TravelStream™ news feed for member tychii on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/tychii en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 26 Oct 2006 10:14:04 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1160992860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1160992860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1160992860/tpod.html Thu, 26 Oct 2006 10:14:04 -0400 From the Snows of Kilimanjaro to the Shores of the Cape of Good Hope

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Tofo, Mozambique

After touching the extreme south of Africa, our travels have come to an end in the paradise of Mozambique. Beach, sun, sand, and best of all, awesome diving have been filling our last week of our adventure. Off these shores, we have seen such rich wildlife - especially compared to Lake Malawi, site of our last underwater safari. Here, the fish are huge, the biggest being the 12m long WHALE-SHARK. These elusive beasts that we spent hours trying to hunt down without success in Thailand, live here in the 100s. You are basically guaranteed to dive with a few, at least!, during your stay here.

On our first day, coming back from our second dive, we spotted a big whale shark and hopped in to snorkel with him when all of a sudden a second even bigger one showed up just behind us, nearly bumping into us with his enormous open mouth! No worries though, for those of you who are not familiar with them, they are completely harmless, their huge mouth has no teeth whatsoever, they just cruise around looking super cool.

The other amazing ocean treasure to be found here are the manta rays. These guys just fly underneath the water - gently flapping their 6m - long wings just over our heads.

We have one final stop before we head home - we are going to see some good friends in Gaborone. As we finish our travels, we are getting excited to come back home and see all of you, our friends and family...and eat some of Magdeleine's wonderful cuisine. Thanks for all of your messages during our adventures.

See you all soon!!
(And for those of you in the US, Ty is definately coming out before starting a job, so see you guys soon too!!)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159518960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159518960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159518960/tpod.html Fri, 13 Oct 2006 04:51:19 -0400 From the Snows of Kilimanjaro to the Shores of the Cape of Good Hope

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Sesriem, Namibia

From Swakopmund we headed south taking the scenic route through what's known as the Namibian "moon landscape." This place does not really look like it belongs on our planet with its unearthly colorless hills and bizarre flora, including the walwitchia, a two-leaf plant leftover from dinosaur days which easily reaches 3,000 years old!

After our jaunt through space, we landed back on earth in the Naukluft mountains. This is a stunning range of golden yellow mountains that pop straight out of the desert. The next day we took a day crossing the mountains' rivers and valleys, cooling off in crystal clear rock pools, following zebra trails, and making our up 1000 meters to the top where we had a picnic looking out over the beautiful scenery.

The following day, after a quick morning swim, we made our way to the famous Namibian dunes. Words cannot do the place justice, so here are the photos. Though I will just say that after the incredible difficult hike up, it was like running through marshmellows on the way down!

On our way back to Windhoek, we stopped in a little town called Rehoboth and stayed at the Reho Spa. We were the only people there to enjoy the hot springs pools and were accidentally given the Luxury Cottage instead of the plain double room. A great stop altogether, nice and relaxing before our 20-hour busride to Cape Town!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1160117280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1160117280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1160117280/tpod.html Fri, 13 Oct 2006 03:57:54 -0400 From the Snows of Kilimanjaro to the Shores of the Cape of Good Hope

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Cape Town, South Africa

And back to civilization we go! Wow, what a place - Cape Town is absolutely beautiful, and has everything - a happening downtown, a beautiful waterfront with restaurants and shops, and best of all a stunning backdrop with the 1000m high Table Mountain rising dramatically out of the center of it all!

We have spent the last week here and it has simply been outstanding. The very first day we were incredibly lucky in terms of the weather, with absolutely clear blue skies, so we wasted no time and decided to climb up Table Mountain. It was quite a hike, and despite all of our training(!) we were huffing and puffing as we got to the top. But the views were definately worth it, as we got a fantastic 360 view of Cape Town and all the way down to Cape Point! Now, for the getting down part, we decided to strap ourselves into a harness and abseil down. It was quite fun - we repelled 112 meters down the sheer cliff face of the Table. Half-way down there was a little surprise (for those of you who would like to do this some day don't read the next line), when the cliff ended and we were hanging in the void for the rest of the way down! Very fun.

On our second night we got a taste of what it must be like to live in the beautiful suburbs - Constantia - when our friends Nicky and Jacques from Paris invited us to dinner at their brother's house, a long-time Cape Town resident. Eating French food (God, we've missed it!) cooked by Jacques, drinking fantastic South African wine (we've missed wine too!), while exchanging stories about the bush, we had a wonderful evening.

