ZOQY

This is a travelogue written by my wife and it was on an old website of mine but that website is now defunked, so being eco-friendly I’ve decided to recycle it here.

HARARE
To get to Zimbabwe, during our African travels, we took a bus from Malawi via Mozambique to Harare. Originally we had intended to get a bus from Malawi back to Tete in Mozambique. But after speaking to some other travellers, and looking at the bus routes and times, we went to Zimbabwe instead. Having not planned to go to Zimbabwe it turned out to be a very pleasant change to our trip. We were some of the first people on board the bus, when some other English people came on. One guy asked us to save some seats for his friends, which we did. By the time the bus was ready to depart it was full, and there were about ten of us English sitting near the back. The journey was enjoyable enough, at least we had seats and it stopped regularly for us to stretch our legs. Every time we stopped, the bus was surrounded by people selling various goodies, all of which were balanced on top of their heads in baskets. There was so much choice, everything from boiled eggs (a favourite all over Africa ~ the ultimate fast food), to boiled sweets, oranges and even hair care products! As we were all seated, and it was a fairly comfortable bus considering the age and state of it, we managed to get lots of sleep. There were a couple of unexpected stops when the bus suffered a tyre blow out, thankfully the road surface was so rough and uneven, the driver had been driving quite slow and he managed to control the vehicle. The bus actually suffered two tyre problems, the second one kept us waiting at the side of the road for about an hour, adding more time to an already long journey. The journey should have taken about 8 hours but it actually took 12 hours! Thankfully the second tyre blow out occurred fairly near to a shop, so we could get drinks and snacks. There was one more bit of excitement on this bus journey, when we were all woken rather abruptly because one of the large windows, a couple of seats in front of us, blew out and smacked onto the road behind us, this caused much laughter from all of us English. It was now so lovely and cool, needless to say their was no air conditioning on board. As the daylight faded and night drew nearer, we began to realise that the missing window was not such a good thing. It got very cold very quickly. We were all shivering, and rummaging through our bags to find anything to wrap around us. The last part of the journey seemed to take forever, it was so cold, and we just wanted to get off and get to our accommodation for a hot shower, some food and bed. The other English people already knew where they were staying and invited us to go too, as it would be cheaper if we all shared the ride in a couple of taxi’s. We arrived at our accommodation and we were pleasantly surprised, it was modern, clean, friendly, and the bar was open! It was a backpackers lodge called Possum Lodge. The other English people, mainly young students (we felt very old!), took shared rooms in the main house, but Richard and I wanted a bit more privacy so we were shown one of the ‘couples rooms’ in the garden. They called it a ‘couples room’ but it was actually, in fact … a shed! We were happy though as we would be alone or so we thought, during the night we had the pleasure of some company … mice! After dumping our bags in our ‘room’ we headed to the bar for a drink. We were all a bit hungry and someone from the lodge offered to drive us to the town centre, where we were told we could get a take away. Excellent. Several of us jumped into the back of a pick up truck, and off we went. Possum Lodge was in an excellent location only a short walk from the centre, but as we were offered a lift it would be rude to refuse! Also not necessarily a good idea to walk around at night apparently. Once in town, pizza seemed like the best option, we took the food back to the bar and scoffed it down before going to bed. As we were sleeping in a shed, we were seriously cold all night, so we didn’t get too much sleep, oh well, you live and learn. Bright and early the next morning we caught a train to Bulawayo.
BULAWAYO
We stayed at Shaka’s Spear backpackers lodge in Bulawayo. Our room was very large, but unfortunately for us we did not have a private bathroom, it wasn’t too much of a hardship though as there were not that many other guests. The lady who ran the lodge was very friendly and helpful, apart from one day when she went out and we were locked in for a few hours until she came home again! Obviously due to the political situation at the time, all of the houses in the area where we stayed were surrounded by wire fences and barbed wire, so it was not surprising that we were locked in … I’d like to think it was a mistake though! We absolutely loved Zimbabwe, it was such a lovely country with very friendly people. We only stayed in Zimbabwe for about a week, because as we had not originally intended to visit there we were running very low on funds. We did not want to withdraw any cash from the banks as the exchange rate was a serious rip off. Luckily for us we had read in a newspaper about these women who would change money at an excellent rate. The article mentioned the street name where they worked, and said that they were easy to find as they were all dressed in white. We are not stupid, and as the saying goes if something seems to good to be true it usually is, so we thought we would walk to the street mentioned just to have a look. Surprisingly there were several women dressed in white as the newspaper article mentioned. As we walked toward them, some of them approached us offering money. Richard chatted to them and a deal was agreed. We were then asked to follow them into a nearby building, as they did not want to handle money openly. Obviously this did set off alarm bells, and without going into any detail we had taken precautions to ensure our safety. We didn’t want to be met by some shady characters and robbed or worse. Once inside the stairwell of the building, we were shown a huge wad of notes that were taken from inside the womens bra! I guess that was as safe a place as any for her to keep them! With the transaction completed we tried in vane to pocket all of our new Zimbabwe dollars. We were fighting a losing battle as there were just so many notes. As soon as we were back out on the street I thought it would be best to jump straight into a taxi, I didn’t want to tempt fate by lingering in the area with so much cash on us. We headed to a nearby hotel which had a good bar for a drink, before going back to Shaka’s Spear lodge. As we were only in Zimbabwe for about a week we didn’t do much. But we couldn’t go to Zimbabwe without visiting Victoria Falls.
VICTORIA FALLS
