Travel to Zimbabwe May 7, 2008

It was with some trepidation that we got on a British Airways flight to Zimbabwe. Arrangements were made and money traded hands, or at least went from one electronic tally collection to another. All was in readiness, we were assured. But in this strange new cyber world, we realized we had not spoken to a soul. Could the Cape town travel agency website with a nice picture of agent “Robyn” really be Cape a front for a clever scam artist name Bruto?

The other concern was Zimbabwe itself. There had been problems there for some time; circumstances were increasing dreadful for the poor Zimbabweans. The economy was suffered inflation of 1000’s percent – some said millions. It was not our intent to travel in a politically unstable country. We just wanted to get the best view of Victoria Falls which, we were told, was on the Zimbabwe side. Our arrangements were made in March; by the time we arrived in May, there had been an election gone bad and tension was palpable. As it turned out, the hostilities did not interfere with our trip. We were quite safe. At the same time, we found ourselves witness to personal tragedy in the making, and no longer have the luxury of classifying Zimbabwean people as anonymous “others”.

We traveled with a lot of American dollars, about $1000 dollars between us, in small bills. As a practical matter, the Zimbabwe currency was next to useless. Our son, a frequent traveler in Zim assured us that US dollars would work everywhere. He encouraged us to have enough on us uncase of unforeseen circumstances which I assumed included a bribe if necessary. Use of credit cards was not recommended since you had no idea what exchange rate you would be getting. Just to get in the spirit of things, I put two hundred dollars in my shoes. James Bond has nothing on me. OK. Maybe a little silly but it was reassuring to me.

The flight from Jo Berg to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe was pretty much like any other. We could see the falls in the distance as we approached the airport. They looked a little like a small cloud sitting on the African plain. It was the mist from the power of huge amounts of water falling long distances.

Our customs declaration had asked us, among other things, how much cash we were carrying. Conspiracy theorist that I am, I wanted to lie. Our travel agent informed us that entrance to the country would probably cost 30 USD per person, but that this could change. We of little faith were concerned that that amount might “change” to just what we were carrying. Burt, the ever-wise legal mind, pointed to the word “perjury” on the form and we decided that the truth would set us free. Maybe broke, but free.

The airport was small and, perhaps more to the point, quiet. A single airstrip and a single building that had seen better days. We were rounded up and led into a large room with two desks up in front. Then things got confusing. It was necessary to go to the first desk and present your passport and pay your “Visa Fee” which did indeed turn out to be USD 30. There a man wrote out a receipt, by hand, stamped a bunch of things and referred you to the second person. Again a form was laboriously filled out, a rather fancy looking visa was issued and attached to the passport and some more stamping took place. Finally, you could go to the back part of the room to sort through piles of luggage, hopefully finding your own.

To say this process was slow would not do justice to the experience. We were about 6th in line; there were perhaps 80 people behind us. It was almost half an hour by the time we obtained our visas and “entered” the country. I have no idea how long it took the people and the end of the line.

After retrieving our bags, and seeing nowhere else to go, we passed through a door into another equally dismal room – but this opened to the outside where various forms of transport waited. Now was the moment of truth. Were we to be met, or were we abandoned? Glancing to our right we saw a tall, dark, smiling man, wearing the khaki uniform of a tour service holding up a white board with our name on it. His greeting was pleasant and enthusiastic – so was ours as we tried to hide our relief.

It turns out we had nothing to worry about. Our experiences with all the lodges we stayed at, all the game drives, boat trips and transport among lodges were flawless, in both Zimbabwe and Botswana. We met nothing but delightful people anxious (too anxious?) to serve and see that we were comfortable.

We were loaded onto a van with, as our driver cheerfully pointed out “African air conditioning”. The windows were open. Our trip took about an hour on a tree lined two-lane road, which we shared with a few other cars, a lot of pedestrians, and donkey carts. We drove through the town of Victoria Falls and to a transfer point.

There we were met by a Toyota 4 wheel drive truck and transported by a man who introduced himself as “Clever, but I’m not clever”. The last several miles to the lodge were on a bumpy, dusty dirt road through the trees and underbrush. Other than birds, we didn’t see animals on this short trip, but we knew for sure we were no longer in Sacramento. We were in the bush of Africa, or, as Burt put it, a million miles from nowhere