The next day, our introduction into South African wines continued as we took a drive inland to the vineyards. We arrived in a little town called Stellenbosch, which is renowned for its beautiful estates and the excellent wines that they produce! There we met up with some Ozzie friends whom we have been meeting up with since Malawi, Natalie and Renee, and a South African girl, Cara, whom we had met in Vic Falls and who extended an invitation to the four of us to stay with her when we made it to her neck of the woods. Well, we all four took her up on it, and stayed on her living room floor in Stellenbosch for the weekend enjoying the company, the wines, and the town!

On Sunday, we left Natalie and Cara in Stellenbosch, and with Renee headed down to Hermanus, a lovely beach town that is the put-in point for...drum roll, please...shark-cage diving!! Yes, that is correct, we decided that we wanted to dive with the Great Whites of South Africa. We got delayed one day due to the storm that rolled in on Sunday night, causing 5m swells on Monday morning! The captain called and told us it was cancelled, so instead we went to watch the waves crashing against the beach as well as the whales playing in the waves! The Southern Right Whales come to Hermanus, in particular, but all along the Cape coast, in general, in great numbers between Sept and Nov to mate and calf. We saw loads of them breaching, swimming upside-down with their tales in the air, and rolling in the surf having fun!

Luckily, the following day the surf had come down enough for us to go out in search of sharks. And luckily for us as well, we got to go out with the Great White Guru down here, Brian McFarlene! This guy has been doing it the longest of any other operator down here and always hosts National Geographic and Discovery whenever they want to do a piece on these feared ocean predators. We were about 18 that got on the boat, incidentally, called Predator, to go find the sharks. The boats go to where the sharks are, and it happened that the morning that we went out the sharks were in the bay. This was rather unfortunate because the bay never has as good visibility as the deep water channels further away from shore, but as Brian told us, we have to follow the sharks, the sharks won't follow us.

Once we got into position, we then began the chumming process. Brian puts a very pungent, smelly bag of fish guts in the water, that will send the smell in a 200 meter radius of the boat. The sharks will pick up on the smell and come towards the boat. He said that he used to do it with animal blood, but that fish guts actually much better. Now there are all sorts of regulations around this activity that are very strict, including no touching of the sharks, no free-diving, and no introducing any products that are not naturally found in the ocean (ie animal blood). These regulations have actually been developed by marine-biologists in conjunction with the shark-cage operators (some of which are in fact research teams), as over the past few years since increased shark attacks along the coast have been blamed on shark-cage diving. The research shows pretty conclusively that cage-diving is not related to the increased number of attacks, but rather other factors such as waning fish populations and increased water temperatures are.

Anyway, back to the exciting stuff. We started the chumming process, and were still chumming with no results about 40 minutes later. We were about to leave to find another area, when , Brian who was sitting on the mast at the back of the boat yells out that he sees a shark approaching on the next swell. All of a sudden, the shark was circling the boat - an (apparently) small 3 meter Great White. He took our breath away. Then he disappeared. Two other sharks came and went. Brian said that these guys were no good because in order to start the cage-dive you needed sharks that would stick around and play. Once you get a shark that wants to play, you throw in a huge piece of tuna and a foam seal cut-out. If the shark attempts to grab the bait or the seal, Brian will pull it closer to the cage, bringing the shark with it and giving the divers a fantastic view, and then lift it out of the water so that the shark doesn't eat it.

Well, we finally got some sharks to play, and Philippe and I were in the first group of divers. Five of us got in, in thick black wetsuits (the water temp is a freezing 12 degrees C!), looking incidentally like seals, and waited til the crew yelled "down"! Then you duck all the way down to the bottom of the cage, and hold your breath as these enormous predators come right up to the cage, showing us their teeth, their huge glossy eyes, and their unbelievable body mass. Once again, I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. But probably the most surprising result for the day was that at no point was I scared, and in fact, having had a most terrible fear of sharks (even in the swimming pool!) since I was little, I think I have finally been rid of it. Not that I would like to run into one in the open water unprepared, but I no longer have the irrational, blind fear of the beasts as before. But let's not go too far, they are not your friendly, misunderstood dolphins in a bigger body - they are one of nature's most deadly predators - in fact, we learned that a female will have 7-8 sharks in her "womb" but will only give birth to one, the others having been cannibalized by the one that is born, and that when she gives birth, she loses her appetite so that she won't eat her own newborn. But, they are not the man-eating monsters of Jaws!

