The smoke that thunders

Zambia is acknowledged as one of the world's safest places to visit, and is home to friendly people, the majesty of the world's biggest waterfall in Victoria Falls, the wild Zambezi river, and world class game reserves. These attractions make for quite a package, and to continue from the previous journal ... our safari team kept rolling on. We reluctantly left the gorgeous Okavango Delta in Botswana and piled into the truck to drive to the final destination in our eight day safari. We soon crossed the border into Zambia and finished our safari at a quality hostel in Livingstone, the town on the Zambian side of the awesome Victoria Falls.

We checked into the hostel mid afternoon, and a few of us wasted no time in getting to the mighty Victoria Falls, a German mother and daughter and myself jumped into a taxi before it got dark. We walked the trails and took in the gargantuan water flows from the main falls as the sun set and rainbows formed over the incredible dusk spectacle. Then we caught a taxi back to the hostel to celebrate the end of our safari at a barbie that the hostel bunged on for us. And what a wonderful time our safari team had together, eight people spanning the countries of Germany, France, Australia, England and not forgetting the star of the show... our Namibian guide Chico from Chameleon Safaris. I highly recommend this safari company out of Windhoek, the itinerary of the safari taking us through game reserves and national parks in Namibia, Botswana and finishing in Zambia at Victoria Falls in Livingstone. We all celebrated and reminisced about our safari while chowing down, shared email addresses, promised to share photos then for the most part said our farewells.

Yet that was not the end of the African adventure for some of us, with my German friend and I preparing for new adventures around Livingstone. We were up early the next morning and headed back to the mighty Falls for a further all day explore. This natural wonder of the world (one of the seven) was known as the smoke that thunders by the native peoples of the area, and on approach it is impossible to miss the roar or the mist rising way above the Falls caused by the sheer volume of water plunging over the side. The Falls are 1.8kms long which means it takes a few days to explore all the trails, and this is only on the Zambian side. We took a great trail to the mouth of the Falls, to see kids having a lark and chucking bombs literally metres from the edge ... and a certain death!

We were told an elephant was cruising along near the edge the year before having a splash, when before you know it he was over the edge and into the industrial strength washing machine below. Lucky for him it was the dry season, and he apparently survived. We took another excellent trail down to Batoka Gorge at the bottom of the Falls, where we sat peacefully on the rocks and watched the crazies approaching the Falls on speedboat. Good luck with that guys, looks like a great way to get completely drenched but riding the rapids back had the boaters whooping it up good style. We gave 'em a wave and a cheerio.

There was so much to do in the adventure capital Livingstone, and so little time. The next day we were booked on a sunset cruise on the Zambezi river, but prior to that we had also booked a microlight flight over Victoria Falls. There was too much wind for the pilots to take off in, so the flight was postponed till the next morning, we then piled back into the back of a truck and the driver took us down the river for our cruise. What can I say about boating at sunset on the Zambezi, aside from it was absolutely brilliant. We had a local hostess on the cruise who was knowledgeable, friendly and interesting. She plied the group full of information and drinks, not necessarily in that order! The sunset over the Zambezi was sublime, and we saw hippos and herds of elephants on the banks of the river. I love Africa! Our hostess informed the group that elephants swim the Zambezi in herds looking for food on the other side, easy as you please. This was astonishing news to me given the size of the river. Overall a great evening was had by all amidst considerable good cheer.

Next morning the gods smiled on us back at the airport runway, where my friend and I were strapped in behind our pilots for the microlight flight over the Falls; we taxied, accelerated and were quickly airborne for an incredible twenty minute flight. A digital camera mounted on the wing helped to capture the memories. What an incredible experience, from that height viewing the mighty Victoria Falls can only be described as looking over the edge of the world, with the whole Zambezi river simply plummetting over the edge. Victoria Falls and the Zambezi river are spectacular sites in Zambia and from my limited time I would suggest,........ basically all of you should be here now!

As I continue my travels, until next time it's signing off for now

Tom

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