Zimbabwe is always in the news for the wrong reasons.  One of the poorest countries in the world, Zimbabwe was once known as the breadbasket of Africa, now it is a complete basket case.   And yet Zimbabwe shares one of the greatest natural wonders of the world – Victoria Falls – and a world class game park – Hwange National Park.  Despite the country having no fuel, money or drinking water we had to see at least a little more of this troubled country.

Run down into the ground by its corrupt long term President and despot, Zimbabwe has missed all the opportunities for economic growth over the last 30 years.  Today its economy is stagnant, inflation is raging and the world has passed it by.  We learned two important lessons about visiting Zimbabwe before we crossed the border – first, you have to all the fuel you need for your trip, second, you need to bring a big wad of US dollars because the new local currency is not available to visitors.  It’s also good to bring plenty of drinking water because that is also in short supply.  We topped ourselves up in all these ways and with open eyes we headed south from Victoria Falls to Hwange National Park.

The difference between driving on an open road in Zimbabwe compared to Zambia or Malawi was immediately apparent.  There was almost no traffic, understandable considering how poor the people are and the fact there’s no fuel.  But more so, there were no villages, no one walking along the road, no roadside stalls and most telling, no charcoal for sale.  It was like a land which lost its people, a little eerie. 

We arrived in the town of Hwange, today a town supporting the huge mines and quarries in the area, and made a few purchases at their large supermarket.  The currency for the locals is the new Zimbabwe dollar, recently introduced because inflation had driven the largest note of the old currency in the country to 50 billion dollars – yes, that’s $50,000,000,000.  Today the exchange rate seems to be quite variable, anywhere from two to three New Zimbabwe Dollars to the US dollar depending on where you are.  Prices in the supermarket were in Zimbabwe dollars but we paid in US dollars. 

 

Then it was through a huge and ugly mining complex and into Hwange National Park.  We drove for some time, including a lunch stop at an old campsite, before we saw any animals.  At a waterhole, always our favourite place when we’re on a hunt, we saw herds of elephants and rafts of hippos all doing their thing in the water in the 38C/101F African heat.  Hwange National park is said to have 40,000 elephants and it seemed for a second they were all here.  In the end we counted about 80 elephants in all and had to wait while one herd of these magnificent pachyderms slowly made their way across our track, being careful not to annoy them too much. 

At the Masuma waterhole deep inside the park we struck our own special kind of gold.  A large hide had been built on a rise by the waterhole and we convinced the caretaker to let us camp there (normally you have to book in advance).  We set up camp and watched the animals come down for their evening drink.  The hippos were at their best, probably the noisiest animal in the African jungle kingdom, and a number of herds of elephants, up to 100 elephants in all, came down for a drink and swim.  Add in a few monster crocs, some impalas, kudus and waterbuck and this was absolute heaven. 

That evening at our fire we could hear Africa all around us.  A mother and tiny baby hippo grazed on the slope just metres from us, more elephants came down to the water to loudly splash about and we knew the lions were close because of their frequent and fearsome roars announcing their presence.  When we started hearing loud roars from all directions, and knowing our ‘enclosed’ structure was missing about half its fence, we opted for the safety of Tramp’s bed.  What a night!

We woke before dawn and made our way to the hide to enjoy sunrise with the grazing hippos, crocs, impalas, waterbucks and zebras.  It was a peaceful and serene morning, nature sprawled out in front of us, our own private amazing wonderland.  Hwange had delivered.

We headed towards the main gate of the camp through a long section of tall thick scrub with almost no animals to see and the sun beating down on us without mercy.  Most waterholes had been abandoned, the roads were dreadful and there wasn’t a single other living being about.  We limped into Main Camp to pay more fees, had a picnic lunch in some precious shade and left the park.  We camped that night at a place nearby called Tusker Campsite with its own waterhole, visits by the neighbouring wildlife and a little lodge serving cold beer and friendly cheer.

This night also marked a special day for Julie and I – our 500^th day of our Follow the Sun journey.  During that time we had visited four continents, been to 50 countries, shipped Tramp three times and had so many wonderful experiences it made our heads spin.  It hasn’t all been beer and skittles but we were still smiling and hugging and loving our adventure.  Bring on the next 500 I say!

In our ever-changing plans we decided not to dive back into Hwange National Park and instead make our way for the border with Botswana.  We had been warned about the very corrupt police in Zimbabwe and were dreading any police checks but the only one we encountered was friendly and fast without problems. 

We followed a narrow and fun little dirt track about 90 kilometres to the Pandamatenga border crossing with Botswana, not seeing another vehicle the whole way.  The friendly immigration official seemed quite happy to see us and said we were the first people through the border in two days.  We received the royal send-off.

Because of the lack of fuel our time in Zimbabwe was necessarily short but very sweet.  We loved Victoria Falls like few other places on earth and enjoyed our special night at Masuma waterhole in the heart of Hwange National Park.  Despite the hardships these people were forced to endure we found them to be the friendliest of all the countries we’ve visited in Africa, and that is jumping over a very high bar.  We didn’t see any of the current unrest over huge price increases or see any corruption or crime.  What we saw were good people in a bad situation.  We wish them luck.