A 'rest' at Vic Falls
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2005
1
114
137
Trip End
Sep 20, 2006
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
Sunday, August 13, 2006
We were swiftly herded off to the ATC office to arrange all our activities (before we could check out anywhere else!) and after nearly 2 hours we emerged having booked ourselves onto the almost obligatory Sunset Cruise on the Zambezi (all you can drink...!) AND a day of whitewater rafting... ooer! Other people were doing helicopter / microlight / fixed wing flights over the falls, and lots of other adrenaline things.
We didn't do a lot for the rest of the day
01 - Anne with loadsamoney
. We sorted out the trip T-shirts that had been delivered and spent an hour or two counting out millions and millions of Zim dollars that we had changed on the black market.On 1st August the Zimbabwean government devalued the Zim $, knocked 3 zeros off and reissued the banknotes. Confusingly, the old and new noted are working in tandem until the 21st when the old banknotes become worthless. It's a quick turnaround and the people in the rural areas don't have a lot of time to a) find out about the new currency, and b) change all their old noted that they hoard to buy animals with. Local people are also taking advantage of all the confusion and conning people & tourist - it's all a bit chaotic!
So, we spent a while sorting out our bricks of banknotes, setting up camp & doing laundry etc. We had an evening meal at the Rest Camp resturant which wasn't fantastic & highlighted why we'd stocked up the truck to bursting point with food in Kasane. Many menu items were 'not available' because of food shortages which is a clue as to the state Zimbabwe now in, and we were in a busy tourist town with money.
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The following day we woke up LATE - because we could! We went off to look at the Falls which were stunning. We came across a couple who had literally just got engaged - the guy was still on one knee! So we made a fuss of them and took their photo etc.
We were duly impressed with the Falls which were living up to their traditional name: Mosi-Oa-Tunya, which means 'The Smoke That Thunders', even though it's getting to be low water at this time of year
02 - paying the bill
. It's quite hypnotic watching this huge river throw itself over the edge of the gorge. The Mighty Zambezi, having started in Angola, wends it's way across Africa passing through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi before finding the sea in Mozambique.We didn't go to see the falls from the Zambia side (the Zambezi forms the border between Zim and Zam), but we did go onto the bridge and watched some of the bungy jumpers (and weren't tempted to join them!). Wetook the whole day at a very leisurely pace with a nice lunch at River Café (where we bumped into 'Just Engaged' couple again!).
The Sunset cruise was a good laugh, although the game-viewing wasn't the best, we saw a grand total of 1 hippo and 1 elephant! As it was an all-you-can-drink cruise though, game-viewing wasn't really the priority of this particular trip! We all had a great time and took ourselves off to Mamma Africa's for dinner - very nice reasonably priced restaurant & recommended. It was a great 'last meal' for the group. Out of 23 who started in Cape Town, only 6 of us were continuing up to Nairobi. We were being joined on the next leg by 12 new people.
