When we finally had to leave the comfortable and civilised world of Harare on the 15th, we at least had one day of rest in our legs, but ideally we would have spent another 2 weeks there, chilling out at the Palm Rock Villa and having pizzas down the road at the "Pizza Inn". But our strict schedule and the thought of family and friends and Table Mountain was enough to get our butts back on the saddles for the next leg to Livingstone in Zambia.
Heading North-West out of Zimbabwe's capital city, we thought this time we may see some evidence of a collapsed economy - shanty towns and typhoid outbreaks. But, as with our cycle in, all we came across was leafy suburbs followed by large commercial farms and then finally dense bushveld. I seem to remember something about our friend Bob sending bulldozers in to "clean up" Harare's slums - maybe this is why there is no sign of them? Will have to do some reading up!
It was rather surprising how suddenly the city limits ended and the large commercial farming began. Generally most of the farms looked fully functional, growing crops of tobacco, maize, coffee and more. But we also did see a few clearly abandoned farm houses and farms, derelict and empty and no sign of any war veterans ploughing the fields either.
On our first night out of Harare we decided it would be far too much of a shock to the system to start wild camping in the bush straight away, so the conveniently located Chinhoyi Caves campsite was where we pulled off the road, about 130km from the capital. Here we saw signs of a struggling tourism industry - we were the only souls in the entire, massive campsite, apart from some locals having a soccer match. And in the one toilet block that hadn't been torched, the urinals were filled with cobwebs!
I think the campsite staff would have been more then happy to be removed from their peanut shelling duty and show us around the caves, but for $8 we decided to give it a miss - living the high life in Harare had put our budget under serious strain! So we had a look around the top of the cave entrance ourselves. Quite a fascinating place really - the main Wonderhole is what is known as a "Swallow hole", where a huge underground cavern has caved in to form a deep hole dropping vertically into the ground. This hole drops down 150ft to a deep pool of dark blue, crystal clear water. Apparently, before Europeans had arrived and the land was still ruled by tribes, there had been a serial killer on the loose who used to toss his victims down into the deep pool. The tribal chief who managed to track down this madman was Mr. Chinhoyi, hence the name of the caves.
The next few days took us through a "safari area" and up to Lake Kariba and eventually into Zambia. People had been warning us about this safari area since leaving Harare, where we were told wildlife roam freely including lion, elephant and buffalo. What surprised us was that at no point did we pass through a gate or fence to say we were in the park, only a sign saying "it is advised not to leave your vehicle". If we had known the area was not fenced off, we probably would not have wild camped on the very edge of it the evening before.
Unfortunately we did not see any animals apart from some lazy baboons, but the scenery we passed through was fantastic. This is another way of saying it was damn hilly and not fun on a bicycle! To make up for the lack of wild animals we were stopped numerous times by traffic police, and at one particular road block we were asked for our vehicle registration number. We said "But its a bicycle, we don't need a registration number!", to which we were told "No sir, in Zimbabwe you are required to have a license for your bicycle as well as a bell. We fine or arrest anyone in contravention of these rules." After refusing to hand over any "fine" payment and telling these officers that we had cycled all the way through Africa and that only in Zimbabwe have we now had a problem, they seemed to realise how absurd their attempt at trying to get us to pay a bribe was, and let us be on our way.
To cool us down after that little incident, we then cycled through one hell of a thunderstorm, which was the start of a continuous cycle of being soaked to the bone, almost drying out in the baking heat and then being drenched again - all the way to Livingstone about 6 days later.
As a last minute detour (thanks to the advise from 2 locals we met) we decided to take an alternative route to the Zambian border instead of following the main trucking route to the horrible (I think the locals description was a "dog's #$%#hole of a town") border town of Chirundu. So we took a left and headed trough some more safari area toward the Lake Kariba dam wall. Yes you may be confused at me saying Lake and dam wall in one sentence. Well it doesn't make sense, but its still called Lake Kariba!
The dam wall was a site worth seeing, definitely worth the extra 50 odd km we did to get there. An absolutely massive engineering marvel, built in the 1950s and opened by Queen Elizabeth, it includes a hydroelectric plant which supplies electricity to Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. And in order to cross from Zim into Zambia we had to cycle over the wall itself, which gave us the opportunity to peer over the sheer sloping face of the wall down to the Zambezi river below.
Our first night in Zambia was spent in dense bush with only the sounds of the crickets, frogs and the odd baboon call to fall asleep to. I could not stand the heat in the tent so I spent the night under the incredible blanket of stars. Fortunately that night we were spared a thunderstorm! But at this point we were already looking forward to our next luxury stopover - the Mbuyu Coffee farm.
Heading North-West out of Zimbabwe's capital city, we thought this time we may see some evidence of a collapsed economy - shanty towns and typhoid outbreaks. But, as with our cycle in, all we came across was leafy suburbs followed by large commercial farms and then finally dense bushveld. I seem to remember something about our friend Bob sending bulldozers in to "clean up" Harare's slums - maybe this is why there is no sign of them? Will have to do some reading up!
