Kariba town, a place Ralph visited many times with his family as a boy, is all but abandoned. Almost all the resorts, and the only supermarket in town, are closed. Road signs are non-existent or broken. You can’t get change for $5. Things break, and they just simply can’t get fixed.
We’d had a car-conversation trying to work out the correct context to use the word “literally”. We finally had the perfect example: “Zimbabwe is falling apart, literally”.
Thanks to the economic devastation Uncle Bob has wrought in this beautiful country, even the dollars used in Zim end up looking like they have no better place to go than down the toilet.
Kariba has always, magically, had wild animals cruising through and that much remains. In a lakeside resort (now closed) we were greeted by young zebra chasing each other across the grass, amongst the broken buildings. Unreal.
Above photos of Kariba:
Mila at The Heights in front of the shop – they used to sell polony. Remember that pink polony??
Ellies own the town and cruise through like they should.
Merry-go-round on the front lawn of Caribbea Bay.
Empty supermarket shelves – like Warsaw and E-Berlin 1987, and Mahé in the Seychelles in 1999.
Entrance to the Bay View Hotel – closed and in ruins.
Another abandoned lodge, over-run by ellies, hippos and zebras.
We found temporary refuge in the entirely pink Caribbea Bay Hotel.
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