Victoria Falls * Marking My Map

Catching Up

I’m very behind in blogging. You don’t have to tell me. I already know. Since my last post I have spent over a month traveling across the African continent, from Tanzania to Namibia and further still. I’m not even physically in Africa anymore. I’ve left the continent. That’s how behind I am.

I’ve been busy. That’s my only excuse. I’ve been jumping in gorges, canoeing in rivers, climbing dunes, and hiking waterfalls. But let’s be real here, those things didn’t take up entire days. I’ve had down time. More often than not I was drinking a beer with someone, taking a nap, reading a book, and embracing my often common African situation of slow or nonexistent wifi.

Now I’m behind. This makes me more likely to procrastinate. It’s like when you have a great exercise routine going and then you get sick and take a break for a few weeks. The time off is needed, but you know that first run out the gate is going to hurt more than usual. And then….maybe there isn’t time to workout today. After all, there are so many other things I’ve been meaning to do. Like finish that book covering the last 500 years of history of Eastern Europe, calling every member of my family, and re-packing my suitcase a half a dozen times for optimal organization. And then of course there are the new cities and new sites to see.

The problem is, at the end of the day I’m still be behind on blogging, but now I hiked another mountain and took that city tour. And well….that makes one more damn thing to write about.

Slowly but surely, I’m catching up.

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Upon leaving Zanzibar what now seems like ages ago, I arrived at my next African locale. The great country of Zimbabwe and the great city of Victoria Falls. A city straightforwardly named for the world’s largest waterfall sitting just on the outskirts of town.

Curiously enough, while Victoria falls is neither the highest nor the widest waterfall on earth, the combination of these two things earned it the classification as the world’s largest. It’s twice the height of Niagara Falls at 108 meters (354 feet), and twice the width of Horseshoe Falls at 1,700 meters wide (5,600 feet). Put these qualities together, and you have the world’s largest sheet of falling water. Anywhere.

Victoria Falls has been on my bucket list for a long time. It’s one of those places that I’ve always want to see, but could never figure out the particular circumstances bringing me to see it. And now here I am. I’ve quit my job and have a life filled with world travel and savings depletion. I’ve hiked Kilimanjaro and am slowly moving my way through Africa. This is the situation I couldn’t quite picture before, and yet I imagined it enough to be here now.

Arrival

As typical for me, the logistics of getting to Vic Falls are no simple task. I took a 20 minute flight from the island of Zanzibar to Dar Es Salam. This required that I bribe an airport porter and security guard about $10 USD to push me in front of a security line the length of a small country. I didn’t want to miss my flight. I arrived in Dar Es Salaam in the middle of the night and settled into my evening accommodations which involved sleeping on yet another airport bench. My next flight left before 6am.

Thrifty traveling is damn tiring sometimes.

I arrive in Vic Falls in the late morning, totally exhausted, and slightly unfresh, but pleasantly surprised by Vic Falls as well as my lodgings for the next few nights. It don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this.

Vic Falls is a relatively small town, obviously centered on catering to tourists. There is one main road in town that leads straight from the town center to the waterfalls, which sit at the border with Zambia. It’s a half an hour walk from one end of town to the other. The main street looks much more like the small towns I used to visit when traveling for work around the Midwest. There are cafes, ice cream shops, tourist offices, and appealing restaurants with large outdoor patios. This is not what I expected at all.

Restaurant Patios
Antique Trains
Beer Gardens

Of course there’s a KFC. No matter what country I’m in, or what continent I’m on, there’s always a KFC. People thinkMcDonalds has covered the world three times over, but I’m here to tell you that in every country, everywhere in the world, people love fried chicken. Colonel Sanders rules an empire.

The town is easy to maneuver and the people are nice. True, if you walk down the street, someone will inevitably try to sell you something. Tourists are by far the best and often only way to earn a living here. Locals have families to feed and that’s just the hustle of life in Zimbabwe. But it still feels like a small town, so people look you in the eye to say hello and good morning as you walk by. And even if you don’t buy something (which I didn’t), the locals still gladly helped me with directions when I looked lost or confused. That’s better than the treatment I get back home in DC.

I booked a few nights in a tent in a nice resort. What was that? Yes, I said a tent in a nice resort. Vic Falls is surprisingly small town adorable, but also surprisingly expensive. In order to live within my budgetary means I booked my very own wallet friendly tent. And hey, it wasn’t bad. The resort had everything you could hope for, including a restaurant, bar, and pool. The tent lodging area had a spacious and clean building with bathrooms and showers. The tent came with a night stand and cot inside, as well as electricity for charging all my fitness trackers and apple products.

If camping were like this, I would do it all the time.

Adrenaline Junkie

The thing to do in Vic Falls is a helicopter ride. I didn’t do this. Maybe I should have. Eh. Whatever. I’m sure it would be great but paying $150 for a 9 minute ride (not an exaggeration) didn’t appeal to me as a person or my bank account as a payment source. No thanks.

The other big thing to do is a bungee jump. Nope. Can’t do that one. Too scared. I have a weird fear of getting whiplash just as the bungee cord forcefully pulls me back up from the bottom and my head snaps backwards. I want to experience some adrenaline here but I have my limits.

