So we plan a return trip soon, the better to explore the terrain, create some fine adventures, and blaze the trail for future visiting hikers who choose to follow our advice in picking this as a perfect base!
On our adventure up Susurumba mountain, complete with raging storm and slippery near vertical cliffs, brought with it another pleasure beyond the pure adventure; the vast array of unfamiliar, lovely plant life observed as we ascended — amazing succulents, aloes, wild proteas, and delightful wild flowers, many of them new to us — causing us to stop many times along the way to study their detail and take pictures.
In addition there were the un-ending vistas of mountains and valleys, disappearing into the furthest distance, against the dramatic skies only Africa can offer, calling us to explore further and further and further — next time, and I hope, sooner than later!
While our failure to reach the very top – for sensible safety reasons in the storm — meant we failed to see the ancient stone ruins found there.We were lucky to be in the right place at the right time to meet a very interesting lady with a passion for the early history of this lovely part of our country, over lunch at Pine Tree Inn.
I had had a penchant to re-visit Ziwa ruins on this trip, but alas, time was not on our side!
Ann Kritzinger has ruffled feathers with her relatively newly developed theory about the numerous ruins in Nyanga. Conventional wisdom is that the stone terraces and pit structures are evidence of early agriculture.
When we recently visited Nalatale Ruins we first encountered the controversy, when we were shown a circular “bowl” shaped dip in the rock, and told there were two points of view; one that this was from early grain grinding, the other, more recent, that this was evidence of very early gold mining.
This latter view is the one Ann prefers. She has spoken on the topic at learned academic gatherings outside Zimbabwe — and met with both agreement, and fierce resistance! She has conducted extensive research on both theories and presented us with leaflets showing and explaining the evidence which points the way of the pre-colonial gold mining theory. Very interesting stuff!
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Residual gold at commercially viable levels has been found in all samples collected from 56 archaeological sites. The theory is that the quartz veins in the terraced hills of Nyanga host gold, and in ancient times, people mined it.
Her research has included running crop trials on these terraces, to see how the crops actually fared — which was, very badly! The soil is very poor and the crops were consistently all but grazed out by wild animals.
Her theory is that the terraced hills were instead, early gold mining areas, while the pit structures which many believe to have been for cattle are instead further evidence of early gold mining, in the form of tanks designed for gold recovery by gravity concentration.
Samples from pit structure entrances have indeed contained high gold concentrations.
As you can tell, there is much to draw visitors to Juliasdale and Nyanga, whether your passions be ancient history, geology, botany, bird-spotting, exploring, adventuring, hiking, mountain climbing, or even, training for a marathon – and I haven’t even started on other wildlife!
Passion for stone structures
I have a huge fascination for Zimbabwe’s history, in particular, the San rock paintings, as well as the various ruins found all over the country.Dry stone walls, often ornately created, amazing old settlements such as Great Zimbabwe itself, the recently visited Nalatale Ruins near Jabulani Safaris, and those I’ve stumble upon in Matobo, Chinamhora and elsewhere.
There are differing theories as to the origins of some of these ancient stone buildings, terraces and structures and there is some controversy surrounding them.
Keeping an open mind is one of the hardest things we humans must attempt, since many of our opinions are shaped at our parents’ knees and become entrenched.
lFeedback: [email protected].
