Of all the countries we traveled to in Africa, Zimbabwe was the one we were most apprehensive about. You hear horror stories about AIDS, poverty and unemployment, and we learned that most of them are true. However, besides all of these problems, we also learned that Zimbabwe is an amazing place. It started at the border, where wafts of reggae music played in the background and the officials were actually friendly, smiling as we gave them our passports and saying emphatically "Welcome to ZIM!". This continued as we drove through the lush green scenery to Victoria falls, with locals smiling and waving at us through the windows. They seemed so relieved that we were there and that tourists were slowly returning to Zimbabwe.
Our first stop was Victoria falls where we were greeted by a wild elephant outside our inn and then set off to explore the city once it decided to retreat for a bit. One strange thing about the country at the moment is that they don't have their own currency. At most street corners you will find hawkers trying to sell you old money (which is now worthless) in denominations as high as 500 billion Zimbabwe dollars! Apparently right before the currency was abolished you needed an entire backpack of notes to pay for a meal, so 500 billion Zim dollars would probably not even have bought you a loaf of bread. That is inflation for you at its best (or worst, depending on how you see it)! But at the moment most currencies are accepted, with preference given to the US dollar. Everything seems to start at a dollar, and everything seems to end at a dollar. A small coke in a restaurant costs 1 dollar, a medium coke cost 1 dollar, and a large coke costs....you guessed it... 1 dollar. At the curio markets you can also get away with paying a dollar for most things, or even better, swapping old BIC pens for souvenirs. However, after the 5th guy named Happiness or Mr Cool Prince tried to sell me salad spoons shaped like giraffes that I explicitly said I was not looking for, and the 10th little child who did not know what she was saying yelled out "hjelpe me please looking for your friend my mother is blind" I gave up on shopping and went to explore the falls instead.
Victoria falls is nearly impossible to describe, except that you are completely taken aback by the hugeness of it all. You feel tinier than ever before, and although it appears to be raining since there is so much water in the air, the sky is perfectly clear and rainbows appear like happy hallucinations everywhere you look.
Our next destination after Vic Falls was Matopo where we met our rhinoceros trek guide Ian, who was probably the person to give us the biggest insight into the country. The first thing you notice about him, is that he is white, but just as African as the locals. His family has been in Africa for 13 generations, and his first language is not English, but Ndebele (which has some amazing clicks in it!). His best friend is one of the 43 bushmen left in Zimbabwe and he can find everything he needs in the bush. On the short tour we had with him he managed to pick out plants that can be used as hallucinogens, herbs, anaesthetics and even soap, toothbrushes and teeth whiteners! He also told us about his fight against rhinoceros poaches who have killed most of the species for their horns, which are sold at a ridiculous price of around 50,000 USD a kilo as an aphrodisiac to the far east, or turn up as daggers in Yemen. Apparently they capture or kill about 25 poachers each month (though he would not tell us which proportion were actually killed), and as there are only about 400 African white rhinos left, he told us candidly that he would rather lose a client on a rhino trek than shoot a rhino if it attacked. Of course that did not go down too well with all of us on the trek, and at one point we did locate 3 bad-tempered rhinos which were ready to charge. In hindsight it seems quite funny, but I can assure you, at that moment... not so much!
The night bus journey there from the east coast of Malaysia was surprisingly comfortable, with fully reclining chairs. The only problem was the sheer panic that arose when looking out of the window, as the bus driver made a sincere attempt to kill any stray dogs that crossed our path and seemed to enjoy rebelling against the side of the road he should have been driving on (all of this in the pitch dark of night, with a good amount of rain beating against the windows).
However, we made it safely to KL and spent the morning standing in line for tickets to see the Petronas Towers, which are actually quite beautiful and impressive. One interesting thing about the city is how polite everyone seems to be. There are huge crowds in the morning while waiting for the trains, and people actually quietly stand in line waiting for their turn to get on! Hard to imagine... especially after being at Oxford Circus in London during rush hour!
