- Zimbabwe
10 August – Victoria Falls ZIMBABWE
We
blew right through Zimbabwe almost as quickly as we went through Malawi and
we’ll do pretty much the same to Zim. It was a rough 5 days from Dar to Vic
Falls but it was nice to see the miles ticking off. Chipata to Lusaka is a long
500km journey. The last 200km to Lusaka are on good tar road but the first 300km
are on potholed tar. Always nasty, at times you can build up good speed but
there is always the risk of hitting something surprising when you’re doing
100kph
Lusaka
was an amazing surprise. The couple we met in Chipata made it sound awful and
I’ve always heard how nasty and poor Zambia is. Not true! Lusaka is a small
capital but nice looking. We had absolutely marvellous chicken burger and chips
and the best choc 99 of my life for supper. Double wow. It’s great and if we
ever visit Zambia again, which we’d like to, we’ll do all our food stocking
up in Lusaka.
We
didn’t get up too early on the 9th for our drive to Vic Falls. Had
a lie in, hot showers etc before hitting the road. We got to Livingstone (11km
from the falls) around 2:30pm. The road varied from good to OK, the potholes
were largely filled in. We didn’t stop in town and went straight on to the
falls. We paid our $3 pp entry and went to have a look. It really lived up to
and in fact, exceeded all my expectations. I had no idea how humoungously huge
the falls really are. We spent about an hour there before crossing into Zim,
another hassle-free crossing into country #14. We didn’t go the view the Zim
side of the falls yesterday but rather to find a campsite. This is a true
tourist trap town and I love it! For a day at least. Our first campsite had nice
lawns, which attracted Scott no end but it was very crowded so I managed to
persuade him to look further afield. We’re at the Municipal Site – huge, not
too busy, nice facilities (hot showers etc) but sadly no lawn. Our roving
elephants and warthogs make up for that though. We met a South African couple
who’ve spent 4 months touring Southern Africa up as far as Tanzania. We went
for dinner together and Scott and I had ribs. I enjoyed them, or rather I
enjoyed the sauce but Scott was disappointed. Sad when something you’ve longed
for what feels like forever is a disappointment.
Today
we spent some time doing washing (me) and car stuff (Scott) before heading to
town. We phoned home, bough stamps, sent off cards etc before heading off to the
Zim side of the falls. Here it cost us 20USD pp to get in. I was tempted not to
go in after all, the price is outrageous but we were there and you can’t not
go in. The views were great. After an hour or so, we headed back to town for a
wimpy burger lunch, I don’t know why, it was not a great success.
After
lunch we had the highlight of the day and one of the highlights of the whole
trip – a 40min flight over the falls and game reserve. At $70pp it must be the
bargain of the falls. It is really only from the air that you get a true feeling
of the size of the falls. Seeing animals from above is quite hard but we did get
to see tons of elephants.
This
evening we went to check mail over a VERY slow connection but we had to do it
– Yvonne's address and phone number were being sent on a mail from mom.
We’ll hit the road early tomorrow and head for Botswana. We were planning on
crossing the Caprivi but have heard from various sources that there is serious
trouble there – almost a civil war with 200 people killed and the border
closed. We’ve avoided trouble so far so we’ll do our best to avoid it
further. We’ll go to Maun and then across to Windhoek from there.
