The very weary travelers arrived in
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, about an hour and a half later than we had planned,
so we unloaded our bags and started walking in the general direction of our
lodge by the light of a nearly full moon instead of the sunset like we had
planned. Luckily, the Victoria
Falls Rest Camp and Lodge was only about a five minute walk away. The Rest Camp is well known in Vic
Falls, and is a combination camp ground and lodge, so we checked in and made
our way down to our little chalet.
It was pretty spacious, with two bedrooms, a kitchen stocked with
cooking utensils and a bathroom.
Clean and serviceable, but nothing to write home about. Sam and I walked
back down the road to what seemed to be the only thing still open- a combined
Pizza Inn, Chicken Inn, and Creamy Inn, which is a common fast food chain in
Zimbabwe. We picked up a cheese
and peri-peri chicken pizza that was delicious, grabbed some water jugs, and
headed back to our house to eat and go off to sleep.
The thing about the tap water in
Zim is that you can’t drink it.
The Farm House in Motobo had a well, so we were fine there, but even at
the Wharton’s we needed water in the bathroom to brush our teeth. Luckily, our poor-college-student
brains are still very adept at seeking out free things, and we had started
hoarding water bottles from Harare and the PathFinder buses. There are a few things like that are
little reminders that we’re not quite in Kansas anymore, including the mosquito
netting that have been artfully tied above our beds at every location outside
of Harare (the elevation in Harare means less mosquitoes, especially in the
cooler winter). We haven’t been
too concerned; Madison and I have been enjoying our princess bedding.
The next day, we slept in and then
went the front desk to sort out the activities we wanted to do around the
Falls. Victoria Falls, also called
“the smoke that thunders” in Ndebele, is a waterfall on the Zambezi River
between Zimbabwe and Zambia. It’s
not the highest or the widest, but it is classified as the largest waterfalls
in the world, about twice the size of Niagara Falls for comparison.
Vic Falls is one of the biggest
tourist destination spots in Southern Africa, so there are dozens of companies
set up to help alleviate tourists of their money, and to help you experience a
full range of adrenaline sports.
Looking at the options, we settled
on four- an elephant back safari, a sunset cruise, dinner at the Boma
restaurant and a canopy tour for Madison and I and a gorge swing for Sam. Before heading off to the first
activity, we walked back down the road to another fast food place called Wok
and Roll, which other then being an excellent pun was exciting because I had
last seen/eaten at one of these when I was in Amsterdam on spring break two
years ago. It’s such a small world
sometimes.
After lunch, Sam headed off to the
actual falls to shoot some video while Madison and I left to do our canopy
tour. To be honest, we weren’t
quite sure what it exactly was, but we were imagining something like a series
of rope bridges that we could walk through among the treetops over the
river. When we began to get
strapped into harnesses and helmets, we started to doubt that assumption. What it turned out to be was a series
of ziplines strung between cliffs overlooking the chasm between Zimbabwe and
Zambia, looking down hundreds of feet below to the swirling waters. We had two very nice guides, Ryan and
Knowledge (sidenote about names in Zim: sometimes there are odd names that are
the translations of Ndebele or Shona words, the main regional languages. We met or heard of Patience, Innocence,
Lovemore, Big Boy and Big Brains, to name a few). They helped us navigate our way through the platforms- Ryan
even took Madison’s camera and shot pictures and videos coming across the
lines. The rides were awesome-
pretty tame for adventure sports, but plenty for us- breathtaking views and
just enough exhilaration to make you catch your breath. Basically, you sit down in the harness
and hold on to the rope with a leather glove, which gave you the ability to
control how fast you flew across the gorge. On our way through the trees, we encountered baboons
swinging their way up besides us and warthogs playing in the mud on the side of
the road. (Warthogs! I’ll talk
more about the animals when I get to Hwange, but warthogs man. So cool.)
When we had finished, we walked
down to meet Sam at the Falls around 4:30, a little before sunset when the park
closed at six. A series of path
connected different viewpoints, and they were just incredible. Indescribable amounts of water going
over these huge cliffs and creating dense clouds of spray that quickly soaked
us.
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| view of the falls with the perpetual rainbow |
At one spot, a sign advertised
Danger Point, a slippery section of rock that had no fence separating us from a
long drop. Sam said that when the
Zambezi was low, you had the best view of the falls, but we were close enough
to the end of the rainy season that the spray obliterated any kind of
view. Standing out there, it felt
like it was raining harder then any thunderstorm I had ever been caught in-
literal buckets of water poured over my head so that I had to shield my eyes to
see my next steps. The one video I
took on my phone of Danger Point is basically just me giggling as I try to make
my way through the water, touch the sign at the far point, and then scurrying
back to more relatively dry land.
We left as the park was closing, drying pretty quickly but feeling
chilled as the sun began to set.
Back at home, we quickly changed clothes so we would be ready in time to
be picked up to go to the Boma.
