On the Road Again - to Southern Africa! Post Two

Post 2: Zimbabwe

After two days in Johannesburg, our little group headed to the airport again for our early morning flight to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is falling apart: generations of colonialism and exploitation, followed by years of corruption and human rights violations, the arrest of President Mugabe in 2017, and a contested presidential election that went unresolved for months have led to hyperinflation that has rendered the currency worthless and the people desperate.

The corner of Zimbabwe that caters to the tourist trade – the area around the world heritage site Victoria Falls and the Zambezi and Hwange national parks – operates almost as a separate country, with U.S. dollars and South African Rand serving as their de facto currency. Tourism provides critical jobs and infrastructure support, and helps to preserve the wildlife in the area. Craft vendors beg for customers everywhere, hoping to get a few dollars to feed their families. Our group provided a pretty good lift to their business, I think. It was unsettling, though, and I still don’t know if our presence did more good than harm.

Victoria Falls itself is a natural wonder of the world (in the Lozi language, Mosi-oa-Tunya– "The Smoke That Thunders"), and is the largest waterfall in the world. Roughly twice the height of Niagara Falls, Victoria Falls is the place where the Zambezi River literally falls off a cliff – a crevasse, really – and then continues to wind its way downstream to the Indian Ocean. It is truly awesome. Visitors wear rain ponchos to walk the trail along the edge of the crevasse to ward off the constant spray from the falls. The spray also creates dramatic rainbows along the length of the rock face. Other visitors on the trail include baboons – whole families of them – and warthogs.

We walked the length of the trail, climbing the rocks for a better view of the crashing water below, and then finally made our way to our hotel, an elegant relic of colonial days built in 1904.

Elephants roam the area around the fence surrounding the hotel, hoping to find a break in the barrier, and vervet monkeys and baboons dart in to take food from the outdoor buffet. We saw our first mongooses on the lawn. That evening, at dinner, groups of local dancers and singers performed for us and the other hotel guests. It was mesmerizing.

Early the next morning, well before sunrise, we headed out to the private nature conservancy that is part of the Lowveld Rhino Trust’s effort to protect and build up the population of the critically endangered black rhinoceros. The vast conservancy area currently has eight rhinos, and there was no guarantee we would see one. After we loaded up into two safari vehicles, hanging on over the bumpy, sandy roads, we saw plenty of other wildlife: the curly-horned giant kudu, the delicate impala, and countless birds, including the dramatically beautiful lilac breasted roller. Then, our guide stopped the vehicle to listen. There was a rhino making its way down the hill below us. He turned the vehicle around and tore down the hill in an arc, hoping to intercept the animal below, radioing to the other vehicle to do the same. He stopped the truck again, and now we could all hear the sound of a large body pressing through the bush, and the noise of crunching as it pulled off low-hanging branches and chewed them.

Then, majestically, it walked out to cross the road just in front of us! The guide had explained that, as long as we stayed quiet and seated, and didn’t break the visual line of the vehicle, most wild animals would not recognize that we were human, and would ignore the truck. In silence, except for the clicking of the cameras, we watched as the young adult male rhino made his way down the hill, not ten feet away. After he disappeared into the bush, we sprang into action again, circling down the hill to see if we could anticipate which watering hole he might be aiming for. Our guide guessed right, and we were able to watch the same rhino come down and drink. The Smithsonian mammal expert, Don, who was with us and leads many of these tours, said he’d never seen a rhino drinking in the wild. Usually, he said, they are very wary and elusive. We were lucky (and had a great guide).

Afterwards, Joe and I and another couple got the chance to take a helicopter ride over Victoria Falls. (It was our anniversary!) The aerial view helped us understand how the falls had come to be, and the ride was great fun. We even saw elephants and hippos from the air.

That evening, the whole group boarded a flat-bottomed boat and set out for an evening ride on the Zambezi River for dinner. It was magical, with animals coming down to the water to drink and the sun setting as we drifted along. It's winter in southern Africa, and the sun set at 6pm, so we were back at the hotel and in bed by 9, ready for another early morning.

The next morning, our group got in a van to cross the bridge over the Zambezi River just below the falls, part of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes’ vision of a rail line from Capetown to Cairo – a vision that has never materialized. With the help of a wonderful historical impersonator playing the French engineer who designed the bridge, we strapped on body harnesses, clipped ourselves with carabiners to the underside of the bridge, and followed the catwalk under the bridge’s surface across the roiling river at the base of the falls from Zambia back into Zimbabwe. Halfway across, we watched as bungee jumpers sailed screaming through the air from the deck of the bridge, above.

Our final stop as we prepared to leave Zimbabwe the next morning was a public school near Victoria Falls. The school has more than 700 students, and only 42 teachers. Half the children attend school in the morning, and stay for lunch. The other half arrive for lunch, and then have classes in the afternoon. I can only imagine how the teachers feel after such a day. School supplies are scarce, as government budgets pay out in Zimbabwean currency, which hundredths in value every few days until it's worthless. Smithsonian tours visits every time they come to Victoria Falls, and we were encouraged to bring school supplies from the U.S. with us. We delivered a big pile of paper, pens, notebooks, pencils, rulers, tape, markers, crayons, soccer balls, and other items. They'll be put in the supply storage room for teachers to access when they need them.

We watched volunteers arrive to cook lunch for the students - mealie pap in huge pots. Some of the children performed a dance for us and then individually told us their name, their grade, and what they want to be when they grow up. It is difficult to know how difficult those dreams will be to achieve for these potential doctors, teachers and chemical engineers.