We arrived in the town of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe early afternoon on the Friday of spring break. Crossing the border into Zimbabwe was pretty simple, and it means I have a new visa in my passport! This trip sure is helping to fill up the pages in my passport. It was exciting to drive into town and see the gorge in the distance, knowing that I would soon get to see one of the seven natural wonders of the world. We stayed at the Victoria Falls Hotel, which sits right on the gorge with a view of the Victoria Falls Bridge. It’s an old Victorian-style hotel with an amazing view, a courtyard, a couple of restaurants, and lots of charm. We ate lunch at the outdoor restaurant that overlooks the canyon and the bridge. It was such an odd experience. There we were, sitting in a Victorian hotel in the middle of Zimbabwe, with the warm African sun beating down. You could look out over the clouds of mist rising from Victoria Falls. I felt like the falls were taunting me, because I could see the clouds, and almost feel the mist, but I couldn’t see them yet because they were around the bend. Caribbean-style music was playing in the background, and all the prices were in U.S. dollars, so for the first time in over 2 months I didn’t have to do the automatic conversions in my head. (Zimbabwe’s currency is essentially worthless, so everyone uses American money. But buying a trillion dollar bill is a popular souvenir here!) These different sensations: memories of Trinidad, Africa, and the U.S. all mixed together to confuse me.
View from the Victoria Falls hotel
After our meal we set out to try to see Victoria Falls, because I couldn’t take the fact that they were sitting there just out of sight! There was a shortcut from our hotel to Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park, and a security guard from the hotel walked us to the entrance of the national park. There are lots of tourism police in Victoria Falls because they are concerned about tourists having a bad experience. In Zimbabwe they recognize that much of their income comes from tourism, so they want to make sure tourists feel safe at all times. We got to the entrance to the national park and realized the only way to actually see the falls was to enter, but we didn’t want to pay the entrance fee when we were planning on a guided tour of the national park the next morning. We ended up walking back, taking a detour by the outlook where people can do a gorge swing across the canyon. The views were incredible!
Saturday morning we had our guided tour of Victoria Falls. Before entering the park our guide handed us all raincoats, reminding us that we would get soaked on the tour. Let me tell you, the raincoats didn’t help at all! I wore mine because I didn’t especially want to be really wet, but halfway through the walk I was soaked to the skin. We had a guided walk through the national park, stopping at all the overlooks. There’s a big statue of David Livingstone, the first European to view the falls, and the one who named them Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria. Our guide told us that he was in a canoe with some of his guides, and they heard the thundering and saw smoke from the falls. He asked what it was, and his guides could only tell him that it was Mosi-Oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders). They somehow landed on what is now known as Livingstone Island, an island on the very edge of the falls. We marveled at his good fortune because now, at the end of the rainy season, the water flow is nears its peak and I can’t even fathom how he didn’t get swept over the edge. There’s so much water going over the falls! Victoria Falls isn’t the tallest waterfall in the world, but it is the biggest. It’s over a mile wide, and has the highest water flow. Seeing it in its peak season is so amazing.
One of the times we got lucky and the rain cleared so we could see the falls
Because Victoria Falls is so wide, different sections of the falls are given individual names. We stopped at different outlooks to view these sections of the falls. However, you have to remember that Victoria Falls creates its own clouds of “mist”, which roughly translate into monsoon clouds if you’re within them. There were times we saw the signs for “Horseshoe Falls” or “Main Falls”, and just had to trust that those were actually there, because we were blinded by the rain and couldn’t necessarily see farther than 10 feet in front of us. Half the time I was worried about losing my contacts because of all the water pouring into my face. Local legend has it that anyone who gets wet from Victoria Falls will have good luck for a year. Do you think we got wet enough?
Our tour ended with an overlook of Victoria Falls Bridge, where we caught a sight of someone bungee jumping. We then walked back through the rainforest to the park entrance (Victoria Falls creates its own rainforest, where the trees and other plants get water year-round).
Victoria Falls Bridge
After changing into dry clothes we headed off for our “Flight of the Angels”, a 15 minute helicopter ride over Victoria Falls. I’d never been on a helicopter before, so the anticipation was pretty exciting. We took off with great views of the Zambezi River, Zimbabwe, and Zambia (just across the river). The ride was so loud, and I was a little nervous because they left the window right next to me open, and I was worried about dropping my camera out the window, losing it forever to the great Zambezi. Thankfully I didn’t lose it.
As the ride started my anticipation was building and building. Then we turned and I could finally start to see the smoke from Victoria Falls off in the distance. It was pretty exciting. For the next 10 minutes we circled the falls, and it was just incredible. During our walk in the morning it was hard to get a good sense of how BIG Victoria Falls actually is. Well, it’s kind of hard to miss when you see it from the air, and can see how high the mist rises in the air, and can see how wide it is, and how impressive the whole spectacle is. It’s pretty incredible.
That night we went on a dinner cruise on the Zambezi, above Victoria Falls. It was only the four of us on our boat, and we had a hard time getting into the river from the jetty. But we finally got it, after pushing hard off some other boats (the current kept pushing our boat into the other ones). We cruised up and down the Zambezi, occasionally going into the Zambian part of the river, while we ate our dinner. We go to watch sunset, and see the stars come out. Our guides kept joking, after getting close enough to see the mist off Victoria Falls, that we didn’t have any parachutes for going over the falls. Tamara of course wanted to try it. The whole time we were eating we heard hippos bellowing, but we didn’t see any.
Tamara and I took a taxi across the Victoria Falls Bridge to the Zambian side, where we caught our Intercape bus in Livingstone (the town on the Zambian side). Our bus ride was pretty uneventful. It was exciting to cross the border back in Namibia, if only because it meant that I had money I could spend again! I had a problem with the ATMs in Victoria Falls, so I couldn’t spend any money in Zimbabwe. But I was able to buy food in Namibia! We had a short food stop in Namibia, and then set off down the Caprivi Strip. Intercape is run by a Christian company, so they have some interesting videos that play during the bus ride, but only after the devotions and televangelism stop. One of the movies we saw was titled, “Belle and the Beast: A Christian Romance.” But they helped pass the time. I ended up being able to sleep for most of the bus ride (and by sleep I mean I dozed, waking up every 30 minutes or so to readjust. Although it was a plush bus, it’s still not that comfortable for sleeping). We got into Windhoek about two hours late (you’ve got to love that African time), which meant we sat on that bus for about 20 hours. That’s even longer than the flight from Washington D.C. to Johannesburg! It was good to get back to Windhoek, and I know everyone was glad to see us back because we were the last people back from spring break.
These last few blogs have been a short, very abridged version of my spring break. It was amazing! Ask me to tell you more stories, and I will be happy to oblige. A HUGE thank you to the Siburg family for inviting me on their trip, and to Tamara, who once again took pictures for me so my camera wouldn’t get ruined (hers is waterproof, mine isn’t).
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