Zambia to Zimbabwe

Readers,

The days since our trip left Lusaka have been marked largely by the landscapes that mark the African highway system and long drives. From Lusaka, Zambia we drove south towards the Zimbabwean border point where we would enter into our second to last country of the trip. The long drive days that have been pushing us further south on the African continent that have been littered with scenes of African villages built of handmade bricks and thatched roofs, many of them with bricks in place of windows while they save up for the glass. Me moved across the border crossing which went much more smoothly than the previous one into Zambia. Although it featured more stations, we could pencil it in as a success seeing as no one from our tour was barred from crossing. So, after our successful cross, we drove into Zimbabwe and saw it’s agricultural fields.  

In perpetration for the approaching rainy season in Africa, many of the farmers were burning what was left of the seasons crop so that the ash would make for a fertile field when the rains come. As we drove through these fields, many of them were still a blaze with some being close enough to the truck that you could feel the heat through the window. It was interesting to see how the farming practices differed between the United States and Zimbabwe, as I’ve never seen a farmers field ablaze driving through Iowa or Nebraska. Fertilizer in the US may be more easily accessible as compared to in sub Saharan Africa. We continued on on driving to the capital city of Harare, which was similar to any other major city which we had seen in Africa such as Casablanca or Cairo, although we saw Harare fairly quiet because of it being the weekend. After a quick walk around we were all in agreement that Harare was not the place that we needed to see on our tour. We drove a bit outside of the city while we got a lesson on the history of politics within the nation before we got to our campsite for the night. 

Alastair