Our other adventures in Cape Town included our visit to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was kept prisoner for 18 years and which has now been made into a museum where tours are given by former political prisoners. Our final adventure in Cape Town was our trip down to Cape Point, the most south-westernly point in Africa. It was quite beautiful though of course foggy, but what else can one expect of a cape that has caused so many shipwrecks in maritime history!

Now, we are off to Mozambique. We have decided we need to have some good beach time before heading home to Paris!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159450500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159450500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159450500/tpod.html Fri, 13 Oct 2006 03:23:29 -0400 From the Snows of Kilimanjaro to the Shores of the Cape of Good Hope

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Swakopmund, Namibia

Yesterday we arrived in Swakopmund, which is a quintessential German town on the Atlantic Coast. This afternoon, in approximately an hour and a half we are scheduled for a sky dive over the dunes! The sun should just be setting so the colors should be incredible.

From here we are going to go to the Nauklaft Mountains for a few days of hiking and then off to Sesriem to see more dunes.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159277640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159277640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159277640/tpod.html Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:41:24 -0400 From the Snows of Kilimanjaro to the Shores of the Cape of Good Hope

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Twyfelfontein, Namibia

twy
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158919980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158919980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158919980/tpod.html Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:40:24 -0400 From the Snows of Kilimanjaro to the Shores of the Cape of Good Hope

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Tsumeb, Namibia

For the two most developed countries that we have yet to visit in Southern Africa, transportation was surprisingly difficult. From Maun, we were able to get a nice public bus to a town about 10 km from the border in the North, gateway to Namibia's Caprivi Strip. However, from there we had to wait for a minibus to fill to get to the border, and there seemed to be nobody but us interested in crossing the border that afternoon. After asking a few people if they knew of alternative transportation to the border, word got around town, and soon a guy turned up offering his truck. That was step one. Step 2 was from the border to the Namibian border town of Divundu again about 10 k from the border. When we got thru immigration, there was a collection of people waiting for some sort of transport to Divundu as well. A policeman told us that someone was coming and to just wait. With no other option, we took a seat. About 30 min later, he brought his own truck around and we all hopped in the back - since the price is always per person, i guess he figured no one else would be coming through that afternoon to be his clients! Step 3 was from Divundu a town which we quickly realized had NOTHING to Rundu. By this time, it was already 5pm, and we were worried that we wouldn't find any minibus, bus, or other driver with whom we could hitchhike. however, luck was on our side, and when the policeman dropped us at the gas station, an NGO worker who was filling up told us that she was just heading to Rundu and that we could ride with her. Fantastic.

The next day we went to Tsumeb on a minibus that actually obeyed all traffic rules and speed limits. Tsumeb is the staging point for visiting Etosha National Park, where you absolutely need our own car. So we rented a little Volkswagon, and started our self-guided tour through this fantastic game park, attempting to put what we learned from Lesh into practice.

We were simply astounded by the amount of game there is to be viewed at Etosha. Unbelievable. Literally herds of thousands of zebras. Prides of lions that can go into the 20s. Elephant troups that number in the 30s. We spent 4 days riding around, and had fantastic surprises each day. Highlights include: watching a breeding herd of elephant around a man-made water hole that was like a shallow pool. A tiny new born elephant was with them, and as she was watching mom and the others take a drink, she got too close and fell in. The scene was heartwrenching as the whole herd starting trumpeting and crying out. Baby's reaction was to put her trunk in the air to use as a snorkel as she swam about frantically. Finally, three elephants were able to pull her out, only to have her fall back in about three minutes later. Once that happened, it seemed that the older elephants rebuked the mother elephant and threatened not to help this time, moving away from the water hole in protest. In the end, the baby was pulled out again, but with much difficulty.

Another highlight was coming upon a water hole where a pride of 4 lions had attacked a rhino and was feasting on its entrails.

