Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe I set off from Johannesburg on my motorbike, which I bought in South Africa so I could be independent and go where I want when I want. So I decide to ride towards Zimbabwe. I ride all day and reach the Beitbridge border in the late afternoon, and after calmly passing South African customs, here I am at the Zimbabwe one to enter. And here they hold me up a good two hours for idiotic and senseless formalities, forms to fill in and then fill in again because a little box hadn't been ticked, and rejoin the queue, half an hour long. Well! The result is that I set off again into Zimbabwean territory as the light was fading; there's no way I can reach Bulawayo, 200 km further on, and on top of that in the midst of the vegetation it starts to rain and gets dark. So I look for the first village or something like it to stop for the night.

Even though I had the tent, I didn't feel like sleeping alone with the baboons and leopards roaming around. So I stop after half an hour in a miners' village where I was the only white man. Near the rails there's a kind of station; being shattered, I ask if I can sleep on the bench in the waiting room. The man says no and invites me to go to the police station, since accommodation here is out of the question. The policeman was busy arresting a drunkard, whom he locked in one of the cells, then he came over to me and kindly listened to my problem, and, in the absence of hotels or guest houses, the only place he could offer me to sleep was a cell. I accept at once; I'm so tired I'd sleep on the floor. If you like you can even lock me in, I told him jokingly. He stays with me a bit in the cell and we have a chat, and he brings me a coffee. Too kind.

The next day I ask how much I owe for the trouble but he won't take anything. To thank him I let him listen with the headphones to some music from my Walkman; he's astonished, he'd never heard music so well. I take a photo and set off again, well rested, for Bulawayo. Since it's the second time I've come to Zimbabwe, and the previous time I met an Italian restaurateur from Lucca, I go to visit him to say hello. He's very happy and points me to a person who would be interested in buying my motorbike, since importing it is almost impossible; those who have the money buy them from tourists or other underhand ways. He has a body shop and would like my Suzuki 185 cc to give to his daughter. The price is OK but I ask him to let me use it another week to visit other places in Zimbabwe, and he agrees.

So I set off for Lake Kyle near Masvingo and visit the Great Zimbabwe ruins, from which this state, once Rhodesia, takes its name. Here, with a black man, I cross to the other side of the lake by canoe and jump on a horse for a safari; the rhino lets you get very close when you're on horseback. I head back towards Bulawayo, which is the second city by size after Harare, the capital, where all the embassies are. I hand over the motorbike and take the Zimbabwe dollars, then travel by steam train to Victoria Falls, which I see for the second time, but it's always lovely to come back here. I stay a few days and, always by train, go back to Bulawayo and on to Harare. Here unfortunately the night journey has no sleeper berths, and everyone is crammed on the wooden benches for eight hours; you can't even sleep. A hallucinatory journey; I'm the only white man in the packed carriage.

Arriving in Harare the next morning, I settle into a corner of the station on a concrete bench and sleep for a couple of hours. By bus, after spending a night in the capital, I go as far as Kariba, where there's the dam built by the Italians. The journey is worth remembering: here everything is packed too and here too I'm the only white man on board. The driver goes like a madman and on the mountain bends risks going over the cliff a couple of times. That's the final straw, I tell myself. So I reach him and urge him to slow down. He'd never have expected anyone to say anything to him, but since I'm white he got a bit scared, seeing the scene, and above all he slowed down. All the terrified passengers applauded me. Lake Kariba arose after the construction of the dam, and many African animals were rescued when they were trapped on the little islands.

To avoid the buses with mad drivers I prefer to hitchhike; being white, as soon as a white person passes they pick me up, and I reach Harare in the blink of an eye. Then I carry on south and return to the border with South Africa. Bye bye