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Harare and return to Livingstone

28 December 1998 - 2 January 1999

Monday 28 December

For the previous two weeks, I had been in the UK for the Christmas period catching up with family and friends and generally over-indulging. It was great to see everyone and I had a thoroughly enjoyable time. I started Monday 28 December at 41,000 feet on board a South African Airways Boeing 747 going from London Heathrow to Johannesburg. I had hunted around for the cheapest deal, and this meant a rather complicated journey involving four airports in four countries. Fortunately, I had two seats to myself on the long flight and so could stretch out - I slept for about six hours.

On arrival at Johannesburg airport, I had to find my way to the departure lounge and wait for my next flight to Harare. This was painless enough and I touched down in the Zimbabwean capital at around 1pm. My next flight (which was to Lusaka, Zambia) was not until 9am the next day, so it meant I had to stay overnight in Harare. I had pre-arranged accommodation at the George Hotel but had to find my way there.

I had been told that the best way to get around the city was by taxi and that it was very cheap, particularly as the Zimbabwe Dollar had spent most of 1998 in free-fall. In January there were Z$30 to the pound and in December that had increased to Z$62. However, I had been warned that the taxi drivers at the airport were keen to con tourists and so I should set a rate beforehand. In the event, the driver could not have been more helpful and the fare on the meter was actually lower than the one he'd quoted. We drove from the airport through the city centre to the hotel which was in a suburb called Avondale. It was very clear that Harare is far more prosperous than anywhere in Zambia, with many new buildings mixed with colonial architecture from the time when the city was called Salisbury, capital of Rhodesia.

On arrival at the George, I was once again greeted warmly, with the man at reception saying he was sorry I was only staying for one night. The room was large and, although not the height of luxury, comfortable with a TV and en suite bathroom.

After settling in, I decided to go and explore. Across the road from the hotel was a shopping and entertainment area with two cinemas, restaurants, bars, etc. This was not the Africa to which I had become accustomed! I then hopped into a taxi and headed into the city centre.

The taxi dropped me by the Anglican Cathedral and I took the chance of wandering around inside. It was a strange mixture of Church of England, Roman Catholic and African Christianity. There were confessionals and a large crucifix over the apse and a baptismal pool at the East end. The Stations of the Cross on the walls were in a wonderful African style and the place had a very peaceful ambience. One of the clergy approached me and introduced himself - something that is unlikely to happen in St Paul's or Notre Dame.

I went out and wandered around the streets and shops in the city. There were attractive colonial buildings next to imposing shiny new office blocks and much of the shopping area was pedestrianised. I wandered into an impressive and obviously very new shopping precinct called Westgate and I was impressed by the range of shops and the availability of goods. It brought home to me the contrasting nature of the continent of Africa, and how this makes the place so intriguing.

After a couple of hours exploring, I decided to go back to the hotel. The clouds had built up and it was now overcast, with the first drops of rain falling. I decided that a hotel would be the best place to find a taxi, and just as I arrived at one, the heavens opened. I asked the porter where I would find a taxi, and he immediately ran out into the torrential rain to flag one down. Another example of the welcoming nature of the Zimbabweans.

On arrival back at Avondale, I waited for the rain to subside and then went over to one of the cinemas to see The Truman Show, which was being shown on a huge screen for about 60p. After that I had a huge pizza, garlic bread and as many soft drinks as I wanted for about £3. I returned to the hotel very impressed with the city of Harare.

Tuesday 29 December

The friendly taxi driver who had brought me from the airport to the hotel had offered to take me back at 6am for a 7am check-in two hours before my flight to Lusaka was due to take off. This meant getting up at 5.15am to get myself together. Bearing in mind that I had been in the UK and then on an aeroplane the night before, an early start was not what was required! However, the driver was there as arranged and I arrived with plenty of time to spare. As always happens when one is in good time, the flight was delayed for about half an hour and arrived in Lusaka at around 10.30.

I had arranged that my colleague Sharon would meet me at the airport and that we would then drive down to Livingstone. Sharon had a visitor from the UK, Debbie, and they were there as arranged and we started the six-hour drive to the Zimbabwe border.

Sharon and Debbie had spent a very exciting week in Kariba, by the famous dam and had seen lion, elephant, buffalo and many others as well as having a very different Christmas from me! They were using the car which had been used by Dave Morrison (deputy head) who by now had gone to Malawi to take up a Headmaster's post there. My confidence was dented a little when they told me that the car had broken down twice, once on the way from Lusaka to Kitwe and the other time just outside Kariba.

