Top 5 Things You Never Knew About Binga
Despite being one of Zimbabwe’s prime tourist resorts with a diverse range of attractions that include rich wildlife, the Zambezi River and well conserved traditional cultures, Binga is surprisingly not known much even by Zimbabweans. Here are top 5 things about Binga that surprised us we’re sure you never new these too!
1. Luxury House Boats, Cruises and Speedboats
Binga is on the shores of the Zambezi river and this means lots of water. There’s therefore a lot of boating activity for tourists. This includes house boat, cruises and speed-boating.
2. From Binga, cross the Zambezi, and you’re in Zambia.
Using canoes, Binga residents frequently cross the Zambezi to go to Zambia to visit relatives.
3. Wildlife: Elephants, Lions, Hyenas, Rhinos, Leopards, Cheetahs, Wild Dogs
The Matusadona National Park which is home to all (yes, all) of the animals you’d want to see in Zimbabwe, starts just east of Binga. Let’s list some: black rhino, zebra, night ape, hippopotamus, spotted hyaena, wild cat, lion, leopard, elephant, honey badger, civet, mongoose, dassie, warthog, vervet monkey, side-striped jackal, antelope, kudu, otter, crocodiles, eland, civet, bush pig, wild dog, cheetah, pangolin. We could have gone on but you get the picture!
4. How Binga became
The settlement that is now Binga resulted from the damming of the Zambezi River to create the Kariba Dam back in the 1950s. The Batonga people who had lived in the valley for centuries were forced to relocate to higher ground, the present day settlement of Binga. Binga is home to about 120,000 people!
5. Lots of fishing
Little known yes, but living on the shores of the Zambezi River means in it is the main economic activity in Binga. The bream and tiger fish are relatively abundant. In the picture is group of women that own the fishing rig in the water.