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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 12, 2018 18:49:37 GMT 2
This report is what I've been up to in the last few days beginning from before we set off.
It seems the country, after a period of relative calm, is imploding again. The BBC report - "Crippling petrol shortages have prompted Zimbabwe's central bank to release over $40m (£31m) for the commodity, it says. Petrol queues had stretched for several kilometres at some stations before fuel ran out. Food prices have risen and essential goods are in short supply because of a foreign currency shortage. A $500m credit line will also be used to import fuel, medicines and wheat, as well as soya beans to address a shortage of cooking oil, authorities say. Some see this as a sticking plaster. The bigger problem - Zimbabwe's foreign currency shortage - can only be resolved when the country increases its exports."
We are intending to travel around the country, travelling approximately 2000km or so. We will enter in the north, at the top end of Lake Kariba, head for Harare, then to Mutare, Masvingo (where the Great Zimbabwe Ruins are), Bulawayo, Matobo National Park nearby, then head north west exiting the country at Victoria Falls. From there we'd be back in Zambia again and travel back to Lusaka. Our problems are associated with food and fuel. Food is a lesser problem as we are quite flexible in what we eat and even though we might end up a little hungry at odd times, I don't yet see this as a major problem. Hungry though in the way that we might have to miss a meal, not hungry in that we are going without food for days/weeks.
Fuel is the biggie though. The plan is so far that I will carry enough fuel with me to get to a town called Mutare. This is in the far east of the country and only ten km or so from the border with Mozambique. Word from people we know in Mutare say that there is still fuel, mainly because it is easy to get it across the border, but our situation may entail actually going across that border to get some, if the situation deteriorated even further. Further on and in Bulawayo, when we get there we'll see what the score is, but I'm not expecting miracles. So we may have to go the 110km to Botswana to get fuel.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 12, 2018 18:50:13 GMT 2
These are from a supermarket in Harare from someone else the day we set off (Tuesday). The prices you see are in US dollars. This is what people are generally only accepting for payment. If you want to pay by USD it is one price, credit card another and local notes a third. As written in the article linked above - "At a shop in Gweru on Monday morning, a 2 litre bottle of cooking as an example is pegged at US$4.00 and $11.50 for swipe and Ecocash and $9.00 for Bond Notes." Swipe means credit card and Ecocash is payment over a phone. Bond notes are a new form of Zimbabwe currency - "Zimbabwean bond notes are a form of banknote in circulation in Zimbabwe. Released by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe the notes are stated to not be a currency in itself but rather legal tender near money pegged equally against the U.S. dollar."
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 12, 2018 18:54:48 GMT 2
I picked Mrs M up from work at lunchtime Tuesday and we had a steady drive down to Lake Kariba. I triple checked I'd packed my four 20 litre jerry cans in the back. And the cool box with cheese and cucumber sandwiches and salt and vinegar crisps. We stayed at a reasonable hotel right on the lake and early this morning crossed the border over the dam bridge. Formalities both sides were more or less straight forward. My usual nightmare is them asking me for a piece of paperwork that I don't have.
It was then a five hour or so drive to Harare. I'd filled up with petrol at Lake Kariba but stopped at the first fuel station on the Zimbabwe side I saw. I wanted to ask if he had fuel, which he did. But then things got worse. I must have passed at least twenty fuel stations on the way and within Harare itself. Only three had fuel, but also had long, long queues. I mean multi-hour queues. There was no way I was going to wait when I actually had enough to get to the capital and then further on.