It was rather surprising how suddenly the city limits ended and the large commercial farming began. Generally most of the farms looked fully functional, growing crops of tobacco, maize, coffee and more. But we also did see a few clearly abandoned farm houses and farms, derelict and empty and no sign of any war veterans ploughing the fields either.
On our first night out of Harare we decided it would be far too much of a shock to the system to start wild camping in the bush straight away, so the conveniently located Chinhoyi Caves campsite was where we pulled off the road, about 130km from the capital. Here we saw signs of a struggling tourism industry - we were the only souls in the entire, massive campsite, apart from some locals having a soccer match. And in the one toilet block that hadn't been torched, the urinals were filled with cobwebs!
I think the campsite staff would have been more then happy to be removed from their peanut shelling duty and show us around the caves, but for $8 we decided to give it a miss - living the high life in Harare had put our budget under serious strain! So we had a look around the top of the cave entrance ourselves. Quite a fascinating place really - the main Wonderhole is what is known as a "Swallow hole", where a huge underground cavern has caved in to form a deep hole dropping vertically into the ground. This hole drops down 150ft to a deep pool of dark blue, crystal clear water. Apparently, before Europeans had arrived and the land was still ruled by tribes, there had been a serial killer on the loose who used to toss his victims down into the deep pool. The tribal chief who managed to track down this madman was Mr. Chinhoyi, hence the name of the caves.
The next few days took us through a "safari area" and up to Lake Kariba and eventually into Zambia. People had been warning us about this safari area since leaving Harare, where we were told wildlife roam freely including lion, elephant and buffalo. What surprised us was that at no point did we pass through a gate or fence to say we were in the park, only a sign saying "it is advised not to leave your vehicle". If we had known the area was not fenced off, we probably would not have wild camped on the very edge of it the evening before.
Unfortunately we did not see any animals apart from some lazy baboons, but the scenery we passed through was fantastic. This is another way of saying it was damn hilly and not fun on a bicycle! To make up for the lack of wild animals we were stopped numerous times by traffic police, and at one particular road block we were asked for our vehicle registration number. We said "But its a bicycle, we don't need a registration number!", to which we were told "No sir, in Zimbabwe you are required to have a license for your bicycle as well as a bell. We fine or arrest anyone in contravention of these rules." After refusing to hand over any "fine" payment and telling these officers that we had cycled all the way through Africa and that only in Zimbabwe have we now had a problem, they seemed to realise how absurd their attempt at trying to get us to pay a bribe was, and let us be on our way.
To cool us down after that little incident, we then cycled through one hell of a thunderstorm, which was the start of a continuous cycle of being soaked to the bone, almost drying out in the baking heat and then being drenched again - all the way to Livingstone about 6 days later.
As a last minute detour (thanks to the advise from 2 locals we met) we decided to take an alternative route to the Zambian border instead of following the main trucking route to the horrible (I think the locals description was a "dog's #$%#hole of a town") border town of Chirundu. So we took a left and headed trough some more safari area toward the Lake Kariba dam wall. Yes you may be confused at me saying Lake and dam wall in one sentence. Well it doesn't make sense, but its still called Lake Kariba!
The dam wall was a site worth seeing, definitely worth the extra 50 odd km we did to get there. An absolutely massive engineering marvel, built in the 1950s and opened by Queen Elizabeth, it includes a hydroelectric plant which supplies electricity to Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. And in order to cross from Zim into Zambia we had to cycle over the wall itself, which gave us the opportunity to peer over the sheer sloping face of the wall down to the Zambezi river below.
Our first night in Zambia was spent in dense bush with only the sounds of the crickets, frogs and the odd baboon call to fall asleep to. I could not stand the heat in the tent so I spent the night under the incredible blanket of stars. Fortunately that night we were spared a thunderstorm! But at this point we were already looking forward to our next luxury stopover - the Mbuyu Coffee farm.
We had been told about the coffee farm from two sources. One was a lone Canadian cycle tourist, Brenna, a brave young girl taking on Africa by herself! We had bumped into her in Malawi at a t-junction (where she was planning to pitch her tent for the night) and she had told us of this fantastic coffee farm where she had stayed for 3 nights with the most welcoming and friendly people. Then, coincidentally, a friend of my parents knows the owners of the farm and had arranged for us to spend a night there - we couldn't refuse such an offer, anything to get us out of wild camping!
We had a long day getting to the farm from our bush camp near Kariba, 145km in total, with some ridiculous hills coming out of the Kafue valley, which must have taken us up at least 1000m. The trucks didn't seem to like the climb much either and we saw many, broken down in the road with rocks behind the wheels getting repaired. We also came across at least 3 big 20 wheeler trucks which had overturned or gone off the road completely while descending and it was quite clear that this is a fairly regular occurrence! At least the road itself was in fantastic condition with a nice wide shoulder for us to keep a bit of distance between us and them. After the climbs from Kafue it was a bit easier going to the farm, and we were told to look for the "big Texan style gates". Well, it wasn't hard to miss - indeed massive American ranch styled gates and sprawling coffee plantations, with "Munali Coffee" written on the hills behind.