Our last evening, we were watching the sun setting over the water hole when a lone white rhino came along. He was beautiful to watch, did his little song and dance, and then moved on. A few minutes later, however, a second rhino arrived, started to drink when he was interrupted by a loud snort from the first rhino. Apparently there was bad blood between them and they ended up in a head to head stand off - both of them grunting and snarling, until finally rhino number 2 stepped down and moved back towards the waterhole. However, the drama was not over - a third rhino showed up. This one a girl rhino and she and Rhino 2 start snuggling in the middle of the water hole - rubbing heads and horns. It was very cute to watch, but Rhino 1 wasn't too happy about it. He came down to the waterhole, and the standoff recommenced. Once again, rhino 2 stepped down, and got out of the waterhole. But apparently, girl rhino was going to chose love over strength, and got out too to console her man. They then began quite a violent display of courtship...one could have almost mistaken it for fighting. But when rhino 2 got behind girl rhino and put his huge legs on her back, the intent became quite clear. However, they were not to consumate this love entente because rhino 1 came back and started snorting again, ruining the moment for girl rhino who sent rhino 2 packing. It was like watching a rhino soap opera, though after a few more episodes of courtship and standoffs we got bored and went to bed, and never did find out if rhino 2 and girl were successful!

Well, enough animal love stories.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158572760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158572760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158572760/tpod.html Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:21:09 -0400 From the Snows of Kilimanjaro to the Shores of the Cape of Good Hope

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Maun, Botswana

A short busride from Kasane and we landed in Maun. We had heard lots about Maun from Chrissy and Josh, who couldn't stop raving about the place. We used it as our put in point for our trip to the Okavango Delta, a UNESCO classified world heritage site made up thousands of acres of swamp. But we aren't talking about a muddy swampland, but a swamp where the water is so pure and clear that you can drink it directly out of the river as you canoe.

We had gotten a good reference from our fellow rafters in Vic Falls about an excellent company - good guides for cheap! So we gave Drifters a call, and five minutes later we had set up our flight for the next morning out to the Inner Delta where we spend three days in a tented camp.

The next morning, we took our small aircraft captained by a British pilot, who had simply decided one day to quit his job and come fly in Botswana, to Baobab Island. We were the only two passengers on the plane and were the only two staying at the camp for all four days. It was a bit scary as the plane took off on the bumpy airstrip, but once we were up in the air, we had a fantastic view - we could watch herds of elephants bathing in the pools and giraffes running across the plains, like any opening in a good movie about Africa.

We were met by our guide, Lesh, who is probably the most knowledgeable guide in the business. The man could identify a blue crane hiding in the grass reeds 400 meters away, while we were struggling to see it in our binoculars. He could talk your ear off about baobab trees just as long as he could talk about the breeding habits of caracal cats and could faithfully imitate the different calls (mating, hunger, anger, etc) of mammals as well as those of bird. Our first encounter with the Okavango wildlife took place about 2 km from the isolated airstrip (nothing more than a narrow dirt road) where we touched down, when Lesh suddenly stopped the jeep short. Lions, he said. We looked around blankly. Then he pointed to a spot not 5 meters away from the truck. A full grown male lion was lying tranquilly in the grass. Behind him, 4 females and a young male were also lazing about in the shade. Lesh warned us that we shouldn't stand up or talk loudly or jump out of the vehicle to get on top of the lion's back, as Philippe had asked hopefully. But at that point, we were so impressed by the lions' size and silent assurance that following the instructions was quite easy.

Lesh took us about 10 km in the jeep before we hopped into our first mokoro, or dug-out canoe, though these days because they have so much tourism in the area, the government has forbidden tour companies to use real wooden trunks for the canoes in order to limit the damage done to the okavango tree population, so our canoe was the same shape but made out of plastic. Lesh then poled us the rest of the way to the Baobab Island, through narrow passages within the papyrus reeds, and across large open swamp areas where a huge population of marabou had settled down for mating season. He explained that Baobab Island is in the middle of several deep river passages, which reduces the number of wild animals that can come to visit - while lions may try to take the plunge, leopards and smaller cats generally do not. Elephants, giraffes, kudus, and other larger species however can swim through the passages so those were the animals we could expect to give us a visit. And of course, this was home to many hippos and crocodiles, though thankfully hippos confine themselves to small pools hidden in the middle of papyrus groves during the day and only come out at night. Otherwise, the risk posed to mokoros would be too great - you did not want to surprise a hippo in one of these narrow passages, apparently, we would have no chance against those big mouths. However, they will let you know that they are there by letting out a loud laugh when you pole by.

We made it to our island with no hippo encounter, and settled into our tent which enjoyed the shade of a huge sausage tree. It was mid-day, too hot for animals, so we were to have a rest until 4 in the afternoon when we would go on our first game walk. But just as we were finishing up lunch, we heard the sounds of huge feet splashing in the water. A few minutes later, Lesh pointed a finger into the trees and said, "he's coming." All of a sudden, a huge bull elephant came into view. Lesh positioned us in the camping ground and told us to wait as the elephant would pass just in front of us. And then, there he was. Pulling up small palm trees with his trunk to eat the roots, sucking up palm nuts that were lying on the ground, minding his business as though nobody else were standing just meters away. Needless to say, its a real thrill to be so close to such a huge beast.