Our plan was to stay over the border in the town of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe for two nights and then go back to Nyala Lodge on the Zambian side (where we had stayed in October) for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. We planned to call in at Nyala on our way to let them know our plans, but time was short as we knew from last time that the border crossing closed at 6pm.

We arrived at Nyala at about 5.30pm, intending just to let the owners, Moyra and Mat, know what are plans were. They told us that the border in fact now closed at 8pm, so we stayed for a drink. As we pulled out of the lodge, the car spluttered and shuddered to a halt. It seemed to be the same problem which had dogged Sharon and Debbie before. Much to Moyra's surprise and amusement, we walked back and told her what had happened. Since it was unlikely that the car would be fixed that evening, we decided to change our plans and stay at Nyala for all four nights rather than going over to Zimbabwe. There we met Moyra's mother Beulah from Southeast Zimbabwe, brother Yanni and two friends Steve and Andy from Johannesburg. In some ways it was a relief to be somewhere familiar and not to have to endure going through the border crossing.

As a result of the rains the grounds of the lodge were much greener, as well as being rather muddy. They had built new accommodation consisting of four large tents built on concrete bases with thatched roofs over them. Inside, there were proper beds and electric lights so it was rather like camping but without the discomfort. We were given one of these as our home for the next four nights.

Wednesday 30 December

Our first priority was to sort out the car problem. We managed to get it started, but we really wanted to make sure it was reliable, particularly for the long journey to Kitwe. Mat and Moyra recommended a mechanic in Livingstone and so we spent most of the morning there. It turned out that a vital spacer which stops the pump from overheating was missing. They could not replace it as it was specific to our vehicle, but they told us that it was easy to solve the problem by pouring water onto the pump.

We planned to spend the afternoon in Victoria Falls town on the Zimbabwe side, so we drove down to the border post. We stopped on the Zambian side to walk down to show Debbie the Bungee jump, which looked just as terrifying as before. We then drove across the bridge and went into the Zimbabwean border post to go through the formalities. I was wearing a T-shirt from the tour of Holland I did as a student in 1993 with Royal Holloway Chapel Choir, which had a short extract of music printed on it. I needed to borrow a pen from the customs official, but before I could do so, he insisted that I sing the music. So there I was, in the Victoria Falls customs and immigration post singing to a Zimbabwean official! It can't have been too bad, as he lent me his pen…

We stopped at the bank to change some money which took rather longer than expected - I waited in a queue for about 45 minutes (this is Africa!). We had another cheap pizza and then wandered around the shops for a while. We went into a bottle

store and noticed the price of liquor was even cheaper than in Zambia. Gin cost about £1.50 a bottle as did a number of other spirits, so we stocked up!

Tea at the Victoria Falls Hotel was the next stop and we spent more time looking around the grounds than we had done in October. The lawns were all immaculately kept and there was a beautiful swimming pool next to tennis courts. As we wandered out of the hotel, we noticed that there was a train standing at the station opposite. This is quite a rarity in this part of Africa and this one looked rather special. It was very reminiscent of the Orient Express with green livery and we could just about see into the carriages with their sumptuous interiors. We saw a stewardess and asked about the train. Apparently it runs from Victoria Falls to Cape Town in two days and costs around £400 per person. We asked if we could look inside and found one of the berths, which was oak panelled and had its own en suite shower room. One imagines the likes of Cecil Rhodes and friends travelling in trains like this at the height of the colonial powers. Further up the platform, people dressed in dinner jackets and expensive dresses ere being served champagne in preparation for the journey - many had presumably been staying at the Victoria Falls Hotel (at £240 per night). We weren't envious. Well, not much.

After wandering around Elephant Walk which is a shopping area selling mainly curios, we returned to the border and then to Nyala Lodge.

Thursday 31 December - See Photos

Matt and Moyra were planning a buffet followed by traditional revelry for New Year's Eve. However, before that we had arranged to go on a day trip involving a trip to the Falls, a visit to a traditional village, lunch and a game drive in Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park.

We were picked up in a bus and taken to the falls, stopping just before the border post. Jean, our Zambian guide, led us along various paths to get to a number of vantage points. There was much more water than we had seen in October, with falls coming down what had been dry rock at that time. As we walked, we were cooled by the spray coming up from the gorge. We crossed the "Knife-Edge Bridge" which is a footbridge across a part of the gorge - not for vertigo-sufferers! We were now on the opposite side of the gorge from where we had walked to the pool to swim in October. That walk would now be completely impossible as the water would sweep you into the 100-metre drop. Further along, the column of spray was awesome and it was impossible to see the cliffs at all.

