Whenever we stopped, a group of fascinated men and boys soon surrounded our tandem. Most stood silently watching as we drank a soft drink or dug around in our bags for sandwiches. Then suddenly the chattering would start and someone would ask us why we were biking.
"Because I can stop and talk to people like you," my husband, Burley would always answer.
"Could I talk to you if I were in a big car?"
Tandems are not entirely unknown in this part of the world as we discovered when we saw a tandem model made of wire and other scraps. Mechanically minded young Zimbabweans are particularly skilled at twisting pieces of wire into the most intricate model cars. It is this mechanical interest that made them so intrigued by the disc brake on our bike, our gearing and the double set of chains. Each time we stopped someone would squeeze the brake levers or spin the pedals.
I was born and raised for most of my life in Zimbabwe. Five years ago I met Burley, a committed touring cyclist, who introduced me to the delights of bicycle travel. When marriage sealed our relationship, we invested in a Libby tandem specially built for us. We toured Burley’s home country, the United States. We spent summers cycling in France and Switzerland and travelled in Turkey and Morocco. It was time for a tour of my home country. I wanted Burley to see my roots, and I wanted to find out what it was like to bike where I had only traveled by car.
We did the tourist thing and visited the game parks. As they do not allow bikes in these wilderness areas, we viewed the game from Safari vehicles. The Zambezi River was in full flood when we saw the Victoria Falls. Millions of gallons of water roared into a deep gorge throwing up so much spray that little of the huge waterfall was visible. We admired the ancient sites where, on vertical rock faces, Africa's earliest artists left wonderful pictures of themselves and the animals they hunted.
Our visits to my friends all over the country gave Burley insight into the still considerable influence of the mukiwa (white people) in an African country independent now for 21 years. Some of my friends are farmers who grow tobacco, cotton, maize and Soya beans. Others grow exotic protea flowers for export to Europe. Their farms feed the nation and bring in much needed foreign currency. Today Zimbabwe is in media focus as the government encourages the forcible take over of these forms.
Biking in the crowded communal lands helped us to realize why the reallocation of the land would be a good political move. The population is growing. The communal lands are exhausted and overgrazed. All the children and young people who crowded around our bikes had nothing to do. Many were leaving for the main cities to join the queues for employment. Too many would turn to crime.
Early in our trip we had some first hand experience of the growing crime problem. We were hijacked! At 10.30 one morning in a leafy suburb of Harare, the capital city, a man leapt out and pushed us off the tandem. Burley fell onto the road and was unconscious for the three minutes it took the man and his accomplices to load our fully laden tandem into a pick up truck. Fortunately the police recovered the bike when our assailants tried to sell it at the university! Nothing else was recovered. Passports and air tickets were easy to replace. We could live without our tent, sleeping bags and cooking equipment. We could replace our clothing but it still upsets us to think that my trip diary, Burley’s sketchbook and undeveloped film are lying in a ditch somewhere.
For the next four weeks we continued touring the country with the minimum of luggage in a soft bag strapped to the back of the bike. Our route took us from the heat of the Zambezi valley where malaria is endemic, up an escarpment into the high savannah grasslands. Here temperatures seldom rise above 85º F and the air always cools down at night.
We climbed into the Eastern Highlands among the most wonderful rocky hills where huge granite rocks balance precariously on top of each other. High up at 6000 ft we biked through pine forests and wattle plantations. The same day we dropped down to 1000 ft above sea level in the Save River valley where the land is used for game ranching and where baobab trees flourish.
I have travelled in many parts of the world now, but have yet to tour in a country with such wonderful trees. In the Zambezi valley the teak trees were in bloom. These large rounded trees with their dark green foliage bear tall spikes of orchid like pink flowers. In the dry Save Valley, the grotesque baobabs with their thick bulbous stems raise bare twisted arms into the pale blue sky. The woodlands are open; so individual trees stand out and can be admired for their shape, attractive foliage and strange fruit pods. We saw thorn trees with slim 12-inch long beans hanging from their branches and an aptly named sausage tree with pods as thick and long as my forearm. In the east, umbrella acacias spread their wide canopies among rocks stained yellow orange and lime green with lichens.
Most of the countryside we biked was full of interest. The roads were good and the traffic generally light. Twice we used a bus because the distance we had to cover between hotels was too great. The bike was strapped to the roof with old pieces of inner tube sold by vendors at the bus station. Other roof luggage included water pipes, window frames and sacks of maize. We could buy refreshments for the journey from vendors who trekked through the bus. They sold soft drinks, bottles of milk, fruit, bread rolls and other less enticing foods such as dried hairy caterpillars. Entertainment was provided by small groups of blind people who clambered on to sing to us.
We journeyed across the north of the country by ferry on Lake Kariba, a large man-made lake on the Zambezi. The journey took 30 hours and provided a pleasant restful interlude with some game viewing using binoculars. We also used the National Railways of Zimbabwe for an overnight journey. The tandem traveled safely in the luggage car at no extra charge while we slept in a second-class compartment on fresh clean bedding.
The one big tourist attraction we biked to was the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. In the 12th century a people called the Rozwi began building a protective fortress with dry stone alls on a rocky hill near the present town of Masvingo. They built their fortresses and holy places over the next 400 years. Then they suddenly vanished from the area and their massive constructions fell into ruin. During the war when local people fought the British settlers, the ruins became a symbol for the struggle. When the country became independent in 1980, the land known as Rhodesia became the new nation of Zimbabwe.
First we climbed to the top of the hill fortress. As we wondered around those ancient stonewalls the sound of Zimbabwean drums in the plains below sent shivers down out spines. We visited the valley enclosures. Like the fortress its walls, more than 3 feet thick and 80 feet high, are built without mortar. The ancient builders arranged the small granite blocks with incredible precision. Inside, other walls form narrow corridors that lead to a mysterious conical tower. Wandering inside the structure among the beautiful walls is an awesome experience.
Zimbabwe is a relatively new country but it is on an ancient continent that is the birthplace of our species. It has been home to many people who until recent times travelled so lightly over the land that few left traces. I still call the country home. My people were settlers who had considerable impact on the land. On this return visit on a tandem I felt we also left few traces. We moved slowly through the countryside soaking up the scenery and stopping to enjoy the local people in a way I had never done in the past. What joy!
©2001 Irene Shepard
You may be interested in a detailed report of a cycle tour in Zimbabwe at
www.xs4all.nl/~pvroekel/ie_zimb/htm