Zimbabwe: The Midwest of Southern Africa

Picking up where we left off:

Dec 23: took a 14.5 hour overnight train ride from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo, through a national park. Well over 100 people before us in line waiting to purchase tickets. We stopped by earlier and got our tickets reserved, fortunately. Met some cool Zim people.

Dec 24: after a nice rest we got up at 4:45am to get to the bus station (a 40 min walk with our full packs) only to see the same insanity we viewed the day before. Just imagine it as a scene from any Indy Jones movie. Some people had been sleeping outside at the station since Friday in the hopes of getting a ticket! Chose to hike and lucked out - a guy we'd been talking to at the hike point had an "uncle" going through Masvingo (on the doorstep of Great Zimbabwe) and we were able to grab a hike with him.

In Masvingo we grabbed a cab but, to our dismay, all the hostel and hotel rooms in the town were taken due to a church conference. No room in the inn for us... Decided to deal with sleeping later. Great Zimbabwe was ... great! The taxi driver offered us his place to stay the evening and then we met a person from town who told us a place we could stay. Spent Christmas Eve thinking of people back home, watching the full moon rise and putting together some reindeer a friend sent me.

Dec 25: Masvingo to Harare. The owner of the place gave us a ride to the hiking/bus place in town. We got there just in the nick of time to catch the nearly packed bus leave ... to drive around town to pick up more and more people (a rusty dilapidated, black cloud exhaust spewing bus) and somehow we kept packing the people in. After a safe seven hour ride we got to Harare. We'll be leaving for Zambia tomorrow morning (Dec 28th).



I call Zimbabwe the Midwest of Southern Africa because the people here have been Minnesota Nice to us. The work ethic and attitude fits in so well with the midwest. Imagine walking around in a city of one million people, saying "good morning" to everyone you pass and almost everyone responding? That was Bulawayo, second largest city in Zimbabwe. Imagine that in a US city?



One last Minnesota Connection:

Walking around Harare today I walked past a guy wearing a Hooter's t-shirt from the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN

Some Pictures of the Journey

Here are some pics from the journey so far:










Vic Falls from the Zambia side


















Vic from the Zimbabwe side




















Again, from Zimbabwe side, the better view




















A better shot


















The toilet on the train

























Great Zimbabwe, the kings' place


















Looking down on the remains of the Great Zimbabwe


















A closer view of the background

Celebrating Christmas Eve in Masvingo

The reindeer add a nice touch

Unique looking building in Harare

What US$20 will fetch in Zim $$

Five Days into the Trip

We're just hanging out until the train departs tonight for Bulawayo, then Great Zimbabwe and finally to Harare . Will be fun to compare the train ride to Namibia's.


Here are some of the happenings thus far:

*A 24+ hour bus ride from Windhoek to Livingstone which should have taken 19 hours.

*Victoria Falls lives up to expectations, especially the Zimbabwe side! I tried for two days to do the ultralight flight over the falls but the weather didn't cooperate.

*Almost daily torrential downpours, walking in them, getting soaked to the bone and liking it.

*Meeting a somewhat fictional chain smoking, mango-eating, insomniac, gemstone selling character in Livingstone who said was from Zimbabwe and wanted to help us. Our senses told us otherwise. I did get a job offer from him...

*I am currently dealing with FOUR different currencies: US, Rand, Kwatcha (Zambia) and the Zim dollar. I am a multi-millionaire, trading US$20 for Zim$24 000 000 (official government rate is 1 USD = 30 000 Zim dollars. Unofficial is 1 USD = 1.2 mil to 2.5 mil Zim.


Minnesota connections so far:

*When talking to the somewhat fictional chain smoking, mango-eating, insomniac, gemstone selling character I told him I was from Minnesota. He replies, "I was selling to someone from there ... living in a town named Cannon ... Cannon Falls."

*Met a really cool gal from Minneapolis who is currently in Mozambique on a research grant. We did the whole "Fargo" accent to the comical amazement of everyone around us.

*Hurriedly walking down the muddy streets of Livingstone we passed a Midwestern/Scandinavian looking guy wearing a U of M Gopher hat

*Riding to the Zambia/Zimbabwe border I met an RPCV from Lesotho who used to work at a summer camp near Bemidji.

Last blog entry from Namibia

My last night at Jason’s. My last run in Namibia. My last N$4 twist cone … lots of lasts going on here. After almost 27 months, my journey as an RPCV begins and the chapter of being back in the USA will start. I’ll be heading to Victoria Falls/Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania and Zanzibar, however I won’t be going it alone, traveling with a friend and then meeting up with a group of people later.

Thanks for the positive thoughts, support and encouragement over the past two years. I’ll be home soon.

Take care!