Victoria Falls and Farewell Dinner Sept 13 Saturday

Victoria Falls and Farewell Dinner September 13 Saturday

We started our day with an early morning trip to Victoria Falls, one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We took a short bus ride from our hotel to the falls and walked the trail to all 16 viewpoints. We started where the Zambezi river first begins to fall. Vic Falls is different than any falls I have visited because they were created by tectonic plate movement and the water falls into a crack in the earth, and not over a tall cliff to the ground level. They are over a mile wide and 355 feet tall. Quite impressive. As we went along, we saw better and better views of the falls. At several of the viewpoints, we could see a double rainbow. On portions of the trail, it is always wet from the mist and a mini rainforest has been slowly created over time here. You could see a remarkable difference in the vegetation in this area. The falls are located on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe and are called Mosi-oa-Tunya in the Lozi tribal language, which translates to Thundering Smoke/Smoke that Rises. You could definitely see what appeared to be smoke from several vantage points. They were renamed Victoria Falls after Queen Victoria, when David Livingstone was the first European to “discover” them on November 16, 1855. I use the term discover very loosely here, as one cannot discover something that thousands of people over tens of thousands of years already knew about. Just like Columbus didn’t discover America, but I digress…

We could also see some crazy people hanging over the edge of the Devil’s Pool, with a guide standing on the edge taking photos of them. Ummm…no thanks. That’s Darwinism if you ask me. And they paid good money for that death trap. OK, I may be exaggerating, no one has ever died by going over the edge of the pool, and it’s probably safer than it looks…but it’s still a hard no for me.

The beginning of the falls

The main falls

They had breakfast waiting for us when we returned from the falls. Next up was our Through the Eyes of an Elephant excursion. We got to feed, pet, and smooch elephants. These elephants are rescues and the organization is a charity. It was really cool to see them up close and personal. They all held up their trunks and sniffed us when we got there. The sensory ends of their trunks are super soft and the their trunks contain 40,000 muscles. They’re more functional than our opposable thumbs, and we think we’re so evolved! 🤪 Anyhoo, it was a fun experience.

Petting the elephants

We had lunch and some free time in the afternoon so we did some souvenir shopping. If you need to shop, Vic Falls is the place to do it. Some of the vendors were pretty aggressive, but they explained dealing is part of their culture. We bought a beautiful chess set with hand carved pieces of the big five: lion, leopard, Cape buffalo, elephant, and rhinoceros. The pawns are hippos and my set has a baby hippo. Of course, the lion is the king. The board is hinged so it will close and house all the pieces inside. It is absolutely beautiful. Several of us purchased them. The big take away here is that I don’t play chess and have no idea how to set up a chess board. 😳 In my defense, it’s going to be a decoration in our game room.

Hand carved chess set

After that we had a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River above the falls. We saw two elephants playing in the water, a few hippos, a crocodile, and enjoyed a beautiful sunset for our last day in “actual” Africa before we had to Cape Town, South Africa. When we returned from the cruise, they had a lovely dinner set up for us outside by lantern light. This was our farewell dinner with Wonder, our Trip Experience Leader, as he will be dropping us at the airport tomorrow so we can fly to Cape Town and start our trip extension with a new TEL, who is a local from South Africa. The staff and the service at Shearwater Explorers Village have been wonderful.

Zambezi River cruise

While we are sad the bush portion of our trip is over, I have to admit the AC has been great here and being back in the city is quite nice. I think I have failed to mention the heat in the bush. While our morning game drives were cool and comfortable, starting out at around 50 deg F on some days, it was miserable in the heat of the afternoon. Temps were in the high 90’s each day and our tents, even with large fans supplied by the camps, were completely uninhabitable during the afternoon. We had planned to shower in the afternoon, but that just wasn’t possible, so we just waited until we went to bed. You get dirty on the afternoon game drive anyway, and we would have needed to shower twice. Most of us sat around in the lodges under the big fans, using the WiFi and sweating our asses off during our free time. (We could not access the WiFI in our tents.) It was just too hot to do anything else, and this is late winter/early spring here. I cannot imagine being here in December. The only saving grace was the humidity, or the lack thereof. It was around 11% and so different from what we have at home. One day the weather app said temp 97 but feels like 96. Wow, OK, thanks for making me feel better. Our TEL, Wonder, recommended coming back in May for different weather and a totally different experience. OK, you convinced me, where so I sign up??? Here…https://www.oattravel.com/trips/land-adventures/africa/ultimate-africa-botswana-zambia-and-zimbabwe-safari/2021/itineraries?icid=hp_tppop_land_panel_BOT

Truly, if you can’t tolerate the heat, do not come here in September. June is their coolest month with temps in the 80’s during the day and as low as the 30’s at night, but the tents are also not heated, so you will ned warm clothes to sleep in and long underwear and coats for the morning game drives. We just layered up a couple tee shirts and a jacket and were fine in the mornings in the 50 deg F weather. We didn’t even pack coats. (I will post my packing list under the Packing tab.) A warm hat is needed (as well as a sun hat for later), as the wind is cold in the open air jeeps. Pros of coming in September include no leaves on the trees, everything is still dead from winter, and the delta is full, so the animal viewing is spectacular. You can’t have it all.