Update from Harare, Zimbabwe May 5, 2011

Sitting around the fire at Dan’s Mavunje Camp 12 kilometers down a dirt road from the tarmac to Botswana and 2 kilometers off that road down a sandy car track to the camp site. Dan is a very gracious Englishman who came for a holiday 4 years ago and decided to become a permanent resident of Namibia. He was a contractor in England and now he is building up a camp site on the side of the Mashi Marsh/River which eventually feeds into the Okavango River system. Dan’s camp is not fully set up yet, but it is wonderfully comfortable in a primitive sort of way and his Mashi River Safari boat tour was fantastic.

We wound around thru the hippo paths in the marsh. We saw lots of hippos. We didn’t see any crocodiles, but they were there! We also came upon a lone male elephant along the bank who appeared to be about 12 or 13 years old and was perhaps just evicted from the heard of females and young elephants by the dominate male. We were about 40 feet away from him and he didn’t really seem to mind our presence. You can see the dark “tears” down his check which come from a gland that indicates stress. All that was Dan’s thinking about this photogenic fellow.

There were hippos in the campsite during the night and maybe elephants that cross the marsh regularly to raid the farmer’s fields of corn or sorghum and then go back along a trail that combines swimming, walking in marsh water, and traversing lone small islands back into a park like reserve. There are also lions, cheetahs, and leopards and lots of game animals that they eat in the swampy region – we didn’t see any of those big cats, but I think I heard either a lepard or a cheetah or maybe a lion (all present in this area) sneaking around by my tent at night.

One of the interesting things I notices as we sat around the fire at night, was the Big Dipper upside down and very clear just above Dom’s head as we sat in a circle around our little fire. The stars and Milky Way in the human light deprived marshy area of the Mashi outback are incredibly bright and clear. Don’t miss it.

Next day thru the Caprivi Strip, a long thin arm sticking out from the main body of Namibia to the east and then down into Botswana and around up into Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls. There are lots of elephants in Zimbabwe. I was on the trail and there were signs.

At the Chobe Lodge Safari we finally found our first lions and more elephants and Springbok and Wart Hogs and lots of other animals. Great day in the sand.

We have now gone on to Bulawayo and Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe and the home of all the Embassies we need to get Visas from for continued travel up to Egypt – we hope.

Ethiopian Embassay this morning and the lady met us at the gate and taught us a little song mother's sing to thier children before eating, before the Secratary arrived and all went very smoothly. At three this afternonn, we will have our "impossible to get" Visas for Ethiopia in hand.

Zimbabwe is not alone in having a very negative reputation inside and outside of Africa. We were expecting a very poor country  when we crossed the border into Zimbabwe with shortages of food and fuel and really bad roads and a corrupt military and police trying to take advantage of us poor travelers at every check point. Instead, we found from our observations only, of course, that we are in the second most prosperous country (next to South Africa) since we arrived in Africa, there are as elsewhere we’ve been, police check points along the highways, but they are manned by courteous cops with accurate functioning radar guns, we have not been harassed for small bribes to let us pass (even on a couple of occasions when we were speeding a bit). The roads are pretty good (for Africa) with not many unfilled pot holes. Fuel is available regularly – and a bit expensive. Food is not a problem in the grocery stores or in the sometimes uppity city restaurants. Meat is always a bit tough, but very well prepared – good cooks in Zimbabwe. And, there are lots of people looking very middle class in their suits and nice cars. Even in the rural areas, we found that everyone seems to be well dressed in clean colorful clothes, the grass or otherwise constructed traditional round homes in compounds similar to the other places we’ve so far been in Africa seem a bit larger and for the most part more well maintained that in those parts of Mozambique, Namibia, and Botswana that we’ve ridden through so far. There are more bicycles on the roads in the rural areas that we’ve seen elsewhere. There are here as in other parts we’ve been to, donkey carts and lots of women especially carrying large loads of stuff on their heads as they walk along the roadways to …. But, without doubt, Zimbabwe seems more prosperous than at least some of its neighbors.

We have had a few conversations about the politics and political life here in Zimbabwe. The “President for life”, Mugabe, is nearing the end of his life and people expect him to die in the next few short years. The favored sentiment that I’ve picked up is that a few more years of political repression under Mugabe and a peaceful transition to a less oppressive political course after is much preferable to an internationally forced hurry up transition with factions being created by the contest for the next would be African dictator – perhaps splitting the Army and Police into opposing armed camps and the instability which it would  create throughout the economy. The nastiness of the “land reform” where all the White Zimbabwean farmers were disposed at the end of a gun – or killed, is from my few conversations with middle class Zimbabweans, admittedly a blot on the country’s history. As one of my conversant put it, “Redistributing the land – sharing the wealth of Zimbabwe more equitably between the Blacks and Whites – was an absolute necessity. But, it should have been done without the loss of life and under a regimen of an appropriate structured settlement.” It was many years ago now and there seems to be a split of opinion between “let sleeping dogs lie” and “let’s find a way to reconcile the actions of the past with a bright future for all Zimbabweans”.

The Chinese are here. Mining, building roads and such. Americans? Haven’t seen the evidence of our presence or of any big interests from “the West”.

More later.

Oh! The foot is getting better. Still hurts to walk, but today I did about 8 kilometers in the sun – still standing at the end of the day, but very red headed!