eBusiness Weekly
Tawanda Musarurwa
Who ever thought watching buildings and roads would be this intriguing?
OK, let me be fair here.
Harare’s remaining colonial infrastructure is surprisingly aesthetically pleasing, albeit with the expected levels of deterioration.
Now add a touch of insightfulness, and you have arrived!
Ever been to a place so many times, and then for the umpteenth time you get to realise that you hardly know the place?
Well, it’s even worse than that . . . I was born here, seen Harare’s sights, and walked its streets for decades, but not really knowing much about them.
The things we take for granted (sigh).
Well, I kind of knew it was coming. That was the purpose of the escapade after all.
Hospitality giant, Rainbow Tourism Group (RTG), recently ventured into activities and one of its popular offerings is the “Sunshine City Tour”, which takes guests on a two to four-hour tour of Harare (depending on the places of interest one wants to visit.)
The tour is steeped in the history of Harare, every stop is a history lesson that leaves guests with a better understanding and knowledge of the city. Stops along the route include Mbare Musika, Kopje view of the city, the National Heroes Acre, Balancing Rocks in Epworth and Mukuvisi Woodlands to name a few.
The Kopje area
The tour typically starts at the Kopje Area, which is just several hundreds of metres from the RTG’s flagship hotel, Rainbow Towers. But it’s not simply an issue of proximity; far from it. The Kopje Area is an essential component of the city (and country)’s history.
It’s clearly a strategic location as you can view the entirety of Harare from the Kopje, a kind of fort a leader would like to hold. There are also stark reminders of the last time I stood on the summit of the Malindidzimu or World’s View on the outskirts of Bulawayo.
The actual Kopje area covers around 15 hectares (37 acres) and was declared a National monument in 1968.
Our tour guide explains:
“This is the first site on which the Shona habitants under Chief Neharahwa (also known as Chief Haarari) settled. Chief Haarari is where the city derived its name.
“Control of the Kopje passed from Chief Neharahwa to Chief Mbare. And Chief Gutsa was the last Shona Chief controlling the Kopje until September 1890, which saw the arrival of the British settlers led by Frederick Johnson, who took over the Kopje and then established the Union Jack and this marked the birth of the British settlement in Fort Salisbury, which became the pre-independence name of Harare.”
Harare Pioneer Cemetery
Our next stop was the Harare Pioneer Cemetery, where you find 27 Commonwealth burials of the 1914-1918 world war and a further 224 Commonwealth burials of the 1939-1945 war.
Also within the War Graves Plots are the Harare Memorial, commemorating 66 men of the Rhodesia Native Regiment and British South Africa Police, and the Harare Cremation Memorial, commemorating a single Royal Air Force casualty of the Second World War.
What more can I say about this? Except maybe the mausoleums of sorts!
Mbare township
I found a tour of this sprawling township to be rich and interactive in terms of the cultural and heritage offerings. Perhaps that’s because Mbare is the oldest and first black native settlement of the colonial system dating back to 1894. Its history is intricately tied to the Kopje area.
Explains our guide: “Mbare’s original name was Harare (Hariri) Township, but the suburb’s name was changed to Mbare when the city of Salisbury was re-named Harare at Zimbabwe independence in 1980. Harare is a corruption of Haarari, which means ‘One who never sleeps’, and was the name of the Zezuru Chief of this north-eastern part of the country, a Chief Harawa who had his base at the Harare Kopje, a walking distance from Mbare.
“When Cecil John Rhodes’ Pioneers first settled around the Kopje and called their settlement Salisbury (now Harare), they wanted to build a ‘White’ City. There was no space for the Indigenous Africans, so Harari Township was established for workers, but not their families. . . it was supposed to be a bachelors’ settlement.”
We had an opportunity to visit a popular traditional healer in the area, and a “crafts” market where you can find anything you are looking for . . . love potions included!
Harare Gardens
Hahaha, what can I say about them? Pass by and through them almost on a daily basis. They are the main garden in the city (a dying breed for most capitals around the world), and can be an ideal place for leisure and relaxation.
There is also a nice little pond on the north side of the gardens. And until the guide told me, I never knew it was created as a replica of the Victoria Falls. Only then do I start to see the intricacies . . . after all these years!
I can hardly do justice to what Harare has to offer for the tourist. Outside the few visits I undertook, Zimbabwe’s capital city has so much more to offer, not least the Chiremba Balancing Rocks south-east of the city; the National Art Gallery in the central business district; a myriad hiking and birding opportunities, just to mention a few.
Sometimes, just sometimes, we look a little too far, and search a little too hard.
And more activities . . .
Yes, there’s more.
RTG has also opened the Heritage Adventure Park at its flagship Rainbow Towers Hotel and Conference Centre.
It has the first zip-line attached to a hotel building in Zimbabwe. It’s an activity normally found in resort destinations, but well . . . welcome to Harare. Other activities at the adventure park include abseiling, climbing, paint-ball shooting, high beam and croc bridge and beach volleyball.
