Harare

Day 49 – 56    5^th – 12^th November

After leaving Kariba we flew to Harare to spend a week with friends Linda and Oskar Rothen, who we met during our early days in Uganda.  They have a lovely home on the outskirts of Harare, in Umwinsidale.  It was a fun and social week, meeting up with some of their friends, various folk we had met on our earlier safari at Kavinga, a walk in Mukuvisi Woodland with ‘facebook friend’ Ann Warner and her family. We also enjoyed a marvelous curry dinner and an afternoon looking at old photographs with long-lost relative Tom, whose Grandfather was Jeremy’s Great-Grandfather.

Mukuvisi Woodland

One evening we attended a showing of some original footage of ‘Operation Noah’, when an amazing team of dedicated wildlife lovers rescued more than 7000 animals, from snakes to rhinos, over a period of 5 years from 1958, after the Kariba Dam was built and the valley gradually flooded, leaving the wildlife stranded on ever-decreasing islands. You can see a short clip here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xaKRk870JU&hl=en-GB&gl=UG.

We also spent a delightful morning at the animal orphanage ‘Wild is Life’, meeting Moyo the baby elephant, Marimba the Pangolin and Noodle the Wildebeest, and feeding several giraffe, amongst others.  More info here http://www.wildislife.com/wildanimals.html.

This lion had the most enormous paws!

Harare itself was a surprise to both of us, with beautiful tree-lined avenues and lovely old houses with huge mature gardens.  The Jacaranda, Flamboyant (Flame) and Mimosa trees were all in bloom, and whilst some of the roads were pot-holed and only half the traffic lights worked at any one junction, the traffic was way less than in Kampala and - bliss! – hardly any motorbikes!

The political and economic situation is dire.  Farms are still being grabbed from white Zimbabwean farmers, who have put their whole lives and savings into them – just a month ago a beautiful, flourishing farm was taken from a family, and they were given just 6 hours to leave. 

The shopping centers were also a surprise with luxury goods still available, but at a price, and some nice shops, but shelves are slowly depleting in the supermarkets and businesses are closing at a terrifying rate, giving rise to massive unemployment.

Just a day after we left, the army took over and put President Mugabe under house arrest.  Hopefully the crazy downward spiral of the country can be contained peacefully and a new era begin.

We loved our time in Zim, and are sad to embark on the final part of our SKI Safari – 2 nights in Malawi and then back to Uganda via Dodoma where we spend one night.