Livingstone, I presume? We started what was to be the most amazing African adventure in Zambia. After the short flight from Johannesburg, we picked up our rental car and headed to the Zambian side of Victoria Falls. On our way, we stumbled on our first baboon (of about 200), and watched as it crossed the road, made a beeline towards someone’s cargo loaded bike, and tore into a sack of grain!
We arrived at the Zambian side of the falls with a lot of excitement in our hearts and a lot of free space on our memory cards. Our first stop was to walk away from the falls and towards the Victoria Falls Bridge. The bridge was started and finished in the early nineteen hundreds, and at the time was the highest bridge in the world. (If our facts are wrong, blame the museum that we got them from, and Wikipedia of course.) It was built as part of the Cape to Cairo railroad, and was purposely built close to the falls. Cecil Rhodes, who apparently never saw the falls, insisted that it was built close so that the spray coming off the falls would hit the train carriages. Nowadays, it is the bridge that links Zimbabwe and Zambia, and is a great place to bungee jump.
After turning down rain poncho rentals, we headed off to
enjoy the world famous Victoria Falls. As we got closer and closer, the roar of
the rushing water got louder and louder. We had arrived at one of the Seven
Natural Wonders of the World. Did you know: by virtue of its height
(108m/354ft) and its width (1,708m/5,604ft), Victoria Falls is the largest
waterfall in the world. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Victoria Falls are known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya, which
means “the smoke that thunders,” and the smoke is really a thick mist. The
spray coming off the falls comes down as heavy rain, which makes it really
difficult to see them. In fact, we did not see the falls in their entirety in
one view at all, due to their size and the massive amounts of spray that blocks
your view.
One of the reasons that we wanted to see the falls from the
Zambian side was the Knife Edge bridge, which takes you to a little island-type
viewing spot in front of the falls. As mentioned earlier, we declined the rain
poncho rentals, but did our best with what we had. Alastair covered his bag and
hoped for the best, Lain had her swimsuit under her clothes, Alastair’s Dad had
his handy rain cover, and Alastair’s Mum covered her camera in a bag and braved
the storm! It was amazing.
Before we left, we went over to the top of the falls, just a
hop, step, and a jump away from the edge, and took some pictures. It was a
great experience, but I don't think we really knew just how big the falls were
yet. Visiting the Zimbabwean side would help!
We spent the night in a hostel dorm in Livingstone, where Laleinia got eaten alive by something! Only Alastair had a decent night's sleep there, but part of traveling is making the most of less than optimal situations, and so we soldiered on!
We spent the night in a hostel dorm in Livingstone, where Laleinia got eaten alive by something! Only Alastair had a decent night's sleep there, but part of traveling is making the most of less than optimal situations, and so we soldiered on!