Protea Hotel Livingstone

... the rainbow island
the falls differ in dry season and wet, i saw them in the dry so the pictures you see with pure white cover of water was not actually there yesterday when we saw them
but im you go acorss to the zimbabwer side you can still se the whole falls in full glory
a girl on tour named helen saw the falls in May when she was volunteering and there the falls were in full glory in Zambia
it varies around the year

Today was one of the first ever ...

... of the tourists though. Their first prices are so expensive but you could get them down after a bit of bartering. I've sussed out who to take with me in future shopping trips based on this. I swapped some rubber bracelts for a real one (malachite) and also got a brass one which I've been eyeing out for a while and got 2 for 1... or so the guy said, haha. It is amazing how many people have brothers in Sydney though...
Today was a microlite over the falls - amazing and ...

... some calves. This was through Batoka Sky.

Got back to the Grotto at 8 in time to meet up for the white water rafting with Raft Extreme, also owned by Grubby. We were informed by Emmanuel, 1 of the guides, that we would be running Rapids 1 to 25, which is all of them, totaling 36 rapids and only Rapid 9 – the Grade 6 we would walk around. Raft Extreme have a 100% safety record, no deaths, and is the only company who can truthfully say this. The ...

... Falls. We had heard from the others on our safari that it was scary and rough, but with all of our rafting experiance we thought they were all being whiners. We met our guide, Vinny, and our other raft mates- a German man (best rafter) and his Australian wife (wet blanket), and John a 30ish British guy.

The safety talk was terrifying. Here, we learned that we were required to have 2 safety kayakers for every raft, and our kayakers were "Captain Carnage" and "Captain ...

... bridge to see the Falls. Mike a local entrepreneur offered to look after our jeep as there are lots of baboons in the area that do damage to vehicles. He had some Zimbabwean notes to sell as souvenirs. We went to the bridge and even crossed into the part saying 'Welcome to Zimbabwe’. The border official had given us a small piece of paper with a 3 circled which gave us permission to go onto the bridge. Of course we didn’t ...

... driving range, sometime. It didn't work out last week during the week, but Neale & Michelle invited me to go yesterday. We went to the country club to hits a few balls.It had been quite a while since I've hit, but it actually came back more quickly then I expected. The golf course area is really nice and green. It is hard to tell you are right in the middle of Livingstone. Most of Livingstone is dust and dirt. There are trees, but not much grass at all ...

... reached and we were briefed as to the commands, strokes and holds that we were to use and a quick practice then off immediately into rapid 10.

Outcome of the trip: Over half of the 6 rafts (which had 6 people on board) tipped over, some rafts lost people overboard yet ours managed to survive but at one rapid it was at 90 degrees. I was lucky to be on the upper side and hung on for dear life thowing my weight so that it would not flip. All 3 who were on the lower ...

... We went to the crafts market where the vendors were much pushier than I remembered from our visit in 2001. The vendors always had similar lines, “My friend, take a look…Just look…I like your shoes (would you like to trade them?)…You want some Zimbabwe dollars?” I spent 90 minutes at the market and ended up with three pretty nice wood carvings:

- Warthog for $8 + San Dimas 2003 5K t-shirt

- Elephant and tree for ...

... soaked. After my walk, I decided to go to the bottom of the falls. It was a hard climb down on uneven steps but the result was wonderful. Water was smashing down and the noise was deafening. All in all the falls were well worth the visit. Jollyboys transport took me to the Botswana border. I boarded a ferry along with many locals, 2 cars and an 18 wheeler to make the crossing ...

... is doing a sunset cruise along the Zambezi river.  There will be a dinner served and it is suppose to have gorgeous sunsets so we are looking forward to that a lot.


Tomorrow Rocko and I are doing a three hour walk with orphaned lions which I am really excited about and I am hoping that we will be able to post some pictures because this campsite has internet. 


Hope everyone is doing well.
Brett and Robin