A fantastic day of many contrasts.
Victoria Falls, the largest waterfalls in the world, known locally as ‘Mosi-O-Tunya’, translated means ‘the smoke that thunders’.
Like Niagara (USA/Canada) and Iguazu (Brazil/Argentina), the falls span two countries being Zambia and Zimbabwe.
First the Zambian side, noting that they have had a dry wet season and there are electricity restrictions in place due to low dam levels, the falls were quite good. From a falls perspective, the highlight was the Boiling Point, where a number of flows join as one. The walk down was advertised as 15 minutes with walk back up 25 minutes – more of that later.
Prior to descending to the Boiling Point, we ran into a school group of English teenage girls, with one of them having a nose bleed. Enter Saint Ian with a packet of travel tissues and Nurse Trish with Dettol wipes, much better than the leaves that she was trying to use – correct, leaves from the ground. No teacher or other adult in immediate sight. Much worse was the leaves were off the ground, and the place was infested, and I mean infested, with baboons – not sanitary at all!
So descending down to the Boiling Point, we heard a loud scream and soon encountered one of the aforementioned girls who had been scratched (attacked) by a baboon – enter Nurse Trish with more Dettol wipes. We hope that sh had it treated at the top, as the three inch scratch could have more serious issues such as rabies. So with more girls still coming up the path and Trish not overly comfortable with her new friends (baboons), my GoPro extender (not a selfie stick!) became a defensive weapon, being placed strategically between the remaining girls and the baboons and then between Ian & Trish and the baboons. Note that the larger baboons standing up were Koby’s height and heavier!
Down at site, the views were really great, well worth the effort.
So the climb back up. Recommended 25 minutes, I reckon Trish did it in less than 15. She was genuinely fearful – in 35+ years, I have never seen her like it. So she had a tree branch that I procured and I had my GoPro extender with the GoPro recording on – really interesting video. We made it to the top with no harm to us or the baboons – it was interesting that nearly all moved away from us as soon as I pointed the GoPro towards them. Amazing experience, not to be repeated anytime soon – these animals were everywhere out of control – a cull would be helpful.
Checking out the shops on the Zambian side, I was twice offered to trade the orange one inch carbiner that I had on my travel satchel to hold my cap. Obviously you can’t buy them here. Then another shop offered to trade for my sunglasses – they would have been disappointed if I had, as they are prescription lenses!!
So over the bridge (one lane traffic, one rail line and two footpaths) to Zimbabwe. For a country in economic meltdown, the site was far neater and better presented than Zambia. And it had two other positives – no baboons and the most spectacular falls that I have ever seen. You would never think that the countries around here are in drought. Water cascading to the point that over two hundred metres away we were drenched in mist. “The smoke was definitely thundering”. I may have taken about 50 videos on the day, with most on the Zimbabwean side and I even gave in and took a selfie video with Trish, using my GoPro extender!
We rounded out the day by meeting up and having dinner with an Australian couple that we met on the Chobe cruise, who were staying on the Zimbabwean side.
Our day was rounded out by walking back across the bridge, although this time it was 9pm, pitch black dark and there were no lights – absolutely none. Thank God for iPhone torch Apps.
And in closing, we clocked up another four border crossings & stamps – Zambia out, Zimbabwe in, Zimbabwe out and Zambia in. Our third entry to Zambia in a week, we should qualify for frequent visitor points.
Note that we believe that someone has forgotten to pay the internet bill for Zambia as the internet here is patchy at best (even to download the body of an email) and non-existent at worst. So pictures and maybe some video will be uploaded by Trish when we get to Johannesburg tomorrow/Sunday.