Livingstone & Victoria Falls (Zambia Side)

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The journey from Lusaka to Livingstone took 7 and half hours. It was fairly comfortable, but quite monotonous with the scenery unchanging the whole way down. I stayed at Jollyboys Backpackers, which is the most popular one in Livingstone and is one of the busiest I had stayed at in Africa. One funny thing about my stay here was the incredible amount of Irish people staying here. I must have encountered at least ten different groups of people in the few days I was here.

Livingstone is a busy enough town and is 8km away from the Victoria Falls, but it is difficult to imagine if there would be anything there if it wasn't for the constant stream of tourists that come to visit the falls. It has seen an upturn in its toursim in recent years as well, due to the trouble in Zimbabwe a number of years ago, which still puts off people visiting the falls from that side.

The morning after I arrived, I went to visit the falls. It's hard to say much more about them except that they truly are spectacular. It was a good time of year to see them, as the flow was still quite strong without it being so strong that the visibility is impaired by the spray. There is still sufficient spray to get soaked to the skin. Some people I saw opted to get ponchos, but I just went in shorts and took my t-shirt off as I went through.

After going through the Knife's Edge view of the falls, we went down to the 'Boiling Pot', a point at the turn of the river which swirls like a whirlpool and bubbles, hence the name. Down here you can see people doing the bungee jump off the bridge, despite the fact that, somebody's rope snapped a few months back. It was more the cost ($125) that put me off.

On the way down, I came across some incredible flora and vegitation. On the way back up, there were some baboons, which I did my best to avoid, as they are known to be quite aggressive. There was a story going around that a woman had died there recently trying to avoid them and slipping over the edge.

There was a sunset/booze cruise, which I did the next day. This started at about 4 and we cruised down the Zambezi seeing the odd hippo. There was a buffet and a free bar, but once the sun had set the boat sped back to the start. It was fairly disappointing in the end as it only lasted about 2 and a half hours.

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