Trek through the Chimanimani Mountains

After a very cool night during which I had to keep adding new sleeping layers to keep warm, I got up early and got a cold shower before getting ready for our trek in the mountains.
We took a small van driven by our guide, Colin, who drove us up into the mountains past some of the devastating landslides that swept away houses and whole communities during the cyclone earlier last year. We passed over some very rickety repaired bridges over river valleys that had been scoured by the cyclone floods which had also swept away a lodge which was now a ruin.
We parked in another lodge site within the park with stunning views of the 'Muange' mountains above which are named after an ancient man from Mozambique that made his home up there. We began our walk in strong sunshine but got shelter from the many trees on the mountain sides. Colin showed us the Mojobojobo tree used for fruit, wood for houses and treatment for illness. He said that the tree is the most important tree for local people. He said that the local name is related to how the fallen leaves of the tree make a lot of noise. Apparently, many animals stay near these trees as they can hear predators coming through the leaves. Colin also talked about the African teak which is very rare and has a red sap which is also used as a medicine by local people.
We quickly reached a very special area of smooth grey rock faces with amazing views of the mountains rising high above. On some of the rock faces were ancient human figures painted by the San people up to 7000 years ago. Many of the male figures had erections seemingly emphasising the importance of fertility and sexual power in the images. There were also images of elongated animals and what looked like a woman carrying something on her head. They were deeply fascinating. Colin felt the images involved sequential layers of a narrative that was sacred to the people that painted them. Near the paintings in a small cave there was a human leg bone and evidence of human burials here. This was clearly a very ancient and sacred place and you could feel the atmosphere walking around it.
Colin talked about how the local name Chimanimani for these mountains refers to there being a narrow gap through the mountains here which has been used by local people for millennia and was used by Zimbabweans to get to Moazambique for military training during the war of independence.
We walked on through the woodland and climbed down over large boulders into a good sized cave with a small waterfall surrounded by huge boulders which was another very special, and probably sacred, space for ancient peoples.
We climbed back out of the cave to see a deep rocky ravine through which the river flowed. We then climbed back out and down through woods to a simply stunning large, dark pool with high waterfalls tumbling down into it. The pool was surrounded by trees and was like a piece of paradise sparkling in the sunlight. We went for a lovely cool swim in the deep pool and had fun swinging into the water off a rope swing. I swam up to the waterfalls and sat beneath their cooling spray for several minutes. It was a wonderful experience to be in such a place. We had our lunch next to the pool. A troop of baboons then appeared in the surrounding trees and river cliffs and were clearly very interested in our presence. Reluctantly, we left this wondrous pool and returned up to the lodge where we had started. We passed a group of young Christian men who were on their way to the pool to complete a religious ritual. They met our guide singing and shook all our hands. Back at the lodge we sat and rested in the shade under a large tree with stunning views up to the mountains. We then walked down to where a zip-wire had been set up and some of our fellow travellers bravely climbed up a rope ladder to a high platform and jumped to fly down the hill and up into the trees before being lowered back down to the ground.
We then drove back out of the mountains and into the village where we stopped at some of the sites devastated by the cyclone. We saw where enormous pyroplastic flows, after two feet of rain fell in a day, had poured in a river of mud and enormous boulders sweeping down the mountain and wiped out whole areas of housing. Many local people were killed and Colin only narrowly escaped when his house was swept away. Colin was in the midst of the disaster and rescued friends with broken and severed limbs. Showing us this disaster was clearly helping Colin to work through some of his own trauma from the disaster. He wanted us to see it and talked bitterly of how the politicians had done little to help them or rebuild their houses despite receiving large amounts of aid from foreign countries. He felt that the money had been corruptly sequestered by politicians and not passed on to the local people. We met some local people who had lost relatives in the disaster. The young children also gathered to say hello shyly to us. The scale of the disaster was quite overwhelming as the mud and rock slides had occured all down the mountain sides and brought enormous boulders down destroying whole sections of villages. The experience of witnessing this was quite emotionally exhausting and overwhelming.
We then drove to local bar and met some of the local people in the bar. One man, who was very drunk, talked to me for nearly an hour and was very hard to understand. He asked me to financially support him which I politely declined. I couldn't het away from the conversation though and became quite emotionally exhausted with the overwhelming needs and trauma of the place. It took me some time to recover myself back at the campsite after this very emotional experience.
I got a shower in a partially successful attempt to wash away the overwhelming trauma of the local people. We had a nice evening meal prepared by Jemma, our tour leader, and Often, our driver on the barbecue. The soup and roasted squash were particularly delicious. I sat in the bar writing for a while and then retired to bed under a waxing moon and twinkling stars. This had been a particularly beautiful place to visit despite all the trauma the people have had to suffer due to the cyclone - it seems that the effects of climate change have been constantly with us on this journey.Weiterlesen