Victoria Falls

We had originally planned to take an overland bus from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, which would have taken us over 30 hours! But, as you may recall, on our first day in Moshi, we found out that the bus company did not run that route anymore (blessing in disguise!!). Instead, we had to try to arrange airplane tickets to get us there. They were absurdly expensive, but in the end we decided that it was worth every penny. I can't imagine spending 30 plus hours on a bus... yuck!

So we left Zanzibar and flew Air Tanzania to Johannesburg, South Africa. I have to say that the flight was very nice, new plane, surprisingly good food. Because of the connection to Vic Falls, we had to spend one night in Jo'burg. While it was nice to visit a real shopping mall to stock up on some toiletries, we were not really impressed by the city. More specifically, we were pretty astounded at the attitude of the whites towards the blacks here. While it has been 15 years since the end of aparteid, the whites still have a very condescending attitude towards minorities. It was very apparent in everything. While we won't judge an entire country by what we saw in Jo'burg, I just hope that things are a bit different in Cape Town. We'll see.

After a night in Jo'burg, we flew to Vic Falls the next morning. We took a taxi to the Vic Falls Rest Camp and began our adventures here. The Rest Camp has both chalets with 2 beds or camping sites. Justin and I opted for a chalet as we'll have plenty of opportunity for camping over the next 3 weeks.

We put down our things and headed off into town to take a look at the Falls. First thing to know about Zimbabwe is that there has been some major economic trouble in the last several years, with inflation well over 10,000% per year! A bottle of water in the local store cost about 5,000,000 Zimbabwean dollars. While the rate for the dollar is ~3,000,000 Zim dollars per USD, if you want to exchange currency legally at a bank, you will get a rate of 30,000 Zim dollars per USD. Not surprisingly, there is a rampant 'parallel' market for exchanging currency. However, we did not have to exhange any USD as everything had to be paid for in USD anyway.

Being the seasoned travellers that we are, we headed to the Falls by foot with just a backpack and our camera. While we had carried ponchos and rain coats across Africa for over 3 weeks now, for some reason, we didn't think that we would need any rain gear at the Falls. WRONG! First, Victoria Falls is magnificent! The first view that we got just took our breath away. I think the Falls are at a height of over 100m (300ft). In addition, the water level is very high right now, so the amout of water flowing over the Falls is unbelievable. This water hits the rocks and creates this incredible amount of mist. Ah, yes, the mist. It makes the Falls difficult at times to see and made us COMPLETELY soaking wet, right down to our underwear!

We really wanted to do a white water rafting trip in the Zambezi (the river that feeds the Falls), but since the water is so high, the rafting has been canceled for the season. It doesn't make sense to ride the rapids if there are no rapids. Instead, we decided to do a canoe trip. The Zambezi river is huge right now. I think it is 30m (100ft) deep in some places and over 4km (3 miles) across! During our canoe trip, we did have a few class 1 and 2 rapids to go over that made for some fun, but other than that, it was pretty relaxing.

After our canoe trip, we decided to check out some of the posh hotels here at Vic Falls. One of the oldest hotels is the Victoria Falls Hotel. I think it was built in like the 1940s. We had lunch here with a magnificent view of the Falls! You can see the bridge here spanning the Zambezi River. The left side is Zimbabwe and the right side is Zambia.

We decided to walk out onto that bridge to take a few pictures of the Falls close up. After getting through immigration on the Zimbabwean side, getting a pass to get on the bridge, running 'the gauntlet' with about 30 people trying to sell us all sorts of things, we finally made it onto the bridge and could enjoy the magnitude of these magnificent Falls.

Since the last time we had visited the Falls, the weather was kind of poor, we decided to give it another shot. This time, we were prepared with raingear! While it made some difference with our shirts, our pants still got completely soaked. I mean at the "Danger Point" it is basically like you are in a downpour!

After a quick lunch at another nice hotel overlooking the Falls, The Palms, we headed back to the Rest Camp to meet with our Overland group!