Sam had told Madison and I about
the Boma back in the States- it was once of the things we were sure we would
do. The Boma is a large restaurant
set under a thatch roof with many tables and several wonderful buffets of local
Zimbabwean food, along with more recognizable treats. The atmosphere was very fun, and at the end of the meal
there was dancing and a drum show where every guest got a drum to follow
along. It was the height of
tourism, but it was well worth the experience. When we walked in, our dress code was fixed by getting
colorful traditional attire tied around us and little dots of painted on our
cheeks. Upon sitting at our table
we were served a portion of chibuku,
an alcoholic drink that was described to us by several different people as “a
drink and meal in one” that tasted like sour yeast wine, and then an assortment
of appetizers. Between the three
of us we tried baby crocodile tail, roasted guinea fowl and impala pate. Then
Madison and I followed Sam wide-eyed through the rows of food (following Sam
wide-eyed could be the tagline for this trip) and piled our plates high with
bread, potatoes, vegetables, spicy tomato soup, sadza (the cornmeal-grits-mashed starch that is the staple food in
Zimbabwe) and then warthog steak, eland meatballs (an antelope of some kind),
lamb, boerwors (I don’t even know, sausage apparently), buffalo stew and
chicken kebabs. We ate until we
were full, and then we went back for more.
And then there were the Mopani
worms. I have been hearing about
these darned worms since junior year of high school, when Sam would gross me
out in Physics about the weird stuff he had eaten. I cam into this country of sound mind and firm convictions-
I would not eat a worm. I had my
principles, and I would not falter.
Well. When you are sitting under the roof of
the Boma with drums beating and paint on your face and your two friends goading
you on, you try and resist the pull of checking worms off your bucket
list. You might be a stronger
person than I, but not, I think, a happier. Not that they were good, mind you- it was awful and crispy
and chewy and basically sated cardboard that I could not chew fast enough to
swallow so I just had to stand there and try really hard not to think about
what I was eating. But as I’ve
said before, I did not come all the way to this continent to say no to
experiences. I’m told the face I
made was worth the effort.
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| My drum and my worm certificate- "Congratulates!" |
After
the worms, the only thing to do was to cleanse my palate with a frankly
alarming amount of chocolate mousse, and watch the dancers and singers who had
come out to start their show. We
pounded hard on drums, and between us and the rowdy Brits at the table next to
us, our section was definitely the loudest, if not the most on beat. We ended with medicine for happiness
called ndowa, a mixture of vodka,
lemon, honey and cinnamon. We left
the Boma with full stomachs, and went home to a bottle of wine and to catch up
with each other after four years of communicating mostly through Skype and
Facebook chat.
The
next morning, we woke up with the sun in time to go off and catch our ride for
the elephant safari. Madison and I
hopped up on a feisty 17 year old named Temba, who taught us very quickly that
you can’t really tell elephants to do anything, you can only politely suggest
and then wait for them to finish doing whatever the hell they want. Temba snacked on branches and stripped
leaves from trees all along the way, much to the annoyance of our guide. There
were two young elephants along for the ride, one small baby and a younger teen
who was too small to ride but just large enough to reach his trunk up to grasp
at my back and arms, looking for the treats our guide had brought along. Their trunks are very dry and rough and
covered in coarse wire hairs, and ended in two very agile lips that could grasp
and hold on. Temba had little
patience for this kind of activity, and once whirled around and chased him off
for a few steps, which was terrifying and hilarious. The little one kept his distance after that. We rode for
about an hour, seeing impala, birds and even buffalo, one of the Big Five
animals. Afterwards, we feed our
ellies treats and said thank you, and off they went.
We
got back to our lodge in time so that we could catch our next transport back to
where Madison and I had prepped for our canopy tour so that Sam could do the
gorge swing. The gorge swing is
not so much a swing as it is a free fall for 70 meters off a cliff, and then if
you’re lucky a rope catches you and swings you over the water until they can
haul you back up. Madison and I,
like any sane people, kindly declined, but Sam signed up for his second go at
the swing, this time fully equipped with his GoPro camera strapped to his
chest, hoping to get some impressive footage. I have a video of his jump that starts with Madison and I
talking about how dumb he is that goes it to repeated oh my god oh my god oh my
godsssss as he falls. He fell and
survived, we were very happy and went back to our lodge to change for our last
activity, the river cruise.
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| The gorge swing drops from the platform just to the left |
The
river cruise was us and about ten other people on a small barge with tables and
chairs that took us around a small portion of the Zambezi, scouting for
crocodiles, hippos, and even a couple of elephants that had sum out to eat on a
small island. It was beautiful to
be on the water at sunset, and would have been fun even without the open bar on
board, but we weren’t complaining at that. They also served a plate of snack foods including fried
crocodile and chips, and we sat and drank and took pictures of hippo noses
peeking up from the water.
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| Zambezi River views |
When we
disembarked, we got pizza and chicken and took it back to our rooms to feast
for our last night. The next morning, we woke early again to finish packing and
set off back to find our bus to Hwange.
I’m currently posting this on our
last night in Harare- tomorrow we are heading off early to Johannesburg, and
the next day to Cape Town for the week, so it might be awhile before I have
access to a computer to write up the rest. The last leg of our journey has almost begun! See ya later!
