Visitors to Victoria Falls come to view the huge cataracts and don’t usually spend much time in town…although there are a number of large markets selling many tourist trinkets. These abound with wood and stone carvings, machine-made prints and fabrics, as well as paintings, weavings and pottery. Between the thousands of wood sculptures sold at these markets and the fire-clearing of woodlands for farming, it certainly becomes clear how deforestation has become such a problem in this country.
Watch out for the touts for various shops as well as uninvited ‘guides’ who receive a commission for bringing you to the vendors by whom they are employed. The touts try to tempt you to enter their shops (which are usually just a wooden shack) by saying they will trade with you. They then ask you to trade your shirt, your shoes, your pens, your camera….pretty well everything and anything. A lot of backpackers get rid of stuff they no longer need this way and go away with souvenirs for a little less money than they would have paid with no trade.
The ‘guides’ are a bit of a pain in the behind as they provide no service to the tourists only to the vendors. They follow you around and keep saying you should go to the shop of their brother, mother, etc. and that they will give you a great discount. Their sales patter goes something like this: “Those are leather jewelry, bracelets, necklaces, ankle decorations.” As your eyes shift to another stall: “Those are hand-painted prints.” Again, your eyes move to another stall – hardly pausing to look: “Those are wood sculptures.” This is just irritating although once you have a ‘guide’ other guides leave you alone.
What got to us, however, was when paying for goods that the money had to be given to the ‘guide’ not the vendor – that was how he made his money – and we didn’t know how much would actually go to the seller. We try to get rid of ‘guides’ so that we deal directly with the vendors and therefore they don’t need to pay a commission.
The political and economic situation in Zimbabwe is such that its paper currency actually has an expiry date. We had never seen such a thing nor have most world travelers to whom we spoke. We saved a few Zim dollars as souvenirs as these expired at the end of July 2007. We speculated that the money expired so that it could be replaced with larger denominations since the inflation rate in Zimbabwe is about 3,500% (it has since risen to 4,000 percent)! A 1,000 dollar bill was worth 1-cent US when we arrived and less than half that 4 days later!
Store shelves, particularly in grocery stores, were pretty bare except for some very basics (soap) and luxury goods which no one can afford. Just across the border, in Zambia, grocery stores shelves were full and many people were shopping. The dramatic difference in economies of the two countries point to the damage created by Zimbabwean dictatorship of Mugabe.