Victoria Falls, the Zimbabwean town that sits right on top of the falls, used to be the place to be in Southern Africa - it was the home to all of the adventure activities, safaris and cool places to hang out. However in the last couple of years it has been dying the same slow death that Zimbabwe is trying to fight off - battling hyperinflation and the shunning arising from global condemnation. A handful of tourists still go to Zimbabwe, mainly staying in all inclusive lodges, but Livingstone, the Zambian border town, has taken over as the tourist Mecca, and is chock filled with tourists. Livingstone is also filled with Zimbabweans, most trying to make some money by selling stuff on the streets, others buying the basics - like bread - and transporting them across the border, and one woman who runs a lodge in Zimbabwe at the supermarket buying food which is unavailable in Zimbabwe.
Travellers who have been to Zimbabwe tell basically the same story - there is nothing to buy; some Germans who drove from one side to the other said that every petrol station they went past had no fuel, an English guy who went to a take-away chicken restaurant said the only thing you could buy was boiled eggs; and that locals will trade anything with you - some locals were willing to trade to obtain a traveller's pair of dirty, cotton socks !!!
We walked along the road a little, passed through Zambian immigration - receiving a little of chit of paper which was our day pass and headed down to the bridge. On the bridge we saw a few guys fling themselves off the edge to the pulsating beat of some terrible techno music - bungy jumping or sliding along a cable traversing the canyon. It seems it is not enough to simply enjoy the amazing view afforded by the bridge - you have to make like you are falling in order to truly appreciate the grandness of it all. We passed the "You are now entering Zimbabwe" sign on the bridge, took the obligatory photo,
For those who don't know the story of Zimbabwe it can be quickly summarised as follows - when white only rule ended Mugabe, the leader of the resistance did an unspoken deal with the white farmers - who controlled almost all of the arable land, that as long as they didn't involve themselves in politics, the Government would let them be. Zimbabwe proceeded to become the bread basket of Southern Africa as the commercial farms produced large amounts of food, and Zimbabwe exported it's surpluses across Africa. Despite the apparentness of Mugabe's dictatorial nature, the creation of a police state, and willingness to punish his opponents, white farmers stayed on because they were making money hand over fist - millions and millions of dollars at a time.
Political strife occurred when Mugabe sought to alter the Constitution (that he had agreed to with the English) in order to give himself more power. Mugabe lost a referendum, and then slowly turned on the white farmers - painting them as enemies of the people, and putting in to force a land reallocation program - encouraging veterans of the war of independence, and other hangers on to violently take over white farms. This lead to the mass exodus of whites, and the collapse of economic productivity of the large commercial farms - lack of capital and know how meant they dramatically failed, not even producing at subsistence levels for their new occupiers. (Strangely many of the occupiers happened to be friends of Mugabe in high places)
The government in its belligerence decided that the way to resolve its economic difficulties, is simply to print more money - to the point where Zimbabwe has probably the highest rate of inflation in world history - there is a large amount of currency chasing very few goods. (Nobody outside Zimbabwe will exchange anything for Zim dollars, so there are very few imports coming in to Zimbabwe) Thus the currency has become a novelty (see photos below - probably the only time I will ever hold 15 billion dollars in my hand) and you hear stories like honkies going to a restaurant and ordering food, and in the time it takes for the food to be delivered to the table the currency has devalued so much that the diners need to go back on to the street and get more dollars just to pay for the meal.
Finally the border post reared up in the distance, a drab blue building, the paint fading, with large gates on the left and right side. We headed to the gate on the right where people were flowing through the gate. A guy, without uniform, sat in the shade of a lean-to collecting chits of paper from people. He explained that he was just helping out the Government of Zimbabwe, and that if we wanted to get in we needed to go in to the building. So we walked around the other side of the building, looked at each other churlishly and headed for the other gate. This gate was manned by three people - two older guys in grey and red uniforms that were more holes than cloth. They asked us for a chit of paper - because most people can't afford passports or cross so regularly, you get a small piece of paper with a stamp on it which serves as your pass. (If only we had known this before we could have simply got our chit of paper off a local and headed on in) The not at all imposing guards directed us towards to office and we knew the game was up. The office was stuffy, and had the air of something once far grander - there was two counters which divided the room in two - one facing us for those going in and one facing the other side for those going out. The English guy we had walked across the bridge with had paid his $50 and was just getting his passport stamped and on his way to Zimbabwe for the day. We started speaking to the immigration official, asking why we had to pay the money just to enter for a day. He seemed to be missing the cues to what we were suggesting, so I simply asked him straight out if there was a another way of getting in to Zimbabwe which didn't work either. So instead I suggested that perhaps if we were to pay some money he could just put it in his pocket, give us a chit of paper and everybody would be happy. He laughed and we talked about this for a little while - him insisting this wasn't possible, and Damo delicately pointed out that directly offering a bribe in a public place probably wasn't the best idea. A few locals had started forming a queue behind us, so I reluctantly gave up and we headed back to Zambia, our Zimbabwean adventure, cheap, unsuccessful and unfulfilling was over. There was no way any of us were going to pay $50 for a mere stamp in the passport.
On the walk back we met a local guy who said he could get us the required chit of paper for a couple of bucks - but we decided we were now probably infamous at the border (for that day anyway) that it wouldn't be the best idea in the world to get caught in Zimbabwe without the proper visa.
So we never entered Zimbabwe, and all the stories you hear about what is going on there may or may not be true.
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