2. - 1 AUG: Harare

The huge 747 lands and park in the small Harare airport. No buses and no jet bridge "finger", we just descend the staircase and walk to the terminal A deep blue sky and a cool breeze welcome us to Africa.

After an uneventful passport control we get our bags and are met by the rep of Run Wild, the local tour operator we are using for this trip. He proceeds to transfer us Imba Matombo, a great little hotel in the Relais and Chateaux chain. It is a luxurious yet cozy property, white washed houses with thatched roofs. I booked a standard room on a half board basis.

Rest of the day by the pool, recuperating and reading up to prepare for our tour of Zimbabwe.

Imba Matombo remains the non plus ultra in terms of accommodation; they asked us USD140 pppd on a dbb basis, but we got it down to 120 through Runwild; it is worth it! During our stay, an Australian visiting chef delighted us with world class cuisine which took into account local foods and ingredients. You can also just go for dinner. Their "afternoon tea", with cake and cookies served by the poolside or in your room/verandah, and included in the daily price, is irresistible. Only catch: do not use their shuttle bus to town: at USD10 pp/per hour (min 3 hours) it is a veritable rip off.

Imba Matombo

1. - 31 JUL 1999: Depart Brussels and arrive Harare

Easy flight with KLM via Amsterdam. Free business class tickets, thanks to lots of frequent flyer miles accumulated over time. KLM is pretty good, and my collection of blue KLM Delft houses gets one more piece!

Itinerary of a trip to Zimbabwe, 31 July - 17 August 1999

31 July 1999
depart Brussels

1 August
Arrive ex KLM
Met by Run Wild and transferred to Imba Matombo - Relais and Chateaux
property. Standard double room on a Half Board basis.

2 August
Harare

3 August
Harare

04 August Drive to Great Zimbabwe
Hertz Rent-a-car will deliver your car to you at 08h30.
Run Wild will supply you with a welcome wallet and road map full
directions and show you to the correct road for Masvingo and Lodge of the Ancient City. This is a 3 hour drive on a straight road.

Lodge of The Ancient City is on a Half Board basis - 2 nights.

5 August Great Zimbabwe

6 August Drive to Bulawayo
Depart for Bulawayo and the Matopos - approximately 3.5 hours drive.
Big Cave Camp - Full Board basis

7 August Game drive Cave Camp
Cave Camp game drives

8 August Visit Bulawayo town

09 August 99
Depart for Hwange, actually Dete for the National Park.
Drop off car in Hwange as we will be transferring you by 4x4 into the camp itself so I suggest drop off the car at the Hwange Airport.

Chimwara Tented Camp is all inclusive of choice activities, walks, drives,
night drives on the estate and drives into the National Park, full baord
all drinks, levy, laundry, park fees and transfers.

10 August Hwange game drives

11 August
Run Wild will collect you on the 11th and drive you to Victoria Falls - 2
hours drive.

arrive Victoria Falls Safari Lodge BB basis.

12 August 99
We have booked Ultralite trip over the Falls, this departs from Zambia,
our Manageress will be at your disposal to assist with Visas, transfers and other activities you may wish to book.

13 August 99
Your private charter flight will leave Vic Falls Airport for Chizarira National
Park airstrip (50 minutes) at a time to suit you.

Chizarira Wilderness Lodge is owned and run by Run Wild.

14 August
Flight back to Victoria Falls

15 August
Victoria Falls activities

17 August
Depart to Harare
Thetford Country House Hotel on an All Inclusive basis full board, drinks, shopping and transfers.

17 August 99
Harare shopping

18 August 99
depart on KLM.

Book Review: An Italian Education, by Tim Parks, *****

Product Description
Tim Parks’s best seller, Italian Neighbors, offered a sparkling, witty, and acutely observed account of an expatriate’s life in a small village outside of Verona. Now in An Italian Education, Parks continues his chronicle of adapting to Italian society and culture, while raising his Italian-born children. With the exquisite eye for detail, character, and intrigue that has brought him acclaim as a novelist, Parks creates an enchanting portrait of Italian parenthood and family life at home, in the classroom, and at church. Shifting from hilarity to despair in the time it takes to sing a lullaby, Parks learns that to be a true Italian, one must live by the motto “All days are one.”

Review
Tim Parks has written a highly readable and perceptive account of his life in Italy. Unlike many English authors who write about the country he does not display any sense of smugness and has no complex of superiority! In fact he has so much integrated into Italian society that one might as well say he is Italian by now! He grasps the nouances of life in Italy from the point of view of a normal person living there, not a traveler, not a tourist, not a scholar. He can even make fun of Italians without being offensive. He also appreciates much that most foreigners miss. An open window into contemporary Italy. Highly recommended.

Addendum 2011: While the book was written in the nineties pretty much everything he says is still very much true ten years on.