We took a night train from where we were staying to visit Victoria Falls, and after spending the day there we took another night train back to Bulawayo. Travelling overnight turned out to be a good idea, we had our own couchette which was lovely and clean, complete with blankets and a very cool Art Deco sink. The whole of the interior was gorgeous, all Art Deco, with gorgeous engraved mirrors and it felt as though we had stepped back in time. We managed to get something to eat and we slept quite well on the journey. There was one rough spot when the train hit an elephant I felt surprisingly okay when we arrived at Victoria Falls which made a nice change, as I tend to get sick on most forms of transport. I guess the fact that from the time we got off of the train until we returned later that evening we didn’t stop moving, lots and lots of walking, lovely. After leaving the station we headed toward the falls, and we were offered disposable ponchos by several road side sellers for a few pence. We declined, although later when we were soaking wet, we saw the advantage of them! What can I say about Victoria Falls? It was a breathtaking experience, the noise, the power, the force of all that water was fantastic. We thoroughly enjoyed walking round taking photo’s, although trying to keep our camera dry was not that easy. The spray from the water was much appreciated on our skin though, and as there was quite a strong breeze we saw a truly beautiful rainbow too. There were quite a few people walking round enjoying the views but it was nowhere near as busy as we had thought it would be, which meant we could really appreciate the beauty of the place. After getting our fill of the falls, we were happy to get out and walk back to the town. Unfortunately as the area makes its living from tourism the town was full of all the usual tourist tat. But there were some nice places to stop and have a drink. The day passed quite quickly, and before we knew it it was time to get back on the train and return to Bulawayo. This time we stayed for a night or two at a different hotel, I don’t remember the name, but it was a huge comfortable room above a cool bar.
BULAWAYO
Once we were back in Bulawayo we made plans to travel back to South Africa. Before we left Zimbabwe we went shopping, and visited a train museum, an art gallery, and an arts and crafts centre. Although we didn’t have much money on us, the very favourable exchange rate meant we could actually afford to enjoy ourselves. I bought a few pieces of jewellery for my mummy and myself, which were roughly a quarter of the price they would have been back in the U.K. Richard and I also ate out a lot, mainly at a great pub we found within the local small shopping centre. The food was not exactly what you could call local cuisine, it was a Scottish pub! Once inside, it really did feel like we were back in the U.K. weird! I think we both enjoyed the bread that accompanied each meal more than anything else, because it always came up hot from the oven and was served with 3 different flavoured butters, delicious. We did eat at a few other places serving more traditional local food. The small shopping centre was very modern, and although there were not many other foreigners like us there, we felt safe and everyone was very friendly. There was an excellent internet cafe in the centre which we made good use of, as usual I was really missing my mummy.
THE RAILWAY MUSEUM
The Railway Museum made a great day out for us. The collection included historic steam locomotives, railway offices and buildings, passenger carriages, and a model of an historic railway station complete with period furnishings. I think the highlight of our visit to the museum was seeing Cecil Rhodes’ opulent private carriage, which dates from the 1890’s. The manager of the museum came over and started to chat to us as we were admiring Cecil Rhodes’ carriage, and he said that as we were the only visitors there at that time we could go inside if we would like to. Obviously we said yes and off he went to get the keys. Once inside I was worried that I would knock something over and break it, as I am fairly clumsy. We were told not to worry and relax, and we were even allowed to sit down at the table which was all set up with china plates, cutlery, glasses etc. Then the manager asked us if we would like a photo taken, so we gave him our camera for a quick snap. It felt amazing to think we had sat at the very table where Cecil Rhodes would once have sat and enjoyed his food and wine. I am sure the manager probably lets everyone in there, but we still appreciated the special treatment. We thanked the manager and left the carriage, he locked it up and off we went.
THE BULAWAYO ART GALLERY ~ DOUSLIN HOUSE & MZILIKAZI ARTS AND CRAFTS CENTRE
After enjoying the local shops and the train museum we visited the Bulawayo art gallery and the Mzilikazi arts and crafts centre, both of which were fantastic. Douslin House, as it is now called, is one of Bulawayo’s most impressive buildings, it was completed in 1900, and first became the home to a mining and ranching firm. In 1956 it was taken over by African Associated Mines before the Bulawayo Art Gallery purchased it in 1980. The art gallery houses Bulawayo’s permanent collection, which includes modern African art and paintings by Bulawayo artists. The Mzilikazi arts and crafts centre is an umbrella organization of local crafts groups made up of 800 artisans, mostly women and young school leavers. We enjoyed visiting both of theses places, where you could watch the artists at work and chat to them about their projects. We actually bought quite a lot of work from these talented people. We bought some small hand painted postcards, an embroidered wall hanging, two clay African figures, a really cool woven metal statue of a women, some jewellery and lots more bits. In fact we bought so much that we left the showroom with a huge box of stuff all wrapped up ready to post home. After leaving with our goodies we headed straight to the post office and posted our box home. This was a common occurrence for us, we sent home dozens of boxes during our many travels, and quite surprisingly we received all of them, not one went missing. Some did take a long time to arrive back in the U.K. as we always sent them by the cheapest, snail mail. We were often surprised by what was in the boxes as we hadn’t seen the contents for so long. Our house now has so many different pieces from everywhere we have visited, they bring back lots of happy memories for us.
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As I said, if we had planned to go to Zimbabwe we would have taken more money with us and stayed much longer. Even though we only stayed for a short time I am so pleased we went. Zimbabwe is an absolutely beautiful country with lovely, friendly people.

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