Afrique 26 – ZIMBABWE 4 – BULAWAYO TILL VICTORIA FALLS

 Bulawayo to Victoria Falls

Till Guay river the road is nearly flat, slightly undulating, by the bush. On left are protected forests, generally with high trees, sometime with shrubs. But it is yet very dry and most of the trees are grey and without leaves, sadly. On right it is mostly new small bush, abandonned farms and fields, and scared little groups of cases with surviving farms or basic shops, sad too. We get off Bulawayo rather early. At the start we cross fields and farms and some hills, but quickly it becomes flat and new small dry bush, boring. We stop in a lane of shops for lunch. There are houses only each 25 km about, so we have to take care where to sleep. At about 4 pm we see a sign primary school, and we stop. What we see is a farm, with a half ruin big white style house, a case with some blacks, and a new building square style, with large windows, which looks unuse. We try to explain who we are and the autorisation to camp to the young black who comes at the gate, but he does’nt inderstand english. After a minute of dispair, I try to explain by mimiking, sleep, indicating the square building, and us two. He understands, and drives us till the building, the lapa, opens the door, and shows us a room where to sleep. They are restoring the building. As there is noway to comunicate, we are quickly alone.
In the early morning we move by the same flat road threw the bush. As we enter in national forest the trees are high, but there are less houses. We eat in Kenmaur, which is a few shops, a truck stops and a village. After, the village continues by inside along the old road, and by the new road, it is only high forest till Lupane. Just before Lupane we see a big house on left, where we go to ask hospitality. But the house is in works, and unhabited. Fortunately the owner is here, an old man. He explains us that the governement bought his farm to do an university neighbour, and it gives him that house and land in compensation. He proposes us to camp in the university, and talks with the 2 chineses technicians who are here, and also they are the managers of the building of the university. It seems the chinese agrees, and so we go 1 km further at the university. Here the carekeeper at the gate stops us and goes to call a chinese manager. Hee does’nt speak a word of english, and a black try to explain him who we are and what we want by signs and basic english talking. It would be comical if this guy was’nt in charge of building a big university. Well he phones to his collegues, and in the end he proposes us to sleep near the gate. As I refuse, too risky, the black translator proposes us to ask to the boss of the trucks and engine trucks camp, who is inside the university courtyard, just 100 m away. I go and ask, and that is ok. Better he proposes us a tent with 2 beds, the guest tent. So we rest, and by 7 pm he invites us under his tent. We drink beers or juice or brandy, and chat. 2 associates join us. We eat a piece of meat. I go to bed after a while, and Martine stays late, speaking about the history of Zimbabwe.
We awake early and while we eat a basic breacckfast, the boss proposes us a lift till Gway river, he has a truck which is going there in the morning. After a slow ride, avoiding 75 km of boring road, we arrive in Gway river. It is a big village, with all the services, but as always it is looking like a group of basic houses and shops and dust and cahos. We continue and the heat is terrible. After 35 km of very hilly road by the forest, we stop in Crossroad , a few shops and cases, and go to the primary school. The headmaster agree to lodge us, and first he proposes we camp. But I insist, pretexting the rain coming, and we sleep in a classroom. In fact it is because he find it dirty that he didn’t offer it first.
We start early, and already it is hot. The road is hilly by the forest, with a very few fields and cases. We meet a cyclist who comes from Namibia. In fact he startedd 8 months ago in South Africa. He turns to Namibia, which he cycle from South to North, and from West to Est till Chobe park near Kasane. He stops 3 months in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, to make an art work with the art school university, decorating 3 rooms and meeting artists. He has a project along his journey in Africa, http://www.the-nala-project.com, mixing art and the music of the group Sade. Then we stop for lunch in Hwange, which is a mining city. The city was built by the whites, as a garden