October 29, 2007: Matobo Park (aka Matopos), Zimbabwe

The road from Vic Falls to Matopos was eerie. We passed on average maybe four cars an hour on what had obviously once been a busy highway. There was very little gas outside the city centers. The countryside was beautiful and green, but farm equipment sat silent and the fields were overgrown. Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe (most would say dictator), had taken all the farmland from the farmers and distributed it to his personal friends who had no experience with farms and simply let them deteriorate. Typical travel sights and sounds a person experiences when driving through the countryside were slightly off: irrigation equipment sat rusting in the fields instead of spraying water over precise rows of crops, there were no children playing around houses, there were no cattle in the pastures, gas stations were without the usual crush of cars and travellers. There were people around, on the side of the road walking or perhaps on a bike, but they seemed subdued and grave, failing to react with the typical waves, shouts, and smiles at BiRT passing by. Though clearly not deserted, the region felt empty. People didn't talk much on BiRT and we rumbled south accompanied by a pervasive sense of unease.

We reached our destination, Matopos, a national park, in the late afternoon and tumbled out of the truck into a land dense with green hills, almost all of which featured rock outcroppings. It looked like the perfect place to explore and put up some new climbing routes. Our campground was nestled in some trees at the base of a massive boulder with a once glorious stone restaurant and lounge built on top. Despite a few broken glass windows and slightly rundown state that lent a general air of early decay to the place, it had clearly once been magnificent and needed but a little cash and some customers to reclaim its former glory. The manager was unfailingly polite and came down to our campsite to introduce herself personally to each one of us. That helpful attitude and polite demeanor I would encounter again and again in Zimbabwe, including the time George and I were hitching back toward camp after scouting rock and the same vehicle picked us up multiple times as our paths continued to cross.

Freaky flower George and I saw on our walkabout:

This sign was by the road for no apparent reason:
In general, most of the climbing required a fair amount of bush bashing to get to, so the majority of the group spent their time at one crag and put up several new routes. It was fun climbing the other people's routes and coming to a consensus on the proper sandbag rating, not to mention route names.

Diana wedges in on the route she and David put up, Farting With Confidence:

Diana goes for the crux fist jam on Farting With Confidence:
Other than the annoying animals which sounded like very loud, very big drops of water (although we thought they might be frogs, we never did figure out what they were), the atmosphere at Matopos was, for me, very chill, and I would love to see it again some day when the people return.