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Zimbabwe - Victoria Falls

Friday 19th February

I really don’t know what to expect in Zimbabwe. Many years ago I worked with a number of exiles from Zimbabwe. They were exiles from the Ian Smith government and that was more than 30 years ago - it seems that the only things to come out of Zimbabwe since then are good people and bad news.
The group I’m travelling with are reaching the end of the tour now and everybody is in party mood. It’s likely to be a sharp contrast between our celebrations and what we expect to be a fairly depressing situation within the country.

Canadians and Mexicans Are Not Welcome in Zimbabwe

I’ve re-checked the visa requirements several times - I didn’t expect that British passport holders would be too welcome in Zimbabwe. As it turns out I can buy a visa at the border; they are quite happy to take $55 off me and issue me with a visa.
Zimbabwe has a rather random set of visa charges. EU citizens get charged $30, apart from Brits who have to pay $55 - I can understand that. Americans also pay $55 but curiously Canadians have to pay $65. What has Canada done to upset Zimbabwe?
One of our group is Mexican and isn’t allowed to buy a visa at the border! He would have needed to apply many months in advance and hasn’t been able to do that. He has been travelling towards Zimbabwe not knowing if he will be allowed in. {Fortunately when we get to the border something has been “arranged” through a “friend of a friend” }. Why Mexico?

Lukas Sells His Soles

I’m only staying a couple of days in Zimbabwe and that is in the tourist area of Victoria Falls so I’m aware that I won’t get a real impression of the country. In the Victoria Falls area there are 29 people employed as “Tourist Police” - not to make sure that we tourists are behaving ourselves and are not secretly filming for the BBC, but they seem to be there to look after us and to shield us from some of the hassle that we would get. They mostly base themselves at the big hotels, rather than our campsite, but when we a couple of us walk down to the Falls we are soon joined by one of the Tourist Police which seems to discourage a lot of the street sellers who want to trade with us.
Zimbabwe has no money. Seriously, Zimbabwe has no money. They seem to have abandoned their currency quite recently and now everything has to be paid for in US dollars. I expect the economic reality of moving from silly rates of inflation to no inflation in one go have been very painful for ordinary Zimbabweans but there are goods in the shops now {I understand that this is quite a new thing} and people seem to be coping. The few Zimbabweans I talk to all seem positive about the direction the country is going in now and quite hopeful for the future. {I know it’s not much of a cross-section of society - I’m only talking to people who can afford to drink in the bar I’m in and who the bouncers allow in}.
The young men trying to sell us carvings also try to sell us the now useless Zimbabwean bank notes as souvenirs. Luke buys 45 billion Zimbabwe dollars for a couple of US dollars. The guys are also quite keen on our clothing, particularly our shoes and T-shirts. I’m confused by one of the sellers desperately trying to communicate with us over the fence of the campsite until I work out that he is trying to close a deal with Lukas. Lukas has some carved salad spoons to take home as a present but has traded in an old pair of shoes that he was planning to throw away. Later on that evening I find out that quite a few of our group have traded in old T-shirts for giraffe carvings!

Friday Night is Party Night in Zimbabwe

That evening is also the farewell for most of our group. Some people are continuing the tour up to Zanzibar, Nairobi or Uganda but most of us are leaving at Victoria Falls. Because of the other activities we have signed up to do we have qualified for a free cruise on the Zambezi with free drinks. I’m not sure what the struggling Zimbabweans will have thought of a boatful of very noisy, drunken tourists floating down the Zambezi! {I’ve had my face painted as a giraffe - not sure how that happened?!}. The party then continues into the bar of a local backpacker hostel.

Oh Yes…..Victoria Falls

I hadn’t realised I was arriving during the rainy season. Fortunately on the day I arrived it wasn’t raining and I’d booked a helicopter flight over the falls. This gave me some really good views of the falls and I don’t think I’d have properly appreciated the sheer size of the falls if I hadn’t done this.








On the next day a couple of us walked down to the falls while it was raining quite heavily. It was quite difficult to enjoy the experience because, with the rain and the spray from the falls, we were being soaked with water from all directions. A lot of the time we were just looking at mist and it was very difficult to see the falls properly or to take any photographs which did justice. I’m sure that anyone who has the opportunity to see the falls on a dry day at this time of year {when the falls are full of water} would have an amazing view!

Click here to see a slideshow of the photos

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