Harare & Out of Africa


Advertisement
Zimbabwe's flag
Africa » Zimbabwe » Harare
September 16th 2012
Published: February 13th 2013
Edit Blog Post

The bus from Victoria Falls to Harare took about 13 hours and was extremely uncomfortable. The only decent road to make the journey, takes you back down to Bulawayo, then north east towards Harare. We hadn't got much sleep by the time we arrived at midday. I rang Niall, who I had met in Vilankulos and had offered us a bed when we got to Harare. After about 15 minutes, he pulled up in a 1964 safari jeep, which he was driving around, while his jeep was getting repaired. This was an awesome way to get around and Niall gave us a bit of a guided tour as we drove the city back to his house in one of the suburbs.

Christina and I were in need of a power nap and after a short one, followed by some coffee, Niall took us back into town to the Micro Brewery he was involved in. As it was Sunday, it was closed. However, his partner Peter from the U.K. was there testing a few beers out, one of which was being prepared for Harare's Oktoberfest. It only made sense that Christina, being from Germany, test it out - and that I help her.

Peter showed us where he brewed it and talked passionately about how he did it. Being more accustomed to the drinking of, rather than making of beer, a lot of this went over my head, but all the same it was very interesting to listen to him. We went into the "Beer Engine" the bar that they served the beers in during the week, where Peter gave us a few to sample, which were followed by a few more. The beers were delicious and Peter spoke of them as you would expect a vintner to speak of his wines. We were later joined by Mike, Eric and Megan, the Peace Corp Volunteers I met in Coffee Bay and again separately over the last few weeks. They were also happy to sample the beers and we had a late enough night at the beer engine.

The next day was last my last full day in Africa. We had a lazy morning and went to a place called Fishmongers for a delicious lunch. Niall drove us around to several different parts of the city, including past Mugabe's residence, where he told us to make sure we kept our cameras hidden. Harare seemed a pleasant city, even though Niall bemoaned the city had deteriorated under the Mugabe regime. We drove by the Central Bank, so big and impressive a building, it was almost farcical, given the fact that they had no money in it.

Niall drove us through some of the more, formerly, affluent areas such as Borrowdale. It was easy to imagine this being a prosperous place previously. But the events of the last 20 years had turned Zimbabwe from being one of post-colonial Africa's success stories to an example of how one egomaniac dicatator can ruin a country. It is the black people of Zimbabwe who have suffered and starved the most. Even the occupation of white people's farms hit the black people hardest, as they worked on these farms and were left without a way of earning a living. However, this era has seen the near eradication of the white population, which has declined from almost 300,000 to 30,000 since the 1970's. Despite this it was good to hear Niall's positive outlook on Zimbabwe's future and his belief that the white Zimbabweans, who are no less African, will return.

After stopping in O'Hagan's Irish Bar, we went for one last drive in Niall's safari jeep to pick up his now serviced Pajero. He asked me if I would mind drive it back to his house. It may have still been the left side of the road, but this was an interesting experience to have on my last night in Africa, negotiating rush hour through the city, then into the suburbs, where there were no streetlights and drivers pulling out going down either side of me. This was a different ball game to driving in what was comparably familiar driving conditions in Namibia and South Africa. I was happy enough to arrive back at Niall's house unscathed.

That night, Kirk, who I had also met in Vilankulos, invited us around to the mansion, he was house sitting. It was a quiet enough affair and we were back early enough to pack. The next morning, Niall dropped me to the airport where I said goodbye to Christina until our next meeting point in Cambodia. I later boarded my first plane since January, which touched down in Amman, Jordan and began a 48 journey to Saigon, Vietnam, via Johannesburg and Istanbul.


Additional photos below
Photos: 9, Displayed: 9


Advertisement



Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 9; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0749s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb