Sunday, 15 June 1986: A Scenic Return to Bulawayo & Thoughts on Civil Liberties

June 29, 11:00AM, home of Abe and Vera, Lusaka, Zambia & July 7, 10:30AM, home of Penny & Adrian Feather, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

On Sunday morning, I drove George’s car back over to Troutbeck where he was staying during his conference.  On the way, I took a side trip to a lookout point called World’s View from which I saw the Nyanga tribal lands in a lush agricultural valley 2000 feet below and to the west.  After meeting up with George, we headed south stopping at a national park campground to pick up two adventurous Aussies whom I had met on Mount Inyangani the previous day.  They were probably late 20s and travelling around by thumb and African buses while trying to stick to a budget of US$7 per person per day (half of my budget).  They were planning to head north in a couple weeks to travel by land and riverboat through Zaire (Congo), a country known for gross inefficiency, robberies, and heavy rainfall.  They are hoping to make it across the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro in about a year, then on to England to work for a while.  Their proposed itinerary made me feel lazy by comparison!

George drove us back to Bulawayo but by a different route than we had taken to get to the Nyanga area.  We first went south for 225km via a smooth 2-lane highway through forest plantations and spectacular grey granite domes, through the small city of Mutare, then on to the Birchenough Bridge where we turned west and drove through about 450kms of low mountains and bush via Masvingo to Bulawayo.  

From Nyanga National Park our route descended nearly 4000 feet (1200 meters) to the tropics at Birchenough Bridge, then gradually climbed to the west to Bulawayo at 4341 feet (1323 meters). 

 

Just before Mutare, we hit the first of numerous army road blocks we would encounter during the day (actually the second for me, as I had been stopped by one in the early morning when I went to pick up George).  The soldiers wanted to see what we had in the boot (trunk).  As George showed them our luggage, they asked who the other three guys were.  “Tourists – two Australians and an American,” came the reply from George.  That was fine and they let us go without further delay.  As we crossed Christmas Pass, Mutare spread before us in the green valley below.  We let the Aussies off at a campground at the pass and wished them luck – they’re going to need it!

During the day, we were stopped by at least a dozen army roadblocks where rifle-toting soldiers inspected the car to make sure we weren’t carrying weapons.  After the recent raid on Harare by South African forces, the Zimbabwe government was trying to project an image of beefed-up security in the country.  The roadblocks were a bit nerve-racking, but the soldiers were generally polite.  We kept our cool and let them look at anything they wanted to see.  

View of Mutare (near the Mozambique border) from Christmas Pass.

 

Mutare is a center for the thriving local timber industry.  George says real estate prices here have skyrocketed in the past year or two.  Why?  Mutare is the principal city on the rail and pipeline corridor between Harare and Beira, an Indian Ocean port city in Mozambique.  This route is the only practical link between Zimbabwe and the outside world which does not go through South Africa.  If the Zim government imposes sanctions on South Africa, it is assumed that South Africa will retaliate by sealing off their northern border with Zimbabwe.  So the Beira corridor will be extremely important to the survival of Zimbabwe which must import its oil and a number of other essential commodities. 

About a mile south of Mutare, we passed the turnoff to the Mozie border, a few miles to the east.  The road looked little used at present due to the ongoing civil war in Mozambique between the ruling FRELIMO communists and the South African-backed MNR guerillas.  The only relatively safe way to travel by road through Mozambique at present is in a convoy with FRELIMO army escorts.  Solo cars and trucks are a favorite target for the MNR boys.  George and I lamented that we couldn’t make a left turn and head east 300kms to Beira, a favorite a seaside resort for white Rhodesians before Mozambique became independent from Portugal in 1975. 

As we headed south, the highway kept losing elevation.  We were now in the low veld, the warm tropical region of southeastern Zimbabwe.  We passed African buses with bundles on the roof and wall-to-wall humans and animals inside.  Cattle and goats grazed along the road.  The Africans don’t use fences or brand their livestock.  It seems that the animals know which African kraal (corral) to return to at night.  Livestock is a road hazard – lead-footed George kept hitting the brakes and dodging cows and goats.  Low, forested, granite mountains were on either side of the valley we were passing through.  There were scores of Africans walking along the highway in brightly-colored Sunday clothes.  They were also crowded around roadside market stands.  We passed an African guy walking along strumming a homemade guitar.  It was a typically warm, sunny winter day. 

We hit our third or fourth road block at the Cashel turnoff.  George speculated that the government might be worrying about security problems with MNR guerillas as we were travelling close to the Mozie border.

Near Hot Springs, we started encountering humongous baobab trees.  George said there used to be a hot springs resort here, but it had been destroyed during the long Rhodesian war.  The mountains on either side of our valley were now lower – long ridges with horizontal bedding.  George pointed out a hand-pumped bore hole (well) where cattle were gathered for a drink.  We passed fields of banana and mango trees.  The small towns along our route had strip commercial areas with buildings of various colors.  Some were vacant.  Boys were leading ox carts.  Other boys stood along the roadside holding bundles of green, elongated baobab fruits.  George said they have a sour taste and are called cream of tartar.

The Birchenough Bridge is an impressive steel arch structure built by the British in the 1930s.  George figured it was okay for me to take photos, so I snapped a couple quickies.  Lazy-looking soldiers on either side of the bridge didn’t seem to notice.  George pointed out two historical plaques at the bridge which had been removed after Zimbabwean independence but had recently been reinstalled.  He said that the government is moving away from its militant de-Europeanization program of a few years ago.  We had fruit drinks at the hotel on the west side of the Save River before heading west.  George remembered staying here as a kid and was disappointed at how run down the hotel had become in recent years.  He speculated that the former white owner may have sold it to an African who didn’t know how to make a go of the place.  White flight from Zimbabwe after independence probably also decreased the size of his customer base.

The Birchenough Bridge over the Save River (pronounced Sa’ ve) was completed in 1935.  It is the longest steel arch bridge in Africa (the arch span is 329.4 meters - 1,081 feet long excluding approaches).  It was designed by Ralph Freeman who also designed the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia.  I noticed that more pedestrians than motor vehicles were using the bridge. 

 

After the bridge, the good 2-lane highway on which we had been travelling gave way to an old one-lane paved affair with wide dirt shoulders.  George sped along in the center of the pavement at 100-110kph until we’d occasionally meet another vehicle.  Then he’d slow down and meet the other driver with the right tires on the beat-up pavement and the left tires on the dirt.  It was particularly exciting when we’d meet a car at the crest of a hill.  At one point, George started to pass an oil tanker when we met another car.  Oh shit!  But he avoided a head-on collision.   This road wound through the bush next to segments of new highway construction and past granite domes as we gradually climbed out of the low veld.

Near Bikita, we encountered what I estimated to be roadblock #8 for the day.  The soldier (or was he a cop?) who checked us this time made us take everything out of the car and open up each suitcase, bag, etc.  He looked under the seats and bonnet (hood) but found no bombs or weapons.  I could tell that George was getting pissed off but he managed to keep his cool.  I didn’t really care as I wasn’t in a hurry but I think George wanted to get back to Bulawayo before darkness fell – a good idea! 

None of the soldiers we encountered at these inconvenient stops ever asked me, the passenger, any questions or demanded to see my passport.  They frequently looked at George’s driver’s license and/or wanted to know the origin and destination of our trip.  Most were polite and even friendly.  After the most thorough exam of the day near Bikita, I told George that had we really been South African commandos, his license would have been a forgery and our weapons wouldn’t be in our suitcases.  We would have hidden them behind door panels, in the undercarriage, or in a secret compartment.  Obviously, these guys weren’t accomplishing much with the roadblocks except demonstrating to the country that they were doing something about security.  George agreed.  He said the soldiers had probably been given orders to search vehicles, and they really didn’t know what they were doing.  He told the story of a soldier who had been ordered to stop vehicles and look at the boots.  So the guy had people get out of their cars so he could look at their footwear.  George didn’t say whether those with un-shined shoes were arrested.        

Just before we reached Masvingo, we passed the turnoff to the Zimbabwe Ruins for which the country is named.  It was getting late so we didn’t stop there.  George talked about the controversy over the origin of the ruins.  The government claims that it was built by a highly developed African society.  Others claim Arabs constructed it. Nevertheless, it is a source of national pride.  George said there are soldiers all over the ruins guarding them – maybe from South African saboteurs?