"Further on" means a town called Mutare. This is about 10km from the border with Mozambique and we have been assured by people living there that there is fuel enough. We'll see the day after tomorrow when we make our way there.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 12, 2018 18:57:12 GMT 2
Wednesday. Harare.As regards fuel, we've had a message tonight from Mutare saying it had run out. But then a second one saying there had been a delivery and the queues are now only two to three hundred metres long. Still too long for me. This is our projected route - The problem is, I have just enough fuel left now to return back the way we have come, back to the border at the northern point of Lake Kariba. That is the safe option - give up and go home. "Safe" in that all that would happen though is that we'd be stuck somewhere, and not know really how long we would be stuck for. That, for me, is not unsafe enough to do that option. I still have enough fuel to get to Mutare, where we do want to go. But - even if we manage to fill up there, we may not have enough in total with the fuel tank and jerry cans, to get around the loop and exit via Victoria Falls. If we fill up we will be able to get back the way we have come again and back through Harare. Don't want to do that though, it strikes me as a bit of a failure. There is a Facebook page about which stations in Harare have fuel. Just as I logged on a message came up from someone who had just filled up somewhere and the wait was minimal. I shot out as it was just 4km away. When I got there the queue was about half a km long. I came back to the hotel. A man told me he got up early and was outside an open fuel station at 5.30am this morning. He waited until 9.30am and gave up to go to work. And he was still nowhere near the front. Tomorrow we are still in Harare, then the next day we will move on, and 95% certain it will be to Mutare and then we'll see what happens there. Can I get fuel? If so, do we return the way we have come? If so, do we continue around the loop as we want to, but knowing it is a minimum, without sightseeing, of at least a thousand kilometers? Will our car be economical enough to do the whole thing from there without filling again? Questions, questions........ N.B. I have a 3 litre, 6 cylinder, automatic, petrol Mitsubishi Pajero. (I wish I had the Berlingo from Germany) Economy is a dirty word for it. The figures state the car will average about at best 13 litres per 100 km. It usually is worse. That means to do 1000km I'll need about 130 litres. I can do that, I have that with the tank and jerry cans, but it leaves little margin for error or time to wander around sightseeing, which is what we want to do, not to drive in a straight a line as possible. The best economy I've had out of it was 200km and used 16 litres, but that was a lot of downhill. I tend to achieve ten to eleven litres per 100km on a long flat run.
Further news is that there has been a shooting in the city today that was a result of a difference in political affiliation. An argument began and one of the men was shot dead. Mrs M has banned me from going out tomorrow. I've told her I just won't talk politics and I'll be ok. Last bit of news is that my camera won't connect to my computer, so I can't get any photos off it to post for now. The computer is shunning the camera, won't recognise it and turns its back on it. I've spoken to them to kiss and make up but neither want anything to do with the other for now.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 12, 2018 19:00:25 GMT 2
Friday(Today)
Update - no matter the warnings of Mrs M, I went out for a walk yesterday. As expected, there was nothing to fear. Unfortunately though, with having little enough petrol to drive anywhere, there was little to see around where we were staying. I took some photos of some nice trees though. There was no hope of obtaining fuel in Harare, unless I wanted to queue for many, many hours, so this morning we set of on our next leg - to get to Mutare.
Here is one of the problems - some fuel stations that have some will only sell to customers who have coupons. These are obtained like when you are a member of an airline, or a major store. If you are not a member you cannot apply for and get the coupons, thus no fuel will be sold to you. The logic of this escapes me, but I can only assume it is to promote loyalty to a company and as a bonus as the fuel is not then open to be bought by all members of public. Stations that have fuel and will sell to anyone usually have signs saying you cannot fill up canisters/jerry cans. Not a lot of good if you've run out somewhere. Besides the fact that with the length of some of the queues, you'd need nearly a full tank just to get to the front anyway.
Other stations have no fuel at all and will have a small queue of vehicles just waiting until there is a delivery. Sometimes people stay overnight in their car just so they can be one of the first. Then there is the category of stations that are hard to know of, but I found one today, just by chance. They are the ones who have fuel but for unknown reasons, and again the logic escapes me, but they are closed. I think they have full underground tanks of fuel they bought previously at one price. They are now waiting for the price to go up significantly due to the shortages. At some point they will open up and sell off their stocks at a good profit. Then probably close again.
Today I wasn't desperate for fuel but I was keeping my eye open for a likely fill up point. About 100km before Mutare we were passing through a small town with four stations. The first one was seemingly derelict. The second one had a substantial queue, that was also bad tempered judging by the honking of horns. The third had cones across the entrance and nobody about. The fourth had no queue at all but two men sitting by the pumps. I decided to stop and ask them if they knew of anywhere that I could get fuel without coupons but with USD cash.
They said, "Here". I didn't want to question them about it so I filled my tank and an empty jerry can, gave them the money displayed on the pump, which was the proper rate (total $110) and drove off. Yeehaw.
