Zimbabwe – Victoria Falls

Zimbabwe is a country that hasn’t had the best press over the past few years and you may have heard of it for all the wrong reasons. However despite its ongoing hardships, it is definitely worth dipping your toe into this beautiful country and a good place to start is a trip to what is arguably the world’s most powerful waterfall.

We arrived at the Zimbabwean border very early in the morning, to beat the crowds; there were trucks sitting queued that apparently had been waiting for the right paperwork for weeks, luckily our crossing didn’t take too long. After a short walk through the no-mans land (and no-mans maintenance concern it seemed) between the Botswana and Zimbabwean borders we were soon across and on our way to Victoria Falls.

We started the day at Shearwater Adventures to find out all about the tours and activities that were available in the area; we were disappointed to learn (well, one of us was) that as it was rainy season, the white water rafting was not available.  The Devil’s Pool was also closed due to the high water levels.  With this in mind we decided to invest in a helicopter flight over the falls, as it is regarded as the best way to see the falls in their full glory during rainy season. Whilst you have the advantage of seeing the falls at full power, the spray and mist can obscure the view from land so seeing them from above gives you the full effect. It wasn’t cheap, so may be out of budget but because of how much value we felt we had from the scenic flight we took over the Okavango Delta, we decided to splurge. We were taken up in groups of 4 after a pre-flight weigh in (which gave us a good giggle when we watched the video at the end, from the looks on our faces it was clear everyone had put on a bit of weight during our tour!).  The flight itself was incredible and highly recommended. The flight is very short but we got views of the river, the gorge and of course the “smoke that thunders”, with a flight path designed to give everyone the opportunity to take photos.  Before our flight we had visited the falls from ground level on the Zimbabwean side  The national park is very well set out with many walkways, viewpoints, and bridges.  This experience was amazing and we got thoroughly drenched right through to our bones, if you have a camera or camera phone then take steps to protect these if you want pictures. The scenery was spectacular, if a little difficult to capture in all the spray; but with a little preparation you should be fine.  The views from the Zimbabwean side, cannot be missed if you are visiting!

Victoria Falls town itself is an interesting place. It was far more developed and touristy than we were expecting.  This had advantages and disadvantages.  The good: great bars, restaurants, shopping and hotels are available.  The bad: it is expensive compared with other destinations we visited in Africa and we found the the touting to be particularly pushy. We tried to visit the extensive craft markets but gave up after the first stall as the hassle from vendors trying to guilt trip you into buying from them was too much.  This is something you will experience throughout Africa, but it was particularly difficult to manage here – it was tough for us knowing that people have had a hard time and are just trying to provide an income for their families, but of course you can’t buy everything from everyone.

Our accommodation for the first night was at the Hotel Rainbow, it gets mixed reviews online but is ok for a night or two; it has the potential to be a great hotel but there are a few areas of improvement. Go to breakfast and you will see what I mean, there are many staff members, each with an individual and very specific job to do, but there is no room for overlap with other peoples tasks; for example, there were no plates, so I asked a member of staff standing in another area of the restaurant to help, and they looked petrified to leave their station to investigate, despite this being crucial to the actual delivery of breakfast! Probably just needs better management, but the hotel itself has nice rooms, the dining room is smart, and the bar and pool area are a clean and relaxing space. We had farewell drinks at a backpackers called Shoestrings, to say goodbye to our travelling companions from the overland tour. It turned out to be a lively and fun night with a few drinks, then a few shots, some dancing until around 1am – when we left, singing songs as we walked down the road back to our hotel.

Now, we had been on an overland tour, mostly camping, for the 20 days leading up to this so decided to treat ourselves to 3 nights at the Ilala Lodge, a nice hotel but not one of the ones that you must sell a body part to be able to afford! I had comically booked for the wrong dates, only realising once we were about to leave our previous accommodation. I decided to blag it on arrival at the Ilala lodge by playing dumb (came quite easily to me!) but in testament to the team there and their overall customer service it was resolved, and we were able to check in and get into our room within just 30 minutes. That level of service was reflected in every part of our stay with them, you do have to pay for it but compared to some prices in the area it wasn’t the most expensive.

We spent the next 2 days writing, eating, sleeping in; and generally doing what we wanted when we wanted. The rigidity of an overland tour schedule needs to be shaken off, maybe it is how it feels to get out of the army after a period! We got this out of our system and started to plan the next part of our trip, across the border into Zambia; and a flight from there to Malawi to spend a week or so around the lake and to really relax, we were not to be disappointed!

Meanwhile, we took a day trip over to the Zambian side of Vic Falls to take a look at the falls from another perspective. We definitely recommend visiting both sides, if you have time and if you plan to do this, make sure you get the right type of visa when you enter Zimbabwe, there is a KAZA visa which gives you multiple entry to both countries for $50. The national park on the Zambian side is a little more rustic and will take less time, as it is the smaller section of the falls. However you will still get up close to the falls so beware of the spray and bring waterproof everything.  It was here we saw first-hand, why you shouldn’t eat in areas where there are monkeys. A young woman sat on a tree stump peeling a banana to eat, as she raised it to her mouth, a rather large baboon jumped down from a tree and grabbed it out of her hand, leaving her in a state of shock! It happened so fast.

Back on the Zimbabwean side, there is a great brewpub called The River Brewing Company that you should check out if you like your beer. It’s reasonably priced, has Wi-Fi and some good beer food. You may just have to run the gauntlet of hawkers on your way into the area it is in, but don’t let that put you off; they serve some great beer in there.

If you want, you will get many opportunities to buy a souvenir of the old Zimbabwean currency that was devalued and replaced with the USD. We picked up a $20 billion note, but there are a few that will be offered; haggle hard with the sellers as they will try and get $10 US per note from you.

It feels slightly fraudulent writing about Livingston in Zambia, bearing in mind we were there for less than 24 hours. It was a pleasant place based on what we saw, much less touristy than Vic Falls.  We found a  decent Italian restaurant which made a nice change. In town, we stayed at LePatino; a basic guesthouse, a short distance from the centre of town, easily walkable. The room was clean and comfortable, the breakfast was hearty. The staff were very welcoming and, helped us to organise a taxi to the airport for our flight to Malawi. The taxi cost us the equivalent of $10 US; but took a few years off our life expectancy due to some drama along the way.

After arriving at the airport, we discovered Kezia’s phone was not with us, but we didn’t have the taxi drivers’ number; nor did we have a Zambian sim card to call our guest house. Luckily help was at hand, in the form of a guy with the wonderful name ‘Innocence’ (until proven guilty, he added) who worked for Bushtracks Africa one of the safari companies from the area. He called LePatino, got the number for the driver and called him for us. At first the driver came back and said he could not find it, but as we believed that the taxi was the only place we could have left it he called again; asking the driver to do a thorough search, which he did and to our relief found it, in the seat pocket of the chair. So, disaster was averted, our hero Innocent posed for a picture with the phone’s now-beaming owner; and we said our goodbyes to Zambia, and went through to board our Proflight flight to Malawi…