All Good Things Come to an End

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March 1st 2012

Published: March 1st 2012

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Emma Claire

Party, Kande style

Our second stop in Malawi was Kande (pronounced 'candy'😉 Beach, where relaxing and drinking a little too much were the orders of each day. It's a tradition for overland tours to have a fancy dress party during their stay at Kande, and the locals know that whenever they see one of the trucks pulling up, they can expect to make a killing selling ridiculous outfits at ridiculous prices. Of course, it would be no fun if you actually knew what you would be wearing at the party, so names are put into a hat and everyone in the group draws one out at random, and then takes charge of that person's costume. It's lucky that we were all up for a laugh, because there were some pretty outrageous outfits being modelled that night.

We crossed into Zambia on the 17th of February, and two days later we arrived at the famous Victoria Falls in Livingstone - the latter named after the Scottish explorer David Livingstone, and the former named by him in honour of Queen Victoria. The falls are also known as Mosi-oa-Tunya, which translates literally as 'Smoke that Thunders'. It's a very appropriate name, because the sound of the

The Zambezi River

falls crashing down is truly thunderous, and the spray formed by the impact of water hitting water and rocks looks just like smoke.

It was a wonderful experience to stand there and take in the majesty of the falls, but unfortunately it didn't last very long. Rainy season has started here, and the heavens were good enough to open when we were only ten minutes into our visit. I've never been so wet in my life. The one warm item of clothing I possessed (past tense due to aforementioned warm item having to be thrown away) was ruined by the rain, and I could barely see out of my glasses because I didn't have an inch of dry clothing on which to dry them off. It was probably good that I didn't wear my contact lenses that day. They'd just have been washed right out of my eyes.

It doesn't feel like it's been twenty-four days since we left Nairobi for our foray into the Masai Mara, but it has, and our tour officially ended at the Waterfront Lodge on the Zambezi River where we set off on a sunset cruise for two and a half hours in

Zambezi River

which to make the most of the beautiful scenery and the open bar. I can confirm that both of these things were made the most of by all. We saw a few hippos relaxing in the river, and there's said to be crocodiles in there as well, so swimming was most definitely off the agenda. There are plenty of other activities to do here, but unfortunately the companies price themselves out of customers. I would have liked to have done a flight over the falls, but at over £100 for fifteen minutes (thirteen once take off and landing are taken into consideration), it just didn't fit into my budget. Still, I'm happy to spend the next couple of days relaxing at the pool before my solo travel starts, and I even treated myself to an upgrade, which in this case was a permanent tent with a squishy bed and one pillow. Ah, luxury.

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