and getting new leaves. During the dry season the trees and shrubs loose the leaves and change grey tronks and branches, all the forest looks died and grey, it is saddness. But now the leaves are growing, trunks becomes brown, it is beautiful. Then there not so much to see along the road, signs of farms far inside the bush, and anyway generally dead farms, time to time a short lane of basic shops with very few goods inside, and that is all. We were thinking to camp in a village, but as the name was different that in the map, we misunderstand, and the villagers send us to an other place far away. We ask water to a guard of a national park, and we camp in the bush.
When we awake in the morning we see a group of men coming to us. Martine answers them and I get out of the tent to say Hello. Well they were surprised to see a tent in the bush and were scaring theifs. Reassured, they move away. We go back to the road which looks the same. We stop at Bubbie river truck stop, hotel restaurant shop and gazoline station, with a lot of trucks drivers consumming, and it is not on the map, the lodge after the river is also missing. We start to understand the map is not so good, it would miss most of the villages and shops, and places indicated would have desapeared. Well at least we get km, rivers, and hight levels, and the main places. Mwenezi, which is indicated as a village, is now just a cross, without a house. We lunch in a kitchen in Rutenga, behind the butchery. Rutenga is just a ground place with shops around in basic construction halls, and a few ground streets with basic houses. But folks are very friendly, easy talking, and impressed by our travel. We camp again in the bush, which has lost the baobabs during the day. Noone visits us this time.
Tuesday we continue by a similar countryside at the start. But we see more and more little farms around, with a few fields. The road becomes hilly, with peaks around. They look like half an orange, with steep slopes covered with trees and the top only grey rock. I suppose it is what resists to the erosion, the granit or volcanic rock, and we see only the tops, as most of the mountain is inside the plateau, made itself by the sandy gravel from the erosion. We stop in an other truck stop, witch looks more like a village, with the ground place rounded by shops and restaurants, in basic buildings. The gazoline station, with the luxury hotel and restaurant, is 1 km further. Then we continue between farms land with groves of bush, and between the peaks, by the hilly narrow roads, till a small cahotic town, Ngundu. We take lunch here and buy some food, and we move. there is a big long hill to climb, and near the top it start to rain and quickly a storm comes. We wait in a lay by under the tarp with a black guy. After a while I convince Martine that we should go and ask hospitality to the neigbour houses. So we do. The place looks like a south african farm, with a big house at the top, and poor houses and fields around. We ask to a woman, she drives us to an old man, who drives us to a large house near the big grey house. Here an old but yet strong man receives us. He is the elder of the farm, the chief of the place. First he proposes us to camp near his home, then near the big house, which is unused, and by the way he talks with us. After a while he proposes us a room with beds, and supper and tea. Then we go for a while in the salon, where we chat, and then we go to sleep. In the morning we awake and take a simple breakfast and pack the luggage. But Luc, the chief, invite us for a breakfast. And during we are eating, he tells us we better stay a day more, as it would rain again. Well one day rest is welcome, so we accept. After breackfast we go to visit the caves of his family, and we go back to the salon to chat. His aunt comes and we let him, going back to our room to rest. He brings us lunsh and supper.
In the other morning it is still smogy and a bit raining, but we are decided to move. So after the breackfast in the salon, we prepare the bicycles, and we go to the main road with him. Along the way the old man joins us. So we can say thank you and good bye to the two, and start the cycling. The road continues with a lot of up and down, but the peaks desapear. It continues the alternance of bush and small farms. We start to understand that the signs around indicate old white farms, now abandonned. Also we see big houses of whites in bad state, or demolished to take the material. The people live in huts made with mud and hay roof, or using the basic square houses where the employees of the whites were living. Most of the places don’t have electricity, apart some solar panels, and no tap water, but bore water from a weel, with a hand pump. In the village groups of people are chating together or lying, unworking. Along the road and at crosses and bus stops mens or womens stay all day sitting, selling a few fruits or vegetables or wood. Some tells us that a lot are nurished by Ngos or by the government around here. There is a high unemployement. Most of the farms are just subsisting farms, they don’t product for selling goods. They are family farms nurishing the family. Well we are never harrassed by beggars, and people continues to be very friendly and safe ambiance. There is no village along the way, so we eat in the chicken burger at the cross with the road going to Bulawayo. 20 km before Masvingo we stop at a primary school to sleep. The headmaster attends us very well and proposes us a classroom. We meet the other teachers and look at the children training for the competition of traditionnal dances and songs. At 3 pm the children go back home, and some teachers stay around. We have a quiet end of day.
At 7 am the teachers come in the classrooms, and children start to arrive. We are ready. We say goodbye to everyone, and move to Masvingo, where we arrive at 10. We stop at the tourist office at the entrance of the town, who drives us to a backpacker, or a lodge. The backpacker is a slum, forget it, so we go to the lodge, 50$, noway to bargain. Masvingo is a little town, with townships around. Downtown are supermarkets and shops, and a market, and people selling good in the street, all that rather cahotic and confusing for us unused of it. It is noisy too as it is a cross of 2 main roads with trucks trafic. But it is not desagradable in the end, because of the friendly and gentle people everywhere.