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Published: November 13th 2009
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Hallway at Zambezi Sun
All the hallways are open to outside air, but the rooms are air conditioned. Farewell to Africa
This morning we rose to the usual increasingly hot day, enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast at the Zambezi Sun buffet, and decided to take a leisurely walk around the grounds one more time before leaving for the airport. The Zambezi Sun and more up-scale Royal Livingstone share the grounds in an enviable location right on the Zambezi River above and at Victoria Falls. The property is also right within the Mosi-Y-Tunya National Park, and consequently zebra and giraffe (and who knows what else) roam freely on the property, grazing on grass and trees. A small pond on the property has a sign warning guests of crocodiles. The resort staff are very alert to families staying there, and quick to stand guard, keeping people away from the wildlife at a safe distance.
As we walked along the Zambezi, purposely meandering towards the shade of all the trees along its banks, we noticed that a very creative natural barrier had been constructed of sharp pointed rocks partially buried in a 1-meter wide band all along the river. This ingenius crocodile-barrier (or hippo barrier, or both, we assumed), was topped off by an electric fence. There were a few confusing
signs saying not to walk along the river bank, even though there were many lounge chairs strewn along the very banks one was not supposed to walk along. How the guests were supposed to get to the lounge chairs was anyone's guess - with armed guard? Or were the signs merely for liability purposes, like in North America?
Having experienced wildlife up close and personal for the past two weeks, which meant that by now we were getting quite blase about seeing dangerous wildlife, we blithely ignored the signs and continued our stroll, basking in the incredible memories this adventure has given us. We were not ready to leave, in spite of the heat. But alas, all good things must come to an end.
Our group gathered one more time for the trip to the airport - some on to see the rest of Zambia, and others including us, to head for home. Interesting that most of our group were from the Vancouver or Victoria area. Only four were Americans - two from Tennessee, one from Nevada and one from New York. All in all a very congenial group. We said our goodbyes at the airport, bucked the
Guard Assuring Safety
He might have been a National Park warden. chaos to follow our bags ensuring that they were checked in for the correct flight, and off we went for the 2-hour flight back to Johannesburg, and then the 11-hour flight to London, both flights uneventful.
A word of warning for travelers to and from Johannesburg Airport. DO NOT check your bags all the way through. Make sure to take your bags off the carousel in Johannesburg and re-check them on to your next destination. We were told that luggage theft is very common if you check bags on through.
At Heathrow we met a pre-reserved cab and rode 1.5 hours to Camden Town. Fortunately we had the Cobb's loaner cell phone to help us locate the cab driver at Heathrow Terminal 5. It's a nuisance not having a phone that will work in other countries. We Canadians are really held hostage by our service providers, and it's not appreciated by travelers to Europe. What do you mean there is no Sim card that will work in our phones? Arghhh!
It was morning when we arrived so the day was spent catching up on sleep from the long flight, looking at our safari pictures and starting to
catch up on the travel blog. Ah the memories!
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