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I had a fabulous time in Zimbabwe. I was met at Harare airport by the Grace family, who I had met earlier in the year on a ski holiday in Switzerland. They were so friendly and helpful, that I was soon persuaded to base myself at their (enormous) house for most of the 2 weeks, and visited places of interest from there (rather than travelling around and paying for hotels).
Harare was a mix of banks, boutiques and burger joints in some areas, and dirty, downbeat dives in others. I got to see some museums there, and get involved in not one, but two, city riots! The first was 100+ government workers complaining about not being paid (overturned car set alight, police van pelted with missiles etc.) and the second was the response to a black woman wearing a mini-skirt (large crowd whistling, shouting, attacking a taxi she tried to escape in, etc.). All good fun!
I spent a few days with my friend Julie - a friend I'd met in travels in China, who's doing Peace Corps teaching in a secondary school in a very poor area called Shamva. She has no indoor toilet (or even running water), electricity is hit and miss and the local market only ever has three types of vegetables. I was there during exam time, and the students seemed very focused. Julie usually finds the opposite, and truancy and rudeness are everyday problems.
I thoroughly enjoyed a trip to Southern Zim to visit the Greater Zimbabwe Ruins. These date back to the 9th century and comprise a hill fort and enclosed village, all built in drystone walls, some as much as 20 ft high and 5 ft thick. An stunning architectural feat. I had the most fun, though, on a trip to Victoria Falls. The waterfalls themselves were breathtaking. Although it was a low-water time of year, they still thundered over a mile-long cliff edge. The spray made for impressive photos and double or triple rainbows. On my second day, I joined a white-water rafting trip down the Zambezi. I wasn't sure if it was really my scene beforehand, but I thoroughly enjoyed the day. We were shooting rapids graded 3, 4 and 5 (grade 6 rapids are unnavigable). I was tossed out of the raft 3 times, but pulled back in by others before paddling on. The final rapid (number 18) was the biggest of all. Our raft was last in, and we'd already seen all the previous 7 rafts capsize! We paddled for our lives and made it through the first two 5ft-high waves, only to be flipped over by the third and last one! I managed to swim back to the righted raft further down the river! On my final day in Victoria Falls, I finally got to throw myself off the bridge which links Zimbabwe to Zambia over the Zambezi. At 111m (360ft), it's the highest natural bungi jump in the world. I felt surprisingly calm about it until a split second after I jumped - and the realisation that I was plummeting headlong into a ravine, relying on a piece of elastic to keep me alive! Still, I made it, and have the video to prove it.
I found Zim to be a real mixture of rich and poor. The economy is falling apart (there were Z$30 to £1 a few weeks before I arrived, but Z$60 to £1 as I left!), but most folk were positive about the future, and everyone - rich and poor alike - were really friendly and helpful.
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