A bit of history about Bulawayo

Bulawayo was the capital of the Ndebele State when Lobengula, son of the King Mzilikazi, ascended to the throne. Lobengula’s initial royal town, established in 1872, was located about 14 miles of the present day city, on a ridge dominated by the Thabas Inyoka - “hill of serpents”. This town has been rebuilt and is known as “old Bulawayo”. Lobengula eventually moved his royal town, and the locality of the modern Bulawayo city was chosen by King Lobengula and he also named his royal town Bulawayo, which is the Ndebele word for “the place of slaughter”, in recognition of an armed struggle that Lobengula was involved in when he ascended to the throne, i.e. “He was being opposed and persecuted by his opponents- and he came out victorious”.

On 4 November 1893, a tattered Union Jack flag in whose centre was emblazoned the lion emblem of the British South Africa Company was tied one of the tree's branches on the side of Bulawayo drive. In the distance, the huts of Lobengula’s capital were burning on the further side of the stream. The flag was raised to signify the capture of Bulawayo and the successful conclusion of the 1st Matabele War. Dr Leander Starr Jameson was among those who watched the flag being raised above the Bulawayo Drive that day, and he congratulated himself on having conquered Matabeleland in a remarkable cavalry blitzkrieg.

Zimbabwe was freed of colonial and the apartheid based segregation laws of Ian Smith's unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) in 1980 becoming a model nation for the region. Subsequent to that it has fallen prey to the tyranny and oppression of a one party state with a life long president at the helm who still sees himself as the hero of the colonial wars. The country has recently begun emerging out of nearly total economic collapse and chaos as a result of a negotiated General Political Agreement (GPA) and Government of National Unity (GNU) resulting from ZANU-PF significantly losing at the 2008 polls, despite crafting significant violence in an attempt to stem the tide of change. Currently the Southern African Development Community is beginning to put pressure on Mugabe and his forces to reign in the violence and honour the GPA that is in place.

Bulawayo's situation is interesting from the geological as well as from a geographical point of view. The city stands on some of the most ancient rock ever laid down on earth. About 3,000 million years ago when the world was very young, a resilient belt of predominantly volcanic lavas, some thirty miles thick, which extruded there over the earth crust, and although granite intrusions, Karoo sediments, and finally" Kalahari sand later obscured much of this basement greenstone (as it is now called), a triangle of the archaic rock still remained exposed and today bears the buildings of the modern city. The northern apex of this triangular slab of greenstone lies beyond Queensdale and from that point reaches down to a granite base line running along the fringe of the Matopo Hills.

Before the collapse of Zimbabwe's rail infrastructure, Bulawayo was an important transport hub providing rail links between Botswana, South Africa and Zambia, and promoting the city's development as a major industrial centre. The city still contains much of what remains of Zimbabwe's heavy industry and food processing capability. Today Bulawayo is one of the country's most attractive cities, with a pleasing mixture of Victorian and modern architecture, which gives it a unique character. From a tourist point of view, Bulawayo has a lot to offer, either from within itself or around it. Bulawayo is located within the vicinity of Hwange National Park (300km), The Victoria Falls (500km), Khami Ruins, The Matobo Hills (where Cecil John Rhodes and as well as King Mzilikazi are buried) and Matobo National Park