The next day, we had a similar experience, only Lesh had gone to the other side of the camp. So Philippe and i were alone in the camp when two mama elephants and two babies decided to come through and say hello. We were acting calm and harldy moving as we had learned the day before, and were just watching as one of the mamas coming closer and closer. We couldn't believe how close we were, and I told Philippe how no one would believe it when we wrote in the travelog that we were alone in the camp with an elephant just 10 meters away. He said, not 10 meters, 20. I said no, 10. He insisted on 20. Since we were both intransigent on the issue, he decided to pace out 10 meters across the camp (in the opposite way of the elephant) in order to compare. However, in our dispute, we had forgotten the golden rule of animal viewing - don't move too much. As Philippe paced, the elephant took notice, and got uncomfortable. And just when he came back to where I was standing, she looked at us, flapped her ears, and made a mock charge. Philippe kept cool, not moving and slowly moving to sit down, while I started frantically looking around for Lesh. As usual, he had spotted the elephant from the other side of the island, so he was there by the time she mock charged. After the mock charge, she settled back into browsing, and soon after left to join the rest of the group with the babies.

The rest of the days consisted of fantastic game walks, swimming in the hippo-free pools, poling lessons, animal tracking, and one evening when we poled out to a hippo pool to wake them up from their daytime naps. It was a fabulous experience, and weren't ready to leave when the airplane came back to pick us up!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159436160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159436160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1159436160/tpod.html Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:03:27 -0400 From the Snows of Kilimanjaro to the Shores of the Cape of Good Hope

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Kasane, Botswana

After the thrills of Vic Falls, we began a new leg of the trip - in search of wild animals. The adventures began in Chobe National Park, one of Botswana's best game parks, where beasts of all sizes come to resource themselves on the banks of the Chobe River.

We encountered several animals, but the best would be to show you when we get home (with the help of Photoshop, I mean, photos, and the sound effects which will be provided by Philippe...after a few beers.)

So, after an early game drive with a 6am departure, and a river safari, we are off to the Okavango Delta!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158140160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158140160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158140160/tpod.html Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:29:15 -0400 From the Snows of Kilimanjaro to the Shores of the Cape of Good Hope

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Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Bulawayo

Took the luxurious bus to Bulawayo - in addition to the waitress serving complementary drinks and snacks, probably the most luxurious part was that the driver did not go at break-neck speeds and restricted himself to the posted speed limits (a nice change from most buses).

Once we arrived and set up camp in Grey's Inn, we organized a car rental for the next day to visit the Matopos National Park. But before taking our Toyota fourwheeler for a spin, we stopped by the Bulawayo National History Museum. Although it has not been kept up very well, the quality of the exhibits was impressive! There was a huge stuffed animal exhibit, that allowed us to straighten out which antlers belong to which antelopes, an impressive walk-through mine (Zimbabwe produces copper, gold, uranium, and other minerals), and interesting relics from different African tribes that were collected at the time that Rhodes and his men came through.

After our little cultural excursion, we headed for the national park - home to Zimbabwe's largest population of black rhino, but most well known for its rock formations and caves containing San wall paintings dating back 2000 years. Philippe was a fantastic driver - not only did he successfully stay on the left (wrong) side of the road, but he was able to negotiate very difficult unpaved roads, getting us up and over boulders, through sand, and over dry river beds.
Due to the low volume of tourists in general in Zim, we were 2 out of 6 people to visit the park during the day, and the ONLY tourists to be spending the night in the park. Since we had gotten a late start, we ended up getting into the park just before sunset, and had to set up our tent in the dark. It was a very eery feeling indeed to know that there were no people for miles and miles around - just us with the leopards, crocs, and hippos.

We ate our little dinner that we had brought along under the light of the full moon, and enjoyed our first solo bush experience.

The next day, we got up bright and early to explore the park and its caves, and had a wonderful time hiking up the huge matopos (bald heads), to, as one Zimbabwean explained to us, communicate with our ancestors. We made it back to Bulawayo just before dark, in time to hop on the train for the next leg of the adventure - Vic Falls!!