I settle on the gorge swing. It still includes a precipitous drop but doesn’t require that I go headfirst. This is a plus and meets both my need for speed and neck safety. I convince myself it will be fun. I’ve done zip lining and other adrenaline spiking activities from heights before. I can do this. I’m going to be the fearless person that leaps into the air, ready to swing down 300 feet into that giant waterfall gorge.

The Jump

I talk a big talk, but I didn’t exactly walk a big walk. I got paired with a couple from Australia. The woman tried to go first before her husband, and FREAKED OUT before she even stepped on the platform. She couldn’t do it.

“At least stand on the ledge”, I thought. “You’re harnessed in. Sure it’s scary, but you’re perfectly safe.”

I was next. I strolled up confidently, knowing I would trust the safety equipment and common sense which told me that people do this every day. I’m cool. I’m excited. No big deal.

Except it’s a GIANT fucking deal. My confidence lasted 5 seconds. I made it to the platform alright. But the minute I got up there, hooked into my harness, looking down on the vast free fall to a rocky death below, I felt an instant kindred connection to the woman before me. “I can’t do this”, I thought. And said outloud. Several times. That Australian woman isn’t weak. She’s smart and loves life. I’m the idiot standing up here.

The guide gives you four options for jumping. One – hold on to your rope as you go down. Two – put your arms up as you jump in a star position. Three – start in a handstand and jump from there. I don’t know if the third option is real or a test to see if you’re crazy. But obviously no one picks option three.

I’m not crazy and I’m avoiding a bungee for a reason. But I thought I could do the second one. After all it’s just putting your hands up. No big deal.

But Hells To The NO I couldn’t do option two. I gripped that harness and rope for dear life as I took my baby step jump off. The guide had to give me a nice shove to make sure my head cleared the platform, I was such a pansy about it.

But hey – I did the damn thing, alright.

The Falls

With the swing is out of the way, I could focus on seeing the main attraction. The Falls themselves.

The National Park for Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwean side is larger than you’d expect. The Falls are not necessarily one big waterfall. They are spread out around various bends and curves along a giant gorge. There’s a bridge that connects the gorge from Zimbabwe to Zambia with each country’s passport control on either side. In the middle of a section of this gorge is Livingstone Island, named for the Scottish missionary and explorer who magically ‘discovered’ this giant, unmissable, million year old waterfall in the name of Europeans in the mid-1800’s.

The National Park has a couple of miles of trails and several viewing points. You should really go and see for yourself. It’s quite the experience.

Sunset Cruisin’

In addition to risking your life and seeing waterfalls, the other big thing to do in the area is a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River. For good reason. The sunsets are breathtakingly beautiful here. It’s reliably picturesque just about every day of the week. As an added bonus, the animal life is bountiful. A typical cruise can include sightings of hippos, elephants, crocodiles and a variety of bird life.

The animal life listed doesn’t even count the worldwide representation of retirement age white people and romancing couples you’re sure to meet on the boat. Add the fact that it’s an all you can drink cruise, which is sure to bring out the best/worst in everyone, and it’s people watching GOLD.

Sign me up.

Firstly, the views. They did not disappoint. I never took so many pictures of a sunset. They all look the same, yet I can’t bring myself to delete any of them.

You don’t know how difficult it was to only choose three photos

Secondly, the animals. I saw elephants bathing and crocodiles lounging. It’s just as good as a game drive.

Not only did I see hippos, but I saw hippos MOVE. I swear, it’s the first time ever. By the time I arrived to Zimbabwe I’d been told so many times that hippos are only active at night, it was getting harder and harder not to roll my eyes in disbelief. But I’m here to tell you, it’s all true. Once the sun starts to go down, they wake up and show signs of life.

Lastly, the people. Man, I love watching spoiled elderly people make sure they get every dime out of a moderately priced boat ride with an open bar. I mean, this ride was about $35. And that $35 covered a two hour boat ride, hors d’oeuvres worthy of being called a small meal, and unlimited drinks. And before the boat even moved, people were complaining they wanted their money back.

The boat is leaving 10 minutes late. Why aren’t we leaving yet?? Why are we on this boat?? The boat next to us looks so much nicer. Why haven’t we gotten our giant glass of wine yet?? I ordered it almost FIVE MINUTES ago(!!!!)

Don’t get me wrong, while I found this incredibly amusing I also felt bad for the local wait staff. I don’t envy their job of organizing hundreds of tourists on a dozen boats every night and catering to them. But from an outsiders perspective, and a person who has gotten increasingly accustomed visiting countries where sizable parts of the population struggle to earn enough to feed their families…..these problems aren’t real problems. It seems downright ridiculous. Why get so stressed out? Why so upset? You’re on a lovely sunset cruise in lovely Zimbabwe. This is a luxurious evening of leisure. Calm down. Your light beer is coming.

People relaxed once the boat got moving and they realized how beautiful the scenery was, and how healthy a pour the bartenders were giving. But boy oh boy, old people get real worked up when they think they’re getting scammed out of a free glass of cheap chardonnay.