We passed through Mutare and after stopping at the "White Horse Inn" up in the hills for lunch (cheese and tomato toasted sandwich and home made proper chips, not that frozen stuff) we checked in to our hotel where we will stay a couple of nights and walk in the countryside/hills. The only downside is that as we are quite high up, the evening and night temperatures are quite cool, so the Reception has told us they will supply hot water bottles if we want them.
More in a couple of days when we move on again. We are now at the furthest point away from Zambia, the end of the loop, and I really would like to be able to fill up again as we leave Mutare. It is not desperate we do so, but still, it would be good.
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Post by Voy on Oct 12, 2018 22:36:28 GMT 2
1) fingers crossed for fuel 2) breath bated - awaiting pics upon your safe arrival home 3) enjoy the rest of the trip!
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Post by Scrubb on Oct 13, 2018 4:02:59 GMT 2
Your trip takes in each of the places I visited in Zimbabwe, but I spent about 6 weeks there. It was an amazing trip - my first time in Africa and truly wonderful.
Good luck with the fuel. Glad you got a fill up on your way to Mutare, and hope you find another place without a long queue when you need it.
We took a bus to Mutare (from near Harare), and missed our stop which was right by a national park. We ended up in a small village at about dusk. The bus driver said that he was staying there that night, then the bus would depart at 7 a.m. to head back to Harare, so he'd let us off where we had intended to go. We were able to get a triple room in a hotel - it was a very basic hotel, one that normally only blacks would have stayed in, I believe. The restaurant only served sadza (sp?) and stew.
We got up early, but were just finishing some bread and cheese in our room at 5:30 or so when someone knocked on our door to say the bus was leaving immediately. SCrambled to throw our things together and pay for the room (it was dirt cheap - I think we paid a little extra because they were very nice to us) and jump on the bus.
The park was nice too but I don't actually remember much about it, compared to all the game parks we visited later in the trip.
ETA: I just remembered that we climbed the highest mountain in Zimbabwe while there. Looked down the other side into Mozambique.
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Post by sophie on Oct 13, 2018 6:00:09 GMT 2
When I was there, Zimbabwe was a shining star in subSaharan Africa and I loved it. It was my favourite place in Africa. When I did my Masters I had thoughts to go back there and teach in a teachers college.. but by then it was all starting to fall apart.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 13, 2018 9:44:44 GMT 2
Scrubb, the highest mountain is to the north of where we are. We were going to go there, and to the park it is in, but with the fuel problems we're giving it a miss. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_NyanganiSadza is correct. Sophie, the country certainly has changed over the years, and unfortunately not for the better.
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Post by slowcoach on Oct 13, 2018 11:26:22 GMT 2
Jolly Good to hear about your travels (& travails) once again.
I know almost nothing about either ZIM or ZAM except what one can glean from visiting both sides of the falls (1998), arrived and departed via airport, to far to drive, left the vehicle at Mokuti Lodge (Etosha East), most civilized schedules flight I've ever been on.
Just then, ZAM was yet to emerge from the economic pit it fell into way back (1970s ?) but ZIM was already starting to fall apart, little things like that the hotel was short of lightbulbs (allegedly they were getting hard to obtain), and the wiring was unwiring itself in our room.
I think I have looked up the correct model and the kerb weight is a stonking 2310Kg, which is a lot to lug, on big fat tyres with a big V6, but even still 13L/100km is a bit last millennium.
I guess there are going to be a lot unhappy people about and those prices are incendiary. What happens in the boondocks where I guess there is not that sort of money floating about.
Near Mutare there are diamond fields that produce the most (but not the most valuable) rough diamonds worldwide. A few years back there was talk of it being ZIM's saviour.
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Post by shrjeff on Oct 13, 2018 13:08:43 GMT 2
mark, i think that many countries have gone down hill in the past few decades... take u.s. as one example - and i'm speaking about the infrastructure, not the political atmosphere (though not ignoring it)...
slow, as i remember off the top of my head, the russians have been working hard on developing artificial/manufactured diamonds which may be in competition with the zim diamonds if they aren't first quality...
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Post by slowcoach on Oct 13, 2018 14:38:25 GMT 2
shrjeff) According to Wikipedia those fields produced 12 million carats in 2012 having risen from 8.2 million in 2010, the sale price is reckoned to me <50$ per carat so real tat. The biggest player in synthetic field is: (fan-fare) China at ~4 billion carats (wiki again, but beware the article is inconsistent: total production varying by an order of magnitude).