Masvingo is a center of Shona tribal militancy.  The Shonas and Ndebeles have squabbled over who rules Zimbabwe ever since independence.  Prime Minister Mugabe and his pro-Shona ZANU (PF) Party have taken control of the parliament because of their numerical superiority.  Mugabe is an avowed Marxist and wants to turn Zimbabwe into a one-party state much to the dismay of the Ndebeles led by Joshua Nkomo and the whites who still give their allegiance to former Prime Minister Ian Smith.  As we passed a park in the center of Masvingo, George noted that plaques honoring World War I and II vets as well as a cannon had been removed.  Unlike the plaques at the bridge, they haven’t been replaced.

West of Masvingo, the landscape became relatively flat with bush and some cropland.  Then it became somewhat mountainous again as we travelled over the Great Dyke, a geological feature which bisects the country from northeast to southwest.  There are numerous mines along the dike.  We passed an asbestos mine near Mashava. 

 

Location of the Great Dyke which is not a true volcanic dyke but a linear igneous intrusion that extends about 550km through central Zimbabwe.  The bedrock is more than 2.5 billion years old and is associated with valuable chrome and platinum deposits.  Source:   http://wikimapia.org/6862706/The-Great-Dyke

After yet another roadblock, I launched us into a discussion about civil liberties in Zimbabwe.  “Doesn’t it bother you,” I asked George, “that the police can knock on your door in the middle of the night, arrest you and detain you indefinitely without trial?”  George granted that it did bother him somewhat although, through his company, he has influential contacts in the government.  His company’s attorneys would immediately be asking questions if this happened and would have him out of jail in no time.  Still, I kept thinking how Zimbabwe doesn’t really have speech or press freedoms like most Western democracies.  If you’re arrested here, you don’t have the right to phone your attorney, the right to remain silent, and so forth.  Having gotten used to such guarantees in the USA, I would feel somewhat uncomfortable without them. 

Last night, Adrian and Penny asked if I’d consider living in Africa for an extended period of time.  I told them I had mixed feelings.  In addition to being isolated from American friends and culture, a large impediment would be concern about civil liberties.  Adrian and Penny, like a number of other whites here, hold on to their British passports, figuring the British Embassy will come to their aid should they ever get an unwelcome knock on the door in the middle of the night.  George said there have been incidents where a black employee gets reprimanded by his white boss and decides to get even.  He goes to the police and accuses the man of being involved in foreign currency schemes or some other no-no.  The police arrest the white manager, and it sometimes can take days or weeks for him to establish his innocence.  Even if he does, the black employee who complained will probably not be punished for bearing false witness against his neighbor.

Whites who speak out against the Mugabe government are particularly prone to difficulties.  Take the case of a cheeky fellow of Greek origin who was on the Bulawayo City Council.  The government in Harare complained that Bulawayo hadn’t changed any of its street names to honor the new black state and African people.  “Oh, we have a street named in honor of the government,” this councilman was quick to point out.  “It’s named Borrow Ave.”  The comment was a slam of the Mugabe government for its free-spending, debt-ridden ways.  For this and other equally-cutting political statements, the councilman has been in and out of court for defaming the state.  He’s been sentenced to jail but is currently out on appeal. 

Freedom in Africa is a relative term.  I’d feel much safer in Botswana which has an actual democratic government than I would in Zimbabwe which is democratic constitutionally, but not exactly in practice.  And even Zimbabwe is much freer than an openly Marxist state like Mozambique.      

By the time George and I got back to Bulawayo, I had seen some 800 miles of Zimbabwe.  I spent the next two nights in Bulawayo with Steve and Beryl, a Rotary Club couple, before taking the train back to Harare on Tuesday morning.  Steve and Beryl are in their 60s and are very nice.  They are also very stuffy and proper.  By Monday night I was beginning to go nuts from being socially on guard.  It’s difficult spending so much of one’s time as a guest of other people but with people like them I’m downright uncomfortable.  It’s not that I feel deprived because I can’t fart or yell “fuck”.  I just don’t feel I can be myself.  Still, I maintained my plastic smile. 

Despite the hassles, I can definitely recommend Zimbabwe to the adventurous traveler.  In addition to Nyanga, there are excellent hiking opportunities in the Chimanimani Mountains southeast of Mutare and the Matopos National Park near Bulawayo which I visited with Adrian and Penny.  There are several game parks in the country which give a high priority to wildlife conservation.  And, of course, there is the gem of southern Africa, Victoria Falls, which straddles the Zimbabwe-Zambia border.  After years of civil war, tourists are most definitely welcome here.  And the six years since independence seem to have healed some of the interracial wounds.