Harare, Zimbabwe’s
capital and largest city, is located in the middle of the country
on the highveld. It has a population of around two million, though
this figure is dropping dramatically as people leave Zimbabwe. Harare
is derived from the Shona word ‘haarari’, translated
as ‘one who does not sleep’. This is mighty questionable, since
Harare must be one of the sleepiest capital cities in Africa!
The eccentric traffic and jostling street markets of Zimbabwe’s
capital are as ‘happening’ as it gets. The city was laid
out by the British settlers with wide tree-lined avenues and plenty
of parks and open spaces. The city centre is a mixture of aging
concrete high rises and turn of the century court houses and government
buildings. There are vast suburbs of large houses with manicured
parks that were built by the whites over the last 50-60 years, though
many white people have left Zimbabwe in recent years. It’s
not a very African city and lacks the vibrancy of other cities. It has a stale and old-fashioned atmosphere, and a skyline and infrastructure
that is starting to fray around the edges.
There’s not a great deal to see or do, though the National
Gallery houses a display of some Shona soft-stone carvings. Some
of the original letters and notebooks of the early explorers can
be seen in the National Archives. The National Botanical Garden
has more than 900 species of wild trees and shrubs from all over
the country, and there are good views of the city from the Kopje,
a granite hill rising above the south-west corner of central Harare.
You may find yourself in Harare if you’ve arrived in Zimbabwe
via the international airport. This is a new airport and the biggest
white elephant in the country. It was designed a number of years ago
to accommodate vast numbers of planes and travellers. Today, very
few airlines fly to Harare. The few travellers arriving here
feel quite lost in the cavernous and empty airport building.
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