city for us, and poor townships for the employees, blacks. So the main street keeps his beautiful aspect. First the town isn’t along the main road, but by a little apart by a back road with a gate. Then along the street are all the official buildings, in stones or bricks, welldone and with some architecture. trees are planted in the middle, and on each side of the street. When we arrive at the shops, there is a place with a garden, well nowdays it is mostly a parking. Presently there no whites anymore, only blacks, but yet everything is well maintained, it is the first time I see a nice little town since Swaziland. Bulawayo gets too a lot of greens and trees, but the center is not maintained. The heat is terrible and I feel seek, problems in my stomac. So we get out the town by 2 pm, we cross a trail with lot of black dust, coal mines, and 5 km after Hwange we stop on right in the first suburb, which looks to have a primary school. We fortunatly find it, and a teacher, after talking with us under trees for a while, auutorize us to sleep in a classroom. I notice all the children eat green mangoes which grow on a lot of trees. They eat them mow, without waiting they turn yellow and sweet. I suppose they miss a lot vitamins in the traditional alimentation, and fruits and vegetables are scare and too expensive to be in the diet. So they eat all what they can, and quickly, as if they wait till they become sweet, someone else would have eat them. Good food and complete meals are luxury here.
We awake early and move in the heat. We continue by the hilly road, with very long up and down. We see very poor farms, exactly the traditional old way of living, with the case on legs to keep the seeds, and a small group of cases around. All around are high hills with forest and small bush. We see a very few lanes of shops. We stop in front the airport in one lane of shops for lunch. Martine asks and discovers a primary school very neighbour, where we ask for hospitality. The headmaster receives us and we talk for a while seated under the mangoes. She explains that a few years before the children had to go to school walking 10 km away, so they started school at 9 years old and they arrived at the school tired and hungry. So she decide to build the primary school where we are. She asks help and money at the hotels and tourists around. They start with tents, then cases in mud, and now they have 3 building, one for the primary, one for the college, and one for lodging the pupils who live far and stay all week at school. Yet it miss half of the classrooms, so half of the day studing is outside, in the courtyard. Also 80% of the pupils dont have money enough to pay the school, 60$ by year, but they can come and study anyway. The headmaster continues to ask help to tourists and hotels and anyone. After a long chat, the rain comes and we stay in a classroom. We take a shower in a bucket, like every day.
In the morning, before the class, when most of the children are already here, I play some songs with the mandolin, and Martine play some flute. Then we move to Vicyoria falls. We eat a take away at the supermarket and do some shopping, and we go to the home of Fred and Alfreda, the parents of David family, who lodged us in Bulawayo. We stay four days here. Fred and Alfreda make all that we feel very comfortavble and welcome. Victoria falls is just a tourist town, with tourist shops and lodges and restaurants, internet and 2 supermarkets. We go to see the falls, which are very impressive, all a lane of 1 km about of water falls in a canyon 100 m deep. In fact the Zambeze river, very large, falld suddenly in a crack made when the lave dried, crack which is 100m deep and 60 km long, and looks like a knife cut in the land. Fred drives us mornings and afternoons at view points, excursions near the falls, safari tours. And Martine has very long chats with them. Me it was hard to understand and follow the talks, so I dismiss after a while. One afternoon we go to relax along the Zambeze river in a wild part. Martine hears some cracks and sees an elephant. She runs behind to see him better and snaps some fotos. I follow her with a careful distance. Suddenly the elefant turns, faces her, opens his ears and trumpets twice. we run away. And the elefant continues his walk away. The fence of concrete of the houses in the district of Fred home, district which is in the neiboiring of the town, close to the bush, are all with demolished parts, made by elefants crossing them to visit the gardens and courtyards.