Book Review: "Italian Neighbors", by Tim Parks, *****

Synopsis

In this deliciously seductive account of an Italian neighborhood with a statue of the Virgin at one end of the street, a derelict bottle factory at the other, and a wealth of exotic flora and fauna in between, acclaimed novelist Tim Parks celebrates ten years of living with his wife, Rita, in Verona, Italy.

Hot air balloon flight in Belgium

Today I flew in an hot air balloon for the first time! Got up before dawn and drove to Viller la Ville, just outside Brussels. It is mandatory to fly in the early hours of the morning or late in the afternoon, when the air is calm. Otherwise the big and not at all aerodynamic shape of the balloon would be dangerously buffeted by the hot air of Summer thermal currents.

We we welcomed by the organizers with some hot coffee and started getting the balloon ready. The huge canvas was slowly filled with hot air by a huge fan. As the sun rose above the horizon, we (half a dozen of us) got into the big basket with our pilot.

As he fired the gas burners into the balloon we slowly lifted off. Soon afterwards the barely perceptible wind started pushing our aircraft over the Belgian fields. Down below, a car was following us, taking instructions from the pilot as to which road or path to follow to better stay close to our flight path and be ready for our recovery. (Note added in 2012: there were no GPS then, so this was the only way for the car to know where to go in order to follow the balloon as closely as possible.)

We gained altitude up to some five hundred meters. It was, needless to say, an exhilarating experience. A few times we flew pretty close to the tree tops of some hills, but when this happens the pilot fired the reassuring burners, the air in the balloon heats up and the craft moved safely up in the sky. The morning air was comfortably cool in our faces.

After about half an hour we began our descent. The pilot let the air cool inside the balloon and the aircraft moved slowly downward in a gentle glide. As we approached touch-down he instructed us to brace. Just before hitting the vegetable field he fired the burner one last time to soften our impact with the ground. As the basket hit the soil it ground to a halt and slowly tilted forward until it fell to its side. I feared for my camera but it all went well.

After disembarking amongst the inevitable excitement we got into the recovery vehicles and drove back to base camp, where a bottle of cool champagne was waiting!

Well done European Balloon Corporation! Hope to fly with you again soon.

Book Review/Recensione: "Red Sorghum", by Mo Yan, *****

ear of red sorghum

RECENSIONE IN ITALIANO DI SEGUITO

Synopsis

A legend in China, where it won the major literary awards and inspired an Oscar-nominated film, this is a novel of family, myth, and memory, set during the fratricidal barbarity of the 1930s, when the Chinese battled both Japanese invaders and each other.

Author Mo Yan won the Nobel prize for literature in 2012, the first ever Chinese living in mainland China to became a laureate. Some criticized him as not being authoritative enough as a writer and more importantly for his shyness in criticizing Chinese literary censorship.

Recensione libro: Il treno della Cina (1995) di Furio Colombo, ***

Sinossi

Un viaggio nella Cina antica e moderna raccontato da un giornalista. "Ho l'impressione, ripensandoci adesso alla fine del viaggio di non aver visto una sola stella rossa in tutta la Cina. C'è invece, dovunque, dipinto e illuminato, un mare di pubblicità". (Furio Colombo)

Recensione

Un diario ragionato di un giornalista intellettualmente onesto che dopo un periodo post comunista è transitato ai radicali. Colombo racconta quello che vede e ci ricama sopra considerazioni più generali e mai banali. Consigliato per una visione del gigante asiatico negli anni immediatamente successivi ai fatti di Tiananmen, che ricorrono come un ritornello nella narrazione cadendo il viaggio durante il 4° anniversario.

Da allora la Cina non è diventata più libera, come Colombo, tra i tanti, immaginava, ma è diventata più potente.

Stopover in Hong Kong on the way to Australia

click here to see this map in full size

Cathay pacific offers me a day room at the hotel by the airport. Landing at this airport is an experience in itself. As we approach in the early morning hours it is still pitch dark. I can see the bright lights of the bustling city, which has just reverted to China a few weeks ago, in stark contrast with the black background of the mainland. During the final approach the  pilot comes on the intercom and advises that he is going to switch off the main cabin lights so we can see better outside. A few minutes later I understand why. The plane comes in low literally between rows of high rise buildings! You can almost see inside the bedrooms of the apartments as he makes a precise landing in the narrow strip of reclaimed land in Kowloon bay!

Book Review/Recensione: I was Amelia Earhart, by Jane Mendelsohn, ****

Recensione in italiano di seguito

From the New York Times, 3 July 1937

Synopsis

A fictitious account of Amelia Earhart's last flight, with flashbacks to her childhood and difficult marriage. Amelia and her raffish, drunken navigator, Noonan, crash-land on a desert island. They fight, touch madness and finally fall in love, before taking off again on only half a tank of petrol.