Blogs from Livingstone, Southern Province, Zambia, Africa

Let's see...there was the night in Croc River camp, an un fenced campsite in lush Zambia, where all day monkeys had terrorized us stealing sandwiches, water bottles, lens caps...anything that wasn't nailed down. Where hippos (and hopefully not crocs) had wallowed in the river not far from where we were camped and lions roared mightily in the not so distant distance That evening we were briefed on proper night time safety protocol: 1. Walking to the toilets at night always hold your headlamp in your hand and sweep the area far in front of you 180% from side to side with the light....you don't want to surprise or be surprised by anything large and aggressive on its way to some important rendezvous. 2. If possible let someone know where you are going or go with a ... read more

Had an early morning start with a 6:15 breakfast, followed by a 6:30 pickup to the Mosi-Oa-Tunya NP (The Victoria Falls NP) for an elephant back safari. The elephant ride was fun, but there was almost no game to be seen, even though it was still cool because it was early. We saw some bush buck, Impala, Hippo, baby crocs, so we spent most of the time photographing each other on our respective elephants. The actual time riding the elephants was only an hour, so that part was a dissapointment. It was also very expensive, but W.. had a great time!... read more

Yes, Victoria Falls is one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World, and it's well deserving of that accolade. It is amazing! We were planning on seeing it from both the Zambian and Zimbabwean sides, but Zimbabwe has recently increased their visa fees. There's no longer a day visa option. At $75 Canucks pay the highest visa fee and then add another $50 for a visa back into Zambia, just to see the same thing from a different angle. This place is heaven for Adrenaline junkies. There's white water rafting on the Zambezi river, bungee jumping off the bridge connecting Zimbabwe and Zambia, zip lining across the Batoka Gorge, Abseiling down the cliff sides of the Batoka Gorge, Ultralight, fixed wing and helicopter rides along the river and falls ... the list goes on. We're ... read more

From Pretoria it took us 25 hours on two buses straight through Zimbabwe, formerly known as Rhodesia, making a connection in Bulawayo (which means 'killing place'), to get to the town of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Once there, we looked at three different accommodations and decided on Shoestring Backpackers. We set up camp and explored the small town. There were not a lot of tourists around, so with the over abundance of street merchants, we would get hassled consistently on the streets. The local currency is in US Dollars. Inflation in their previous currency had gotten so bad, it would take a whole bag of money just to buy a newspaper. Street merchants would all sell the old currency. You could get large notes such as a 25 Billion Dollar note, but of course they were worthless. ... read more

Arrived today. The flight was brutal (even with the nice selection of Summer Catch as an in-flight movie) but the first 8 hours in Zambia made it worth it. We saw cavemen and other assorted awesome stuff at the Livingstone Museum and then took a sundown cruise on the Zambezi River where we saw hippos and elephants and a croc. One of the elephants even came into the water to check out the boats. ... read more