Hey, we’re back. (Just want to see the photography?)

My wife and I just returned — on the 20th of May — from 17 of the most glorious days one could hope to experience. Our travels brought us once again to the heart — and desperately slow heartbeat — of southern Africa: Zimbabwe. Those of you who know us well are familiar with our travel habits; this trip to Zim is nearly an annual occurrence and one we look quite forward to each and every time. Tales of misadventure aside — which include a destructive elephant and disgruntled hippo in separate attacks — Zimbabwe was different this time.

We kicked off our journey back on the 4th of May taking off from Charleston for London (via Washington). We’d planned a few nights in the U.K. to see some friends and to break up the long-haul flights on both the outbound and inbound trips — and this turned out to be the perfect plan. It’s just over 18,000 miles en route¹ when flying from the southeast United States north through Europe and then down the length of the African continent. Just over 20 hours in the air.

When we arrived in Harare around 9am local time, Judes and I queued for our Zim visas (one of the cash-strapped government’s legal ways of collecting foreign currency), grabbed our over-stuffed bags, paid Z$10,000² for parking, and headed off into the Blue.

On the airport road into Harare, passing under the Independence Arch erected in 1980, Judes and I remarked there was a different feeling in the country this time. As the country’s Tourism Authority says:

“Zimbabwe calls upon you for a moment, to reflect on the wonders of human creativity and civilisation.”

We couldn’t agree more. And no one knows it better than my wife, Jude. (She was born and raised in the country.) The landscapes and offerings of Zimbabwe are no doubt some of the best in the world.

It’s coming into winter in the southern hemisphere — a beautiful time of the year to be in Africa. But there were less cars on the road. There were fewer people around. It seemed less chaotic. Less desperate. It was almost calm. We’re unsure why though. The city of Harare — in fact, the entire country of Zimbabwe — is starving. Food is short. Cash is even shorter. Fuel is nearly impossible to obtain. There’s a dire need for foreign exchange to purchase essentials. Robert Mugabe’s failure as president and recent bad press³ has spawned new resolve in the people of Zimbabwe. They love their country and they want it back.

This was our holiday after all, and we intended it to be just that. There’s much happening in our lives at the moment — which I’ll write more about later — so Jude and I were much in need of a few days disconnected from it all. For myself especially, a trip to a land so distant is a welcome respite. Here in America, everyone is ever-connected to their computers, televisions, mobile phones, text messages, flashing billboards. Zimbabwe certainly has these — natch, some of these — facilities, but we push ourselves to steer clear of any temptation to check email, voice mail or even the news. Zimbabwe’s vast countryside is one of the last remaining places on this planet where one can truly escape — not a single soul possessing the ability to find you — unless you want to be found, of course.

We spent our first few nights northwest of Harare with family before lightly re-packing our bags, hitching up the boat, and grabbing our Tilleys heading off to Lake Kariba. Kariba is purely majestic in nearly every regard. It is a man-made lake covering an area 2,150 square miles (5,580 sq km). It is 140 miles long and over 20 miles wide, and supports 200 billion tons of water behind the hydroelectric plant built into the Kariba Dam wall.⁴ Both Zimbabwe and Zambia share the lake’s borders –Zim on the south and Zambia to the north. It’s clear, however, most of the fervent wildlife around Kariba is on the Zimbabwean side. One can find almost every type of bird — some 300 species — or animal imaginable there; from the cormorant to the Nile crocodile and from the fish eagle to the African bush elephant or buffalo. In our few trips to Kariba, including this most recent one, we’ve been lucky enough to see it all.

Throughout the rest of our time in Zim, we enjoyed our days and nights close with family. Indeed, those were the best of days. Jude’s brother, Myles — notably one of Zimbabwe’s best hunters and safari guides — and his wife have a new baby girl. She’s just a few months old now, but she’s certainly filling her shoes!

Pictures speak 1,000 words

While I could write countless pages detailing our many stories from this trip, I’ll let the photography speak for itself. Visit JudeAndMark.com for the slideshow.

1. According to TerraPass.com’s cool carbon emissions flight calculator. 18,500 miles each way. ↩
2. When we arrived in Zimbabwe, the unofficial exchange rate was US$1 to Z$32,000. Parking was US$0.33.↩
3. Mugabe’s cronies have arrested, assaulted and otherwise abused members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the only opposition party in Zimbabwe. Also, Australia’s PM, John Howard, banned his country’s cricket team from traveling to Zimbabwe in September 2007 because of the downward spiral caused by President Mugabe. Howard also called the 83-year-old a “grubby dictator.” Yeah, there’s more, too.↩
4. Source: Wikipedia ↩

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 12 pm and is filed under africa, family, friends, jude and mark, judeandmark.com, people, travel.