Room with a view

---

Imagine me sitting in one of those huge wooden deck chairs (those with the big armrests to safely put your drinks on) on the terrace in front of my room. The sun is beginning to set above the mighty Zambezi which flows past less than 5 meters away. All the boats are out for the sunset cruises (nicknamed "booze cruises" as all drinks are free), the Marimba players have started playing next door and in the distance you can see "the smoke that thunders" (Mosi-Oa-Tunya) where nature has created one of the wonders of this world: Victoria Falls. (They were named after Queen Victoria by David Livingstone, British missionary and explorer, who, one assumes, was the first white person to see this spectacle. That was on November 16th, 1855. Since 1989 the 1.7 km wide and 108m high falls (the Niagara Falls are 998 m wide and 58 m high) have been a World Heritage Site.)
Yes, I have skipped camping for a couple of days and taken a room. It might be considered cheating but it's ever so nice. A place to sleep which is actually higher than ground level, electricity to charge batteries, and - most importantly - my own shower and toilet. A bonus is also the quiet here on the river front. The truck is staying in the campground of "The Waterfront" about 4km south of the small town of Livingstone. It seems to be the(!) place where all overland trucks stay for a while and consequently it is rather noisy and cramped. Plus the bathrooms have about three billion moskitoes residing in them on a permanent basis.
We have been here for 5 days now. It is the halfway place (since Nairobi we have done 5059 km - there was a competition to guess the right number that's how I know), five people have left us and four new people joined. This could have been a place to relax for a while and the room helped, of course, but there was just sooooo much to do. Though I did not go Bungee Jumping or Whitewater Rafting (too old for that) there was plenty to do to fill the time. I did a prolonged elephant ride on big Bop in the Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park, walked with lions (a chance to take some fantastic pictures, which I will hopefully have resized for the next blog entry), inspected the falls, of course, had a pedicure in a "bush" salon, did all my washing, went curio shopping, and did the sunset cruise, of course (you can see it was a booze cruise, but we did have to re-celebrate three birthdays!)
So what I'll do today is just add on some personal pics to give you an idea what has happened since the last entry ten days ago.
Thanks for all your messages, they do arrive, don't worry.
In contrast, my pictures cannot be uploaded at the moment because of problems with the server. Sorry, I'll try again tomorrow. We will be in Botswana then and supposedly the internet is more stable there. Till then, take care.

Well, it's the next day and we are in Botswana now and internet is actually a whole lot faster. I see if I can settle down to write another blog tonight and come back to this place to edit it. This is just a small waggon (Bauwagen) with small cardboard partitions and you have to crawl under the desk to stick in your USB stick but it works and I am happy. I hope you are, too, now the pictures are in place.

---

Photos

Me on big Bop
Elephant ride on the shores of the mighty Zambezi

Big Bop close up
He is big, isn't he?