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There are quite a few excellent memoirs about growing up in Zimbabwe packing our shelves, but The Last Resort is the first one I have ever described as “really funny.” The Last Resort quickly became a staff favorite (not just because the frog on the cover is really cute) because it is a fascinating read – I found it impossible to put down. Douglas Rogers, now a Brooklyn-based journalist and travel writer, grew up in Zimbabwe and his parents continue to run their backpacker’s lodge, Drifters, today. The problem was that after reading the book, I desperately wanted to know what happened next to his parents and Drifters. So I asked, and he responded with an update.

1. First, a preliminary travel preference question: do you take the aisle or window seat? (Please explain.)
Aisle – for stretching and proximity to wine trolley.

2. Also, according to your biography you have traveled to over 50 countries. But there is always that tiny Baltic Island whose ferry is never running or that pueblo in Taos that is always closed for an indigenous ceremony – we’ve all got a place where fate won’t let us go. Is there a destination that still eludes you?

Yes, any island off Maine. This will sound pathetic to someone from Boston, but I’ve been planning to visit Maine ever since moving to the US seven years ago and it’s never happened, usually because of poor organization on my part. It’s not easy to get my head around that state because it’s so huge, and the idea of going to the wrong island and being stuck there for a week terrifies me. So a request – can any of your readers advise me on a cool, remote island hideaway to visit in June with my family, how to get there, and where to stay?

3. Back to the update: your parents own Drifters, a backpacker lodge in Zimbabwe. During Mugabe’s program to reclaim white-owned land, Drifters morphed into a brothel, a place where soldiers, spies, and diamond dealers met to drink beer, a place where marijuana crops flourished, and a safe-haven for the white farmers. Now Drifters has come full circle to being a tourist lodge. Do you get the sense that tourists are indeed coming back? Do you think that your parents miss the excitement of the “unsavory” characters that used to hang out there and the notoriety that came with it?

Well, it hasn’t exactly come full circle. The marijuana’s been dug up
and some intrepid tourists who read the book have visited, but it’s
still frequented by many of the unsavory characters I write about,
including a few diamond dealers, hookers, and fat politicians. The
Political Commissar is still across the road, too. My father quite
likes the intrigue these characters bring, but in truth he and my mom
would like nothing better than to have it back as the wholesome
resort it once was. Funnily enough, a friend in Cape Town is actually
making a documentary about the lodge and people who are starting to visit
again as a result of the book, so if any of your readers want to make
a trip to eastern Zimbabwe and be part of the film, let me know.

4. Currently there are no guidebooks to Zimbabwe available for
tourists, except for the 50 or so pages in the Lonely Planet Southern Africa. Can you recommend any resources for people planning trips there?

Bradt Travel Guides seem to specialize in holidays in hell, and they
are publishing an updated Zimbabwe edition in June, 2010. Get hold
of that when it comes out (www.bradt-travelguides.com). Inns of Zimbabwe  www.innsofzimbabwe.co.zw is a collection of excellent small hotels around the country run by a brilliant local hotelier named Gordon Addams. Look up the contacts list on that site and don’t be shy about emailing or literally calling the people on it, asking for suggested itineraries and advice on where
to stay and how to get around.

5. In an interview with the New Yorker, you said your Mom wants Meryl Streep or Helen Mirren to play her in a movie. Who would you cast? Meryl or Helen and why? How about for your Dad?

I prefer Helen Mirren – not only because she’s theatrically English
like my Mom, but because Meryl will forever be associated with Out of
Africa, a film that’s as far from my parents’ experience as it’s
possible to get and still be on the same continent. My father would
probably like Clint Eastwood, but I’d go for Anthony Hopkins. They’re
of similar age and I don’t think Hopkins has ever played a white
African. I also suspect he’d like my old man.

6. Your mother has been working on a survival cookbook called
Recipes for Disaster. What is typical Zimbabwean cuisine? Have you been testing the recipes from the cookbook at your home in Brooklyn?

Zimbabwe’s staple dish is sadza – a corn-based porridge that’s a poor man’s polenta. My mom’s recipes are more fancy – dishes like Smuggled
Mozambique Piri-Piri Prawns and Two Country Thai Chicken Curry. My
wife and I have made both these dishes in Brooklyn, but they never
taste as good, probably because we don’t have to smuggle the prawns or
travel to two different countries to get the ingredients for the
curry. The recipe book is less about the dishes than the stories
behind how my Mom manages to find and cook the ingredients, when shops are empty, and there’s no electricity to operate a fridge or a stove.

7. While on the topic of Zimbabwean cuisine, what is Chibuku?

Ha – Chibuku is a brand of traditional beer – a bitter, milky,
porridge like brew not for the faint hearted. It’s served in what
looks like a milk carton and it’ll knock you on your ear.

8. Graham Greene, Pico Iyer, Evelyn Waugh– which one would you have dinner with? Share a train cabin with? Step into a boxing ring with?

Dinner with Evelyn Waugh. Train ride with Greene. Boxing ring with
Pico Iyer. Although I have no desire to punch him.

9) Hemingway Challenge: Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a novel in six words. What’s your six word travel story?

Bus ambushed, monk dead, send diplomat.

Read more: Africa, Book Reviews, Douglas Rogers, News, The Last Resort, Zimbabwe


Lisa says "blah, blah, blah, Croatia, blah, blah, blah, Dubrovnik, blah, blah, red wine, blah." non-stop.

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