Jean led us back to the bus (we were the only passengers!) and we were driven to the village of Nakatindi. Here life was led in a manner so far removed from the life I had just seen in London it was incredible. People lived mainly out of doors and slept and cooked in huts made from branches and dried mud. They were almost completely self-sufficient, growing their own crops and raising cattle. Medicine came from witch doctors and natural remedies were used. If someone had a stomach upset, they took bark from a particular tree, boiled it and drank the brew. Life was simple but the people, who had so little, seemed happy. The children were delighted to see us and posed for photographs at every given opportunity. It did, however, feel a little as though we were prying into the lives of others. However, some of the money we had paid for the trip was going to support the villagers, so we had at least given something towards helping them.

Perhaps the most extraordinary was the attitude towards marriage and the role of women. A man has the right to choose a woman to marry - in fact he can marry as many women as he likes, but he must pay five cows to the parents of the woman. The woman cannot refuse to marry. It is expected that the woman should become pregnant within a year of marriage and should she prove to be infertile, the man's parents can call for a separation, to which the man must agree unless he is willing to sever ties with his family. The cows must also be repaid. A man can divorce if he wishes to, but the woman cannot do so. We went into one family area where the man had two wives, each of whom had her own hut and there were children from both marriages. They all lived together, and this was not unusual - some men had many more wives. In addition, most manual work - working the fields, cooking, cleaning, etc. was carried out by the women. It is so far removed from the western idea of political correctness and sexual equality, and it was hard to believe that people lived like this at the end of the twentieth century.

Next stop was lunch at a tea room near Nyala Lodge where we met Graham who was to take us on the game drive. It turned out that his nephew had been the mechanic who had helped us with the car the day before. Graham was a white Zimbabwean who had lived for ten years in South Africa when it was not politically correct to do so. This had made it almost impossible to return to Zimbabwe and so he moved to Zambia about seven years ago.

We set off in his Land Rover along the familiar road to the game park. This time, with Graham's expert guidance and robust vehicle, we were able to leave the tarred road and explore the interior of the park away from the riverside. Now that the rains had come, the animals no longer needed to go to the river to drink or keep cool. Graham was very keen to get to the rhinos and so we drove along the dirt tracks at some pace. On our way we saw zebras, wildebeest, warthogs and a large herd of buffalo.

We turned along one of the tracks to get a better view of the buffalo and stopped behind another 4-wheel-drive vehicle which had got stuck in the mud. A group of about six people had been stuck there for about half an hour and they were contemplating spending New Year in the bush. Just before we arrived, the herd of buffalo had passed them and they had locked themselves in their vehicle. Graham leapt out and attached his winch to their car and slowly pulled them out of the quagmire with the aid of his Land Rover. We decided not to carry on along that track!

A few minutes later, we had arrived at a clearing where four white rhinos were cooling themselves in the mud. There are only five white rhinos in Zambia and they are all in this park. Graham knew exactly how to approach them so that they did not feel threatened - it is quite common for them to charge vehicles. We sat and watched as one of the males tried to protect his female from another younger male. All the time, Graham had his foot hovering over the accelerator just in case. We were much closer to them than we had been in October and it was a truly amazing sight.

Further on, we saw more zebra, dozens of monkeys and baboons, impala and a number of giraffes as well as the fifth rhino. We stopped by the river for a cool drink where the temperature was around 40°C and reflected on what had been a unique and extraordinary New Year's Eve so far.

On our return to Nyala Lodge, preparations were well in hand for the party. The food was excellent and the company was great and we welcomed 1999 in with style in the thatched bar area with the sounds of partying inside and the sounds of the bush outside. We had decided to welcome in the New Year twice, once at midnight and also at 2am when it was midnight in the UK. We managed to find Sky News on the satellite system installed in the bar and watched the celebrations in Trafalgar Square and Edinburgh.

Friday 1 January

We emerged, bleary-eyed after the previous night's festivities and planned to have a relaxing day in preparation for the long drive back to Kitwe the following day. We spent the morning watching TV and chatting to the others and then went back to the bridge where Debbie had wanted to do a Bungee jump. When we arrived, there were dozens of people there and it became apparent that they were fully booked - New Year's Day is one of their busiest - so we just watched. Sharon had wanted to have a sauna in a hotel in Livingstone and Debbie and I decided to go for a swim there where the pool was slightly bigger than at Nyala. However, as we approached the heavens opened with a typically Zambian deluge and so we ended up sitting in the bar. Debbie had a stomach upset, so it was just as well we didn't swim.

We returned to the lodge for dinner and retired early in preparation for a 6am start the following day.

Saturday 2 January