The only sound I hear is my own heavy breathing as I climb steep, carved stone steps that lead past drystone walls, regularly coursed and carefully dressed, and through narrow rock crevasses. A dragonfly hovers over the gray granite.
Lizards dart in and out of the cracks in the ancient walls.
Here I begin to comprehend the magnitude of this place called Great Zimbabwe. The dense labyrinths of enormous stone walls dominate the remains of a city that may have had a population as large as 20,000 between the 13th and 15th centuries. Today it is a vast monument to black history and civilization, appropriately designated as both a national monument and a World Heritage Site. It wasn't always that way. There are several reasons for this.