Hippos and crocs and elephants, oh my!

So not this past weekend but the weekend before we traveled down to Livingstone, home to Victoria Falls (one of the 7 natural wonders of the world). It was beautiful, despite there not being much water at all. Keep in mind that it has not rained a single drop in about 5 months so one can only expect the falls to be less spectacular this time of year. With this said however, there are advantages to going now. The falls are also called Mosi-oa-Tunya (The smoke that thunders), and the spray from it (in the rainy season) can be seen from 30km away.

So we boarded the 6am bus on Friday morning and off we were! The first 5 hours went by fairly quickly but come hour 6, when we began driving on an unpaved path, the bumpy road began and the driver swerved from left to right and right to left in attempt to avoid all the potholes, bumps, and ditches. But alas, we made it safe and sound in just over 6 hours. We were even given cookies and a drink on the bus! Luckily we had a few friends, also CIDA interns, who are living in Livingstone and gladly took us in for the weekend. First thing Saturday morning we headed to the falls, no time to waste. We hit up every viewing point, and considered crossing over to the Zimbabwe side (as in the dry season, the Zim side has much more water) but it was quite expensive.

"In high water a raincoat is largely ineffective as the spray blows all around and soaks you in seconds" (yes, quoted from a guide book). Thus, it is obviously much more difficult to take photos in the rainy season. Also, because it was the dry season we were able to walk on top of the falls, looking down! We rock-hopped to where the falls were and it was spectacular. There was a lovely rainbow and the water sprayed us a bit (which was nice because it was so hot). On our way back however, the water had risen (who knew there would be a tide?!) and the route we had originally taken was submerged under water. My anxiety grew and I was somewhat concerned we would get stranded on top of the waterfall. "Coincidentally" there are local guys strategically waiting here for tourists such as ourselves to take us back to dry land. Not without getting wet first though. Off our shoes came and into the water we went - at one point up to our knees, balancing on not-so-steady rocks. The only way back was to shuffle side to side along a man-made ledge the width of a balance beam. We created a human chain, holding hands to create more stability as the current increased in strength (does it sound like a cheesy suspense novel yet?!). After the initial shock of actually doing this wore off, it became quite an exciting adventure! We even almost had a few run-ins with wild monkeys in the parking lot on our way back into town.

In the evening we boarded a sunset cruise along the Zambezi river, which runs along a national park. Here we saw an elephant, crocs, hippos, and many different species of birds. We had dinner - a braii (bbq), and drinks and just relaxed. The sunset here is spectacular, going from a bright orange to pink and ending with a purple sky.

Our bus trip back was not quite as pleasant as the trip there. We started off an hour and a half late (after taping up the cracked windshield with clear packing tape), broke down about 30 minutes into the trip (whereby they fixed a broken tube by wrapping around an old t-shirt), had to back track when they realized that they had left tools behind where we had broken down, and made lengthy stops about 12 times. Ten hours later, we finally arrived home. And back to work we went. I am definitely hoping to make it back to Livingstone in the rainy season, to see the falls in full force.

I tried to upload photos of the falls but the internet kept cutting out before the photos loaded properly. Hopefully it will work next time.