PS, Concerning the train: My cousin Ant had told us that he wasn't sure that it would be working between Bulawayo and Vic Falls because the train had derailed the week before we arrived. It turned out that it was running, and we were able to snag the last two first class sleepers. We were lucky because we actually had our own little compartment for two, in a train that dated back to colonial days (with the Rhodesian Railways emblem still on all the windows, though the National Zimbabwe Railroad initials had been written in large letters on each car), and so our little compartment had beautiful wooden furnishings with dark green leather sleepers, and a beautiful brass basin for washing hands and teeth! It turned out that two nights later, the train derailed once again, causing several deaths because a herd of buffalo was blocking its path. We thanked our lucky stars that we had not dawdled too much in Bulawayo!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158051060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158051060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tychii/africa_2006/1158051060/tpod.html Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:28:35 -0400 From the Snows of Kilimanjaro to the Shores of the Cape of Good Hope

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Harare, Zimbabwe

It's been a long time since our last entry, so to quickly fill you in:

It was very difficult to leave our little backpackers' paradise on the shores of Lake Malawi, with its fantastic food and beautiful setting, but we finally made it out of Nkhata Bay and on to the next destination. We took the overnight bus down to Blantyre, arrived at 6 in the morning, and hopped on the 7am bus to Harare. It was a pretty painless bus ride, and arrived more or less on time, which is always a pleasant surprise, despite 2 border crossings (once into Mozambique, and then into Zimbabwe).

There were only three other tourists on the bus with us and had met very few other travelers along the way that had gone through Zimbabwe, so we were rather surprised when we got to the guesthouse to find it full. Three others on the same street were also full, so we had to settle for a bizarre little guesthouse that smelled like cooked cabbage and had a bathtub that hadn't been washed since the 1980s. Over the next few days that we spent in Harare, we didn't see one other tourist on the street. The explanation for the full guesthouses, we were told, was that many illegal immigrants have come to Zimbabwe to make a buck during its crisis (mostly through import/export) and take up residence in the guesthouses. Also, many of those who had lost their homes in Operation "Clean Up the Trash," a government operation to raze all the shanty towns around the capital city, also have taken residence there.

For a country in crisis, Harare showed virtually no signs of it. The streets were filled with people in suits going to work, there were hardly any homeless or beggars loitering in the parks, and the city's skyscrapers were still sparkling. The only giveaway were the long lines at the banks as people waited to withdraw money...something that we had not seen anywhere else in Africa so far. In fact, people are not officially allowed to have more than 100,000 Zim dollars on them because the bank has had a terrible time with people hording money. Since the government refuses to let the currency float, the Zim dollar is way overvalued - the official exchange rate to the dollar is 250 Zim to 1 US, whereas the real rate is more like 700 Zim to 1 US. This means that no one uses the banks or the other official channels to exchange money and instead uses the black market. This, in turn, means that there is a lot of money to be made in exchanging forex...hence, people hord money, taking it in and out of the country in order to exchange it and make a buck. The end result is that when the government most recently changed the currency (the reserve bank has put an expiration date on all the notes and bills) on August 1st, more than 10 billion Zim dollars were missing. People had 21 days to turn in their old currency for the new bills (from which the government had removed three zeros in order to make the sums less enormous...before the change, one stamp would have been 900,000 Zim dollars, a large sum to carry around when the biggest note was 10,000!) The reserve bank has said that it will have to change the money again, but this time they will only allow people 24 hours to change their currency...

As I said, apart from having to exchange money on the parallel market and the occasional shortages at restaurants of various items, as a tourist you would hardly know that there was a crisis. We spent two days at a Lodge just outside of town that has an adjacent game reserve where we could walk out by ourselves among the zebra, elands, and bucks. After a bit of R&R at the lodge, my cousin Anthony came to pick us up and we spent two days with him in and around Harare, having a wonderful time exploring the city and catching up. We went horseback riding at the Mukuvisi Woodlands, where we got up close and personal with giraffes, all sorts of buck, zebra, and wildebeest. Unfortunately, the park has no more elephant or buffalo, as they had to sell many of their animals to other parks in order to survive...this private park was formerly supported by donations from farmers, but since the farming industry has collapsed, they now get by by the skin of their teeth.

In fact, many of the parks around the country have suffered from the economic crisis. Not only are their far fewer tourists, but poaching for food and firewood by surrounding villagers has increased, reducing the flora and fauna of these parks.

After having a high tea at Meikles, a last Lion beer with Anthony, and a failed attempt to make it to Lake Kariba, we left for Bulawayo.
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