Even so 12million @ 25$ (say) would be $300m/annum nearly all going on the plus side of the international current account, but yes I guess that is a lot less than was being hyped when the fields came into development.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 13, 2018 16:26:03 GMT 2
The country could be quite rich for sure, but as expected, mismanagement, corruption and lack of investment kill off anything here.
Slow, the weight you suggest may be accurate, I don't know. But what I think is I'm heading up to 3 Tonnes when I'm loaded.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 13, 2018 18:24:17 GMT 2
Today was a steady day. After breakfast we went to a Botanical Garden, then we stopped off for an expensive but very tasty piece of cake, then I had a cup-a-soup (chicken and vegetable) and a packet of Italian cheese gratin flavoured crisps for my lunch, then we had a walk round a small game park attached to the hotel where we saw very few animals, but had a nice walk for a couple of hours.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 15, 2018 13:18:30 GMT 2
Yesterday we had a drive of a few hours after managing to fill up with fuel in a town near to the hotel. We ended up looking at thousands, nay millions, of stones arranged to form a number of enclosures, built about a thousand years ago. Last night we stayed at a self-catering lodge and it was pretty dire, with untold gazillions of insects in the bathroom and other rooms. The meal last night at the attached lodge was ok but minimal and left me hungry. Had to revert to getting out my camping stove and eating a ramen noodle soup for added stomach filling. No breakfast this morning because we set off as early as possible to escape our insectary.
Made it several hours later to Bulawayo, where we are now, and had brunch in a cafe where we were hassled to leave our table as soon as we finished eating, even though there was nobody waiting and Mrs M had not finished her coffee. I sweet-talked a female petrol station attendant into giving me fuel when they were officially closed. We now have enough to easily drive all the way to the Zambian border without filling up again.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 15, 2018 18:32:37 GMT 2
Out of interest we had a walk round two supermarkets in the city this afternoon. Both are chains that have branches in Lusaka, so it was easy to compare prices. On balance most stuff is twice as expensive now than Lusaka whereas it all was about the same price. Butter is the exception and a person we know in Harare is using a "Butter Index" to track the economy. It is currently about three to four times that of in Zambia. I also noted local provisions, like mealie meal, the staple of the unhappy masses. Those sorts of things are about half as expensive again.
For example, mealie meal for 10kg in Lusaka is $3 but $4.50 here. A grilled/cooked chicken in Lusaka is $5 and $10 here. Uncooked chicken is $4 a kg in Lusaka and $6.25 here. Bottles of water are scarce and there are some empty shelves, but less than I thought there would be.
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Post by slowcoach on Oct 17, 2018 20:53:22 GMT 2
We used to buy a sack of mealie meal just in case we got well and truly stuck somewhere, and give it to camp/lodge staff on our way out of Namibia.
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 18, 2018 15:28:17 GMT 2
Survival rations then. I don't eat it by choice. Well, we crossed over the border back to 'home' territory this morning. The low fuel warning light came one just as I approached the Zimbabwe barrier. Knowing the next fuel station is in Zambia and just 10km or so away I carried on. I wasn't too bothered as I'd still got four full jerry cans totalling 80 litres in the back. We will spend the night here and return to Lusaka tomorrow. This is where we are now. It's a hard life.
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Post by slowcoach on Oct 18, 2018 19:46:43 GMT 2
Survival rations then. I don't eat it by choice Absolutely, and we don't eat it by choice but both quite like Mealie Pap. A 10kg sack cooked just in water would provide, as I recall, 1000kcal/day for two people for a fortnight. Dig a hole under the vehicle then relax all day thereafter and that would cover our basal metabolic requirement.
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Post by auntieannie on Oct 21, 2018 14:27:05 GMT 2
I knew a Swiss guy who'd grown up in Zimbabwe, where his parents had a farm. He and his family had all moved back a few years before they started killing the white farmers. He knew some who'd felt safe enough to stay and paid the price.
The john west tins... are they some kind of tuna? I can't read the label, even when I magnify the image.
Glad you had a mostly enjoyable time in Zim. Safe drive home!
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Post by OnlyMark on Oct 21, 2018 15:23:29 GMT 2
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