It was a 4km cycle from the gate to the farmhouse, where we finally got to meet the Lublinkhof family, who have owned and been running the farm for about 40 years after moving to Zambia from Holland. Despite not knowing us from a bar of soap, the Lublinkhofs welcomed us in as part of the family - we were given a room with comfortable beds and a shower, and then welcomed round the dinner table for a feast of a supper, probably the best food we'd had in about 2 months! It turns out that the farm house gets visitors of all sorts (there was even a guest book for us to sign), including fairly regular visits from cycle tourists passing by, most of them just knocking on their gate hoping for a place to pitch a tent. Maybe its the fact that the whole family are quite keen cyclists - Jesper (Meta and Willem's son who now runs the farm) has even done 2 Cape Epics himself. We were amazed to see his own bike workshop with all the tools and spares you would expect at any decent bike shop in the UK or SA. They have done a lot to get the local workers into cycling and mountain biking too, and have held races on the farm property and even managed to get 2 guys into the Epic to take 14th place.
Unfortunately the next morning, after a great breakfast and too many cups of Munali coffee, we had to say goodbye. Jesper tried his best to convince us to join him on a mountain bike ride in the surrounding hills, but we explained that we were not interested in doing any more cycling then absolutely necessary!
From there it was another 3 days of relatively easy riding all the way to Livingstone. The road on this stretch was generally quite flat and probably the smoothest tarmac I have ever cycled on, a fantastic new road funded by the EU of course. We also had a bit of a tail wind at times and so we were averaging up to 30kph at times. With the schedule in mind, we realised if we could do the 400km from Mbuyu farm to Livingstone in 3 days instead of 4, we could afford an extra rest day there! So we capitalised on the easy conditions and did some big days.
Its surprising how filthy and smelly one can get in such a short time when doing constant exercise in the sun and sleeping in the bushveld! So when we got to Livingstone backpackers it was nothing short of a euphoric experience diving into their swimming pool and sipping an ice cold Mosi beer ("as mighty as the Mosi-oa-Tunya" - the smoke that thunders!).
If it wasn't for the fact that A, it is so close to the Victoria Falls and B, Zimbabwe's (on the other side of the falls) tourism industry took such a nosedive, Livingstone would probably be just another horrible border town. But instead it has at least two fancy shopping malls (in Africa such things are only ever seen in the CBD of capital cities or in tourist hotspots), a seemingly endless supply of accommodation (mostly in the form of luxury lodges and guest houses) and many western style restaurants. So its quite a comfy spot, and probably about as much as most tourists wanting the "African experience" are willing to rough it!
Yesterday we decided to have a look at the falls themselves. $20 US gets you into the "World Heritage site park" were you have to carry a stick to beat off the baboons who will quite casually run past you and snatch your bag of bananas (we saw it happen twice)! And unless you want to shell out another $2 for a raincoat, its advisable to either bring one yourself, or just enjoy the experience of being drenched by the downpour from the rising mist of the falls.
The falls are spectacular, and definitely live up to their spot in the 7 wonders of the world. Unfortunately, unless you cross over to the Zimbabwean side (which involves getting your passport stamped etc.), you can only see about half of the falls as they stretch across about 1.7km. James could not resist the temptation to do the famous bungee jump from the railway bridge over the gorge, despite being fully aware that the rope had snapped about 3 months ago with an Australian girl attached to it! "Now we use Chinese bungee cords instead of second-hand South African ones" the lady at the ticket desk told us. "...Okay!" To entice customers to ignore their rational brains, there was the 3-in-1 discount combo - bungee, gorge swing and zip-line. Well this was a deal James could not turn down!
I decided to act as camera man instead, and attempted to capture James' pale face before and red face after, I think I got some good pics for the album! But all that excitement was not enough, and so this morning we put our lifejackets and helmets on and headed down the mighty Zambezi for some white water rafting. Unfortunately as it is high water season, rapids 1 - 9 are not passable (for novices anyway), so we did the half day package which included rapids 10 - 25. The white water was not on the same level as the Nile in Uganda, but this does not mean it was a leisurely cruise down stream! But I think we only ended up going over board twice, instead of almost every rapid as was the case in Uganda! The setting was stunning though, just to be floating down through the rugged gorge itself was fantastic.
So that sums up our time since Harare. I'm not sure either of us is particularly looking forward to cycling tomorrow morning, but we must put our heads down, plug our iPods in and pedal on! The next week or two will take us into Botswana and through some "big game" territory, which should be exciting!
As always thanks again to all for the messages, and thanks to the Lublinkhofs at Mbuyu farm for their great hospitality and generosity.
Ciao
Mark
