Livingstone, Zambia - Day 241 - Boots on the Loose

Pulled into Livingstone around 10pm or so, payed a guy to walk us to the Jollyboy’s Backpackers as we were told it was easily walking distance, and safe enough to walk around at night. Unfortunately we were much too late for dinner so we inhaled a few beers and bags of chips instead. I’ve converted Jen on the buses: they don’t really stop too often (ie. only when the driver feels it’s necessary), and I’d much rather be hungry and thirsty than have to go pee for 7 hours… so we barely drink or eat anything on the buses. …which unfortunately leaves us fairly desparate at the end of the travel days.

Being one of the original colonial towns in Africa, we had fairly high hopes for the place; we like it quite a bit but it’s definitely lacking that colonial look and feel we expected. It does have plenty of great bars and restaurants (including probably the best burgers of the trip at Fezbar), people generally leave us alone, and at Victoria Falls (about 10km’s out of town) it has pretty much every “Extreme Activity” imaginable, including: bungee jumping, gorge swinging, whitewater rafting, jet boats, river surfing, helicopter rides, ultralights, microlights, etc, etc (none of it cheap of course). I contemplated a microlight ride over the falls (think Imax movie!), but at $95USD for 15 minutes, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Day 1, I… got my clothes washed in a machine for the first time since Uganda!!! Mmmm… ever seen someone wear a pair of brown jeans before?

Day 2 we hopped on the free shuttle out to the falls (called “Mosi-oa-Tunya” National Park – translated from David Livingstone deeming the falls “Smoke that Thunders”). What a sight. Amazing. Instantly promoted to the trip’s Top Ten List, knocking out the Sphinx (just kidding). The falls are just under 2km wide; drop over 100m, and have a side both in Zambia and Zimbabwe (story about Zimnbabwe to come). The Zambezi river is near it’s highest point this time of year which make the falls extra smokey and thundery… to the point where you get absolutely drenched and they’re very tough to see for the most part. But that was okay… it was great to be able to stand so close and feel the power of it all!! After walking along the “Knife’s Edge” which is the ridge that sits directly in frot of the falls (where the soaking happens) we walked above the falls which was cool because you can go as close to the lip of the falls as you dare (apparently there’s a pool you can swim in somewhere… no thanks). It was all very easy to see how Vic Falls is one of the Seven Natural Wonders.

Jollyboy’s actually had an outdoor pool so it was very easy for the days to slip away (keep in mind we’re heading into winter here, Johannesberg is hitting freezing right now, so every hot, sunny day could be our last!). Did a sunset booze-cruise the next night; boat was about a third full of Zambians which was really nice to see. Got talking to one of them who was taking care of his nephew as 2 of his 6 sisters had died of AIDS. Of course we’ve seen the stats but it’s ver “sobering” (even on a booze cruise) when someone tells you about it personally. On the bright side it feels to me like due to it’s somewhat better education system, Zambia will fair well compared to many of it’s neighbours with regard to it’s AIDS problems. After the cruise had an interesting conversation with a very pessimistic, white Zimbabwean about how Zim is the best country in the world, but will be ruined for 100 years (not the first time I’ve had that conversation). Then remember playing the “water game” (Alissa should know that one), dancing to Queen, taking photos in front of an airplane at the museum, then developing a bad headache 8 hours later in bed.

Amazingly with hangover, did the Livingstone Museum which was far superior to the one in Lusaka, the capital. Best part was the David Livingstone room which had everything from the letters he wrote, to his jacket and cap, pocket knives, latitude metre, medical box, … to his arm bone that was broken when attacked by a lion!! He did 3 trips through Africa… can you believe his first lasted 14 years!? Incredible…

How to get to Zimbabwe without paying $65USD each: got a ride for Day 2 at Vic Falls with a Danish/South African couple we had met in Lusaka. Pulled up to the Zambian border post and enquired about how to get onto the “no-man’s-land” bridge to watch the bungee jumpers; lady stamped a piece of paper, wrote the number “4” on it, and told us to make sure we all return with the paper when finished. No problem. After watching a lady jump off the bridge, decided we’d wander over to Zimbabwe to “say we’ve been”; got to the Zimbabwean border post, Jonathan (the South African) being the savvy, knows how to play dumb African traveller asks for a day pass. No problem, stamps a piece of paper, writes a “4”, off we go to Zimbabwe. I should point out that I had left my passport back at Jollyboy’s thinking $65 was way too much for the day and that we’d never go… here I was standing there in Zimbabwe with my passport in Zambia; a tad nervous about it, but more excited about seeing the falls from the reportedly, better side.

Couple went to return to Zambia since they had recently done the Zim side, Jen and I headed up the road to the park, payed the $20USD entry fee and we were in!! Wandered to the western edge of the falls, down the stairs, and my God… the view was like something out of a fairytale. Truely breathtaking (see photo with rainbow). Trying to not spend too much time since Zambia thought we were still on the bridge, headed back up and there was Jonathan with the park guy looking for us. “We may have a problem” he tells us, but then, “You’ve got a minute… go check out the other view real quick”. So off we went… perhaps slightly better than Zambia, but nothing like what we just saw at the “Western Cataract”.

Head out of the park after no more than 15 minutes of being there, back to the border… turns out the border guy actually thought we were Zambian, and thus didn’t ask about passports or visas, and here stood a big, fat, mean, glaring Zimbabwean lady telling us we need passports and visas. Bit more sweet-talk from Jonathan another stamp on paper with a “4”, off we go back to Zambia!!

A $40 story I suppose… PLUS we got to see the falls from another angle, and rip off Robert Mugabe for $260. Not bads. Jen and I were attempting to boycot Zimbabwe a little, but the closer we get, the more we hear, the nicer the people are… it gets tough. In case this is all new to you: Rober Mugabe has been the leader of Zimbabwe since Independence in the early 70’s… he promised land to the blacks if they fought for him, they did, in the late 90’s they demanded the land, so he turned the country into a free-for-all, basically making it completely legal for the blacks to take whatever land they wanted from the white farmers. This effectively started the collapse of the economy since the productive, commercial, exporting farmers left, and the black, subsistent farmers took over, creating the need for imports, this in turn causing the currency to go from $250Zim per $1USD to go to $250,000Zim to $250,000,000 (though 3 0’s have now been removed). Fascinating and incredibly sad. Oddly if you go to an ATM, you’ll still get $250Zim/$1USD, whereas if you go to the black market, you’ll get $250,000/$1USD… which means if you used an ATM, a beer would cost hundreds of dollars. So now, people with pensions are getting only a few dollars a month, people who held onto their houses from before this only owe a fraction of what it’s worth, people who work still make a few dollars/month since the employer is bound by the official rate. Any given commodity (take mayonnaise) can double, or half in price from week to week. I can’t understand how people are surviving, but somehow they are…

…and here we sit by the pool, leaving for Botswana tomorrow a.m. with the Danish/South African couple. We’re renting a car for a month once we reach Jo’berg… I’m looking so forward to that!!