Victoria Falls and Cape Town

So continuing on to victoria falls....

Victoria Falls has two sides, one in Zambia and one in Zimbabwe. Lots of people and tour companies are avoiding the Zimbabwe side right now but we went there because our guide said that they could drive us quickly out if need be. The town was obviously once quite prosperous but is now sort of a ghost town! We were told that things are improving now, and they are trying to adopt the south african Rand as the currency. We stayed at a campsite in the middle of town and the second you left there were men surrounding you trying to sell zim dollars (50 trillion notes) and wooden hippos, or trade for your clothes. Clothes are quite scarce there so they are actually better to bargain with than dollars. My favorite thing I did there was the lion walk. They take orphaned lions and eventually train them to go back into the wild. When they are older than 2 they are transferred to antelope park, a huge park in Zimbabwe where they learn to hunt and join a pack. But when they are younger they are teaching them to hunt and stuff and for $110USD you get to walk with them and pet them! There were 2 pairs of brother and sister lions- one was almost 2 years old and the other was less than a year. It was really fun and the pictures are awesome! We also went to the Boma for supper, which is a buffet restaurant that has lots of game meat to try (warthog was yummy!) and also traditional dancing, drumming (we all got to drum), face painting, fortune tellers...it was touristy but fun!

At the end of my trip I flew to Cape Town for a few days. I'm sure glad I did because it was a great place! Except for the body I saw on the highway from the airport (someone had run across the highway and got hit by a car). The hostel was the best hostel I've ever stayed in and I met so many people there. They have tons of day tours running in Cape Town so there's lots to do. The first day I did a township tour where we visited a few different townships. We saw a traditional healer, drank fresh beer (milky solids in it....ewww), visited a daycare (with INSANE children that demanded to be picked up and stole our sunglasses and hit us when we tried to get them back), and went inside some of the homes. The weird thing about the townships are the range of houses- everything from corrugated metal shack to a perfectly normal suburban house with a garage and yard! We went inside one really terrible place though, it was like an apartment block but with a communal "kitchen" (I use that term loosely...) and "bathroom" and rooms for the families. But each room (which was about 10x10 square feet with two single beds) held TWO families. Not two people. How that works I have no idea. In the afternoon we went to robben island and had a super quick tour of the island and prison. The next day I did a tour to Cape Point and we made stops along the way to visit seal island, a penguin sanctuary (where the penguins were sitting on their babies!), and cape point national park where the cape of good hope is. We biked from the entrance to the park to the cape which was kind of challenging as there were a LOT of hills! There were even ostriches on the road. Then we climbed up to the rocks to cape point. Lots of good photo opportunities.

My final thoughts on Africa is that it is a really interesting place that everyone should see! I am still amazed at how many animals I saw. I'd like to go back and visit the Serengetti and Zanzibar, but no camping this time...just luxury lodges :) Maybe that will be our honeymoon!

I was in London for a couple of days and I just arrived in Istanbul. It's cold and rainy! The two week tour of Turkey starts tomorrow night but I have the day free so I think I will just go to the grand bazaar. Hopefully I will have a chance to update during the trip, but if not I'll be back in two weeks from London, on my way home!

---

---