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Published: September 5th 2010
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Kamini's happiest moment of the trip
High Tea at the Victoria Falls Hotel by Kamini
Crossing the border from Botswana to Zambia across the Zambezi River (the river forms the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia) was made much easier by a lovely Batswana lady named Ambrosia, whose friend gave us a free ride across the river. She also made sure we didn't get ripped off by the taxi drivers on the Zambian side. Ambrosia was on her way to Zambia to buy fruits and vegetables as they were surprisingly cheaper than in Botswana and worth the effort of crossing the border.
We stayed at Jollyboys, a popular backpackers in the town of Livingstone and a very easy place to while away the hours: lots of cushions to lie on, swimming pool, bar which unfortunately : ) only sold wine by the bottle. However the first thing we had to address before any relaxation could occur was our dirty safari clothes…….. we spent almost $30 on a load of washing….. it was a lot of money but worth it for the wonderful smell of clean clothes.
After many years of flirting with the idea of having my hair braided, I realised that the time had come to bite the bullet and DO
IT…… after 4 hours of painful hair pulling, it was done : ) It felt very tight but I was happy with it and wondered how long it would stay in, especially as I was told that if I don’t allow the hair to get wet, the braids would last up to 4 weeks!!!! However as it turned out the braids were out in 2 weeks : ( washing my hair was the best sensation everrrrrrrr.
Armed with our wet weather gear which has not been used in this trip so far, we headed for the Victoria Falls…… with warnings from Kelly about the many hungry baboons in the park who are not afraid of humans. The locals refer to the falls as the Smoke that Thunders (Mosi-oa-Tunya in the Kololo language), this name is apt as the water falls into a deep gorge.
We had only just entered the park when Florian’s flip flops which have been near death for a long time (even before leaving Australia) decided that it was time to break completely. Upon catching our first sight of the falls, Florian appeared to be more mesmerized by how he could still walk with his
broken thong compared to viewing one of the world’s natural wonders!!!
The Falls from the Zambian side were amazing, as we could get sooooo close to them and almost feel like we were a part of them. At the nearest point to the falls, water appeared to be hitting us from all angles and we were drenched. The following day we booked a tour to Livingstone Island which is where the famous explorer (“Dr Livingstone I presume”) first saw the Victoria Falls. The tour was run by one of the swankier hotels in town and our morning tour included a breakfast of eggs benedict and cakes : ) The tour involved walking barefoot along the edge of the falls, we were literally about a meter from the edge. It was an amazing view and well worth the cost of the tour. Rainbows created by the mist surround you and it is a wondrous sight.
The following morning after a sleepless night due to the couple in the tent directly next to us deciding to have the loudest sex imaginable at 1am in the morning........ we headed off to the Lwiindi ceremony of the Tonga people which is an
annual traditional festival of thanks giving. We watched the chief and his wife dance, a cow was slaughtered and the president of Zambia was there as well. We made it back to Livingstone in time to watch "The A-Team" at the local cinema, which both Florian and I had been eagerly awaiting. Not even one minute into the show we realised that this cinema was simply projecting a cheap DVD probably from China on to a white screen. We contemplated leaving however 10 minutes into the show, the whole town had an electricity outage. We took this as a very lucky sign, were reimbursed and got the hell out of there.
The next day we took the opportunity to play soccer with some children at the local orphanage. This was arranged by the hostel and we were accompanied by a lovely Canadian family, who later on taught us how to play Canasta and provided us with two free nights accommodation in a room instead of camping as they had decided that the hostel was too loud for their family.
We spent a day visiting a local traditional village not far from Livingstone and were shown around by the
'head' lady’s brother. It was interesting to have an insight into how they lived, cooked and made their traditional chibuku beer as well as a local spirit. We were invited for lunch and had the yummiest fried fish, relish, vegetables and nshima (boiled maize meal - a staple dish all over Southern Africa).
Not realising that a week in Livingstone had gone by so quickly, Florian and I decided to hit the road and cross the border into Zimbabwe. There were many touts trying to sell us the old Zimbabwean Dollar notes which we regret not buying more of. Walking across the Victoria Falls bridge, which forms the border, ‘no mans land’, was very interesting as many of the extreme activities such as the bungy jumping, bridge swings, zip lines etc are run from either on the bridge or in the surrounding cliffs. Watching the people jumping made both Florian and I want to experience the adrenaline rush. On arriving at Shoestrings backpackers, in the town of Victoria Falls, we made enquiries into the gorge swing and were soon back at the cliffs. This was an awesome experience and the feeling of the initial free fall which felt like
ages was great : ) The only downer was the smell of the rotting hippo down on the river edge....
The Falls from the Zimbabwean side were also amazing, simply because you could see so much more of it in a single glance as opposed to being nose to nose with it as on the Zambian side. Florian and I found it impossible to show a preference for either side.
The night before we planned to head out of Vic Falls, we went out with Kelly and a few of the locals she had befriended to a nightclub not too far from Vic Falls and managed to finally get our groove on : ) It was a great night out which also included eating crocodile (yummy tastes a bit like fish) and warthog (very tough meat). One weird aspect of the night was when we stepped outside of the nightclub because it was too hot and were told that Kelly and I should go back inside because the police were patrolling the area at the moment and if they saw us standing outside we could be prosecuted for soliciting sex!!!! Random
The next morning we had a
conundrum of how to make our way to our next destination, Lake Kariba: a bus which left at 2am or a train which left at 7pm. We decided that it would be a nice way to leave Vic Falls on the old 1950s train especially as we planned to have high tea at the Victoria Falls Hotel which is the oldest hotel in Zimbabwe and right next door to the train station. The high tea was very impressive and the views of the mist created by the Falls from the deck were beautiful. We could have spent more time walking around the grounds of the hotel and looking at the colonial memoribilia and paintings however we had a train to catch.
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MELISSA
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you got braids!!! very cool!