Vic Falls visit

6 May

Today was absolutely incredible! We slept in this morning, well for us this meant 7 am. We were able to scramble eggs and bacon in the well equiped Backpackers kitchen. The Backpackers is very central and in walking distance to everything. After buying a sim card at PEP, we made our way to Vic Falls. Its about a 15 min drive from Livingstone before you get to the Border Post into Zim. Theres a very old, rural building where you can get a free pass to walk the bridge. I handed in my ID and off to Zim we walked.

The walk to the bridge is full of trucks and vegetation that you cant actually see the falls but you can feel the spray gently falling onto your skin. We soon turned and there it was! The bridge goes from Zambia to Zim and has a train track crossing. There were locals on bicycles carrying loads of stuff and such strong women carrying mielie meal on their heads and overloaded bags on their backs, all wearing these gorgous colourful patterned materials wrapped around their bodies. The falls were spectacular. Theres just this large spray of water falling so rapidly into a large pool at the bottom. The sky was full of helicopters flying rich tourists over the falls making constant noise which spoiled it a little bit but once we got into the falls the noise of crashing water eventually drowned the humming.

After taking a million photos we crossed the bridge back into Zambia to explore the Rain Forest that held the falls.

The Forest walk was amazing. It was 20$ each, but worth every single cent. We hiked down to the Boiling Pot. I highly recommend to any future Vic Falls visitors to NOT wear flip flops. We managed but its 100 m climb, very rocky and slippery and just not really advisable. Along the trails there just baboons everywhere and they are so tame, casually walking right past you without any worries. We got to the bottom and being able to see the falls from this angle was something else. We were someone doing the bungee from the bridge we had just visited and a small part of me was wishing I could've done it....definitely next time! We began our trek back up the mountain. Not even a third of the way up my garmin said Ihad reached my climbing goal of 10 flights of stairs (which I hardly ever make), by the time I got to the top, I had done 26 flights!! On the way back up, we came across a mom baboon carrying a tiny baby, it was so small, it looked days old. As it was time for a break from the climb back up, I stopped to watch their interaction and realized the baby was dead and this mom was actually expressing sad emotions. She was nuturing it, rubbing its eyes, wiping her own eyes as if she was mourning and she craddled the baby, it looked as if she was saying goodbye. This was too emotional for me, so we pressed on.

We then went to Knife Edge which is a bridge much closer to falls. Here we got to truly experience the falls. By this time, the temperature had reached 33 degrees so we were not going to spend money on raincoats. We took our flip flops off and ran into the spray of the falls cooling our bodies from the long hike. This was just so magical, bright rainbows shone everywhere, the spray was so powerful, it felt like rain, we danced and laughed with joy and so much excitement ran through our veins. To be so close to something so majestic was incredible. The quantity and the power of the flow of water and to feel like we are actually in it was breath-taking. Today was a highlight of my life.

This map shows the Falls trails and where we walked today (over 13 000 steps was done today)

After all this excitement we had now obviously built up quite an appetite. On the other side of the fence is the Avani Hotel, we decided we'd see if we can go have lunch there. The security gaurd was fast alseep on a stool under a tree so we quietly snuck in and wondered the grounds of the hotel. The hotel is in the Mosi-oa-Tun)ya National Park so there were zebras and impalas just casually roaming the hotel streets. We found the pool bar and restaurant area and made ourselves at home. Still sopping wet from the falls, we lay around drying off and ate a delicious pizza. Now we had to sneak back out the hotel - things went smoothly. Luckily. Just outside the entrance we browsed through the hundreds of curio stalls and bombarded by every owner trying to give you the best price. Although we didnt buy anything, it was fun seeing the interesting curios the locals had hand made.

We headed back to camp for an afternoon nap before we went into town and explored Livingstone. Its a really pretty town, the buildings are old and dilapidated with paint crumbling off, very third world but the shops are clean and fully stocked with good quality food. After we did our grocery shopping, we came back and Chris made a lovely salad for dins (we so stuffed from breadrolls) and padkos for our long journey tomorrow. We having an early night to get up at 5 and drive to Mkushi.