Great Zimbabwe & Bulawayo

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After getting a lift from Ingrid to the bus station in Mutare, I found a bus going to Masvingo easily enough. I was heading for Great Zimbabwe 27 km south of Masvingo. Great Zimbabwe is a set of ruins built by indigenous Bantu people and date back to between the 13th and 14th centuries. They are the largest ruins in Sub-Saharn Africa and the only ruins of this kind south of Ethiopia. These ruins caused some consternation amongst the colonisers who discovered them. One of the justifications that the Europeans had for colonising, was that the African people were inferior and required the assistance of Europeans to develop. Accordingly, there were great archaeological efforts to prove some link between another civilisation and Great Zimbabwe, but they have been proved to be built by Bantu people. Once Zimbabwe go its independence, they changed their name from Rhodesia to the name, which signifies a great pre-colonial era.

There is a campsite just outside the ruins, so my plan was to get there that evening and check out the ruins the next morning. I was on the bus to go by about 10 and we got going by about 11. The journey should take only 4 hours, but alas, this was not to be. I have to admit, that by this stage, I was getting a bit tired of the quirks of the African public transport "system". The unscheduled departures, the constant stopping to pick up and let people off, together with the terrible roads and worse buses, were beginning to wear thin. But now, in Zimbabwe, there was another factor to contend with - the traffic police. I stopped counting after we had been stopped 10 times, when the driver and conductor had to get out of the bus and show the police they had all the necessary equipment, such as a reflector in case of a breakdown. Each break could take 15-30 minutes and one, a policewoman had the driver doing push ups, for a reason I couldn't decipher.

With the above delays, it took about 7 hours to get to Masvingo. The bus began emptying out as we drove through the town and the driver asked where I was going. He said that the place where the transport goes to Great Zimbabwe was on the other side of town, but he decided he would drive me there in the bus. He also found me a vehicle going there and made sure I paid the right price. This vehicle was a station wagon and when I got in, I was the 10th person in there, which was a crazy squeeze, but I didn't mind because I thought we would soon be on our way. However, we waited about 30 minutes more until we had 16 people squashed in. I thought to myself, surely the traffic police will have something to say about this and we were pulled over before long. But a few dollars in the policeman's hand had us on our way before long.

It was pitch dark by the time we got going. This was a bit concerning, as I was dropped on the side of the street and pointed in the direction up towards the Great Zimbabwe ruins. This was about the most vulnerable I had felt on my whole trip, walking up a dark street, alone, with all my earthly possessions on me. There is a hotel at the entrance to the ruins and the lights from it were all I could see. I managed to get there unscathed, but the campsite was another trek on behind it. I eventually found it, but it was completely deserted until I came across one camper van. I set up my tent close to the washrooms so I would have some light and just after I had, a South African guy came over and invited me to join him and his wife for some tea. They had been driving through Southern and Eastern Africa visiting as many National Parks as possible.

I didn't get a very good sleep that night as it was extremely windy. I woke up at about 6 a.m. and checked the weather outside, which was pretty bad. I waited for the rain to clear, then got up to go into the ruins. There was a really low, foggy cloud hanging in the sky and I could barely see the Hill Complex. I decided to go see the museum first, hoping the sky might clear. The lights in the museum were all off and I had to get a security guard to turn them on. This only occupied for me for a few minutes, as the museum is not the most informative or interesting.

Back outside, I went down to the Great Enclosure. This is the most impressive of the ruins and is extremely well preserved. Walking around inside admiring the skill, effort and work required to construct this feat of architeture hundreds of years ago, I couldn't help wondering how come today, in the 21st century, so many of the population in Zimbabwe and the surrounding countries live in mud huts or similarly basic structures. I next walked through the Valley Complex, which wasn't nearly as impressive. I had hoped that the weather would clear by the time I went up to the Hill Complex, as I heard that the views up there were spectacular. Unfortunately, it didn't improve and it actually started to get worse. I decided to hurry back and pack my tent away before there was a downpour. The weather conditions made the visit a little disappointing, but it was still well worth the visit and one advantage of the weather being so bad was that I had the place to myself.

My next mission was to get back to Masvingo and catch a bus to Bulawayo. I had palnned to walk back out to the road where I was dropped off and catch a ride there. However, I had not even left the enclosure of the ruins, when a caar pulled up and a Zimbabwean family offered me a lift. It was about to start lashing rain, so I was only too happy to accept. The family were extrememly friendly and chatty. They all sounded like they were descendants off colonials. They told me they were from Harare, brining their children down to visit Great Zimbabwe. From this description most would assume they were of British descent, however they were black Africans. Zimbabwe really was blowing any preconceptions I had out of the water.

Having reached Masvingo, found a bus going to Bulawayo, my next destination. We had some more of the police checks on the way, but not as bad as the day before. The most eventful moment of the bus ride was, as we were driving along, the back door swung open and one guys suitcase went flying out on to the road. I was sitting in the back row and a few of us shouted at the bus driver to stop, which he did about 200 meters up the road. He then reversed back all the way and as he approached I was sure he was going to stop, but he just kept on going over the suitcase. I hope for the poor guy who owned it that he only had clothes in there.

We got into Bulawayo at about 4.30 p.m. and I managed to find Packer's Rest where I set up camp for the night. There is not a whole lot of interest in Bulawayo and I was just stopping here one night, so I could get the night train the following night up to Victoria Falls. The next morning, I woke up and went down to the train station to get my ticket. While I was down there I checked out the nearby Railway Museum, which was interesting enough. It housed the original personal carriage of Cecil Rhodes, the "Father of Rhodesia". I didn't do much else in Bulawayo and was back at the train station that evening to get on my train. My carriage had 6 bunk beds and I was first in, so I got to pick one of the top ones. My carriage mates were all very friendly, even if their English was fairly limited. Even though the train was fairly rocky, I managed to get some sleep. That was until I was woken up by one of my carriage mates at 4 a.m. who was getting off and wanted to say goodbye. I did manage to sleep most of the way to Victoria Falls though.

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