Afrique 25 – ZIMBABWE 3 – MASVINGO TILL BULAWAYO

 Masvingo to Bulawayo

We get out of Masvingo a bit late, as we have to decide if we go to Mutare or to Victoria Falls. In the end because of the rain storms, which would change our plans because the mountain gravel roads in impraticable mud, because of the heat that Martine has difficulties to stand, and because of the dust from gravel and because of the steep climbs, which would be hard, so we decide to avoid the risks of not to be able to see the forest, and so we decide to go to Bulawayo. Well as we have storms each day then it was the good choice. The road is barely undulating through bush with a few small farms. The main difference is the bush, which is constitued by small trees, and very dense. I understanf that it is a new forest. Before the land were big farms with fields and crops, but now noone use it anymore, and the bush comes again. The little farms and villages and lanes of shops looks also more basic constructions, and I see farmers using animals to work the land, instead of machines. When we ask for water there is no more tap water, the water comes from a weel, bore water, and mostly the pump is manual. In the end the people are certainly poorer here. It would be the same till Balawayo. At the end of the day we take a trail to camp in the bush. During the night first we see lot of lithening, but it does’nt rain. Then I hear the laught of hyenas, so after I have some difficulties to fall asleep again, I spend a while looking for ways to react if the hyenas attack the tent. In the morning a young man comes and talk with us, and when we unpitch the tent he shows us a scorpion hidden under. Martine has long talk with him about religion, me I am always avoiding that subject, too conflict bringer.
Next day the countryside follows similar, basic small farms and mostly new bush. By midday we cross Shavane and we enter in the gold mines region. It becomes hilly and we have 4 long climbs after the town. We see some people along the road with a metal detector. All is fenced so we don’t see where to sleep. I prefer ask hospitality to people. After the river, we see a cyclist entering in a trail on left. We decide to follow him and we arrive near a building, and a tanker for water, where someone is collecting it. We stop, and the manager comes to us, explains it is a mine, and agrees we camp here. By the end of the afternoon people comes to collect water. By the night we have a storm.
There is the big gold mine company, Mimosa, little companies with a few employees, and people working alone or by two, wandering in the bush or in the river bed with a metal detector, and digging big holes when they detect some metal.
We move early, but we get stick by the mud in the trail. When it is a short part, so we hardly push the bikes, I give a hand to Martine, and then we have to clean the bicycles. Well the same countryside continues, and it becomes mostly flat again. By the end of the day some hills come and we don’t see any place to camp, dense small bush everywhere. We try a trail but it is going nowhere. We stop to speak with a minibus which is stop along the road. We take a foto of all, and then we turn in a trail. We arrive at some huts and we ask permission to camp. The man drives us back to the road and the minibus is still here. The man speaks with the driver, and the driver proposes us to sleep in a shop he has neighbour, which is unfinished yet. We have just to cross the river, the farmer comes with us, and the minibus arrives 5 mn later. The shop is perfect, and someone sweeps the floor in a small room for us. We prepar our night, and then we go to chat a little with local people and cook. It rains all night. We awake early, but I notice I have a flat in the front wheel. I find a big thorn in the tyre. Then I find an other one inside the tyre and a third one in the tube. I did find too a fourth hole in the tube. Patching all four takes me one hour and half. Then we can move.
The country side follows the same, a bit boring. Well at least there are few traffic and no trucks. After a while we arrive at the cross with the road Beitbridge to Bulawayo and Victoria Falls. We nearly miss the town, as it is just a few shops and houses, no city. The gasoline station is closed. There no more traffic along the main road, no change, but it becomes hilly again. We stop a little further in a big village and large place with shops and restaurants, which is not on the map, and we get lunch. When we decide to move, the sky is becoming very cloudy and black. After a long climb we see a primary school where we ask hospitality. It is just on time, and we have a long talk with the headmaster while the storm runs, with strong wind and very heavy rain. After one hour or so, the rain stops and the headmaster drives us to a small cottage, without furniture and unmaintened, where we have a good sleep. It rains during the night.
New day on the road, same country side and hills. There is a very long climbing, and we stop at the top for a while to eat. The sky is cloudy amd dark. Martine gets some rain during the climb. We are speaking, when suddenly a car stops, and the driver, a white man, asks us the usual questions. And by the way he invites us in his family home in Bulawayo. He tells us we have only 15 km to do, but in fact we have 40 km, which is not surprising us in fact. The storm is menacing, we get headwind and hills, but we don’t get rain. We arrive in Bulawayo for midday so we go first shopping and lunch a good pizza in the first mall we meet. It rains during the lunch. Then we go to the house, which is in a good district with big houses and large gardens. We are very welcome by his wife, Heda, and the 2 children and the 3 dogs. Justin, the boy, lets us his room. We get wifi and dinner and real coffe. Generaly since I am in Africa I just get chicoree with coffe, real coffe is too expensive for Africans. We stay in David home 2 nights, but we are very tired, so we don’t go anywhere, we just stay at home. There is again a big storm during the day, and rain by the night. The electricity get cut all day, but the family have a petrol generator, as light cuts are commun and long.
We decide to stay one night more in Bulawayo, but in a hotel. We go neighbour, and we get a very nice room for 30$ instead of 50 in a family lodge. By the morning we go shopping, we visit Bulawayo downtown. There are a few antic buildings from the white time, rather nice, and then all the shops and supermarkets, cars and trucks, it is very busy and noisy. After one hour I have enough and we move back to the mall where we made our first shopping, at the entrance of the town. I notice Bulawayo gets a large beautiful park, and lot of sport grounds and green, it may be a nice town to live. We use internet 2 hours, and then we go back to lunch at the lodge. As it is Martine birthday, we get wine and a cake. Then Martine sleeps all afternoon, and I read. It rains again during the afternoon and the night.

Afrique 24 – ZIMBABWE 2 – GREAT ZIMBABWE CASTLE

 Next day we stay at the same lodge, and we take a minibus to visit the great Zimbabwe Castle and town. They are ruins, the castle is yet in good state, of a capital of a large african empire, Mozambique Zimbabwe and Zambia together, which follow for 400 years, till the Europeans conquier Africa by guns and threats. The castle and the site are very impressive, worth a visit. We spend the end of the afternoon shopping and in the hotel. In the hotel we can use the hand laundry place and the kitchen.and wifi, confortable.

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.