Zimbabwe!

Beth and I were a little apprehensive about visiting the Zimbabwe side of the Falls, as there's a wee bit of political turmoil in this country.  After doing some research online and talking with our parents/sister who visted a few years ago, we decided to split our time at Vic Falls with 2 days in Zambia and 2 in Zimbabwe - a split for Zim and Zam.

We arrived this morning across the Vic Falls bridge, breezing through immigration/ customs with the help of our new best friend Chris (who arranged our tour to Chobe the day before - this man is quite a taxi driver/entrepreneur!).  Immediately, you could see the difference between Zim and Zam - Zim is much more geared towards tourists (whereas Livingstone in Zam is a regular town that's just coming around to a tourism focus).  Driving through the main town, it seemed much more sanitized and clean - clearly a tourist town and less an authentic African town (though still many many hawkers around town, so not completely sanitized).   At the same time, the roads were in major disrepair.  As our driver told us, in the '90s Zim had great roads (even better than Zam's roads) but there's no money any more to maintain them, even in the tourist mecca of Vic Falls that Mugabe has barely been able to reach (apparently this area is under control of a different tribe, so Mugabe's henchmen don't dare come to this area for fear of them). 

We headed to the very posh Victoria Falls Safari Lodge where the rest of our family had stayed previously and raved about.  Their reviews were right on target.  It's a beautiful resort - much nicer than any hotel we've stayed at thusfar on the trip.  We were greeted very effusively, and then even more enthusiastically once they discovered who we are (the head porter's son is coming to intern at Gabriel next week, due to conversations he had with my dad 4 years ago).  Thomas treated us like queens, giving us a grand tour of the lodge, upgrading our room, and asking us many questions about what life will be like in Chicago for his son.


We enjoyed the surroundings and view of the waterhole until being picked up for our helicopter flight over the Falls.  As previously stated, these falls are immense.  So immense that you can't get the full extent of them from either Zim or Zam.  So we headed up to the air to get the full view of them.  13 minutes later, we had circled the falls both clockwise and counter-clockwise (to give both sides of the helicopter a great photo op) and started to understand a bit better the power of these Falls.

After a quick nap back at VFSL, we woke up to elephants at the watering hole outside our window.  What a way to wake up.  We watched them drink and spray water on themselves, before covering themselves with dirt.  They headed out of the watering hole and even closer to our room, chopping at the trees and bushes along the way.  Su-weet.

We then headed out for a sunset cruise along the Zambezi River, which forms the boundary between Zim and Zam and also leads to the Falls themselves.  We were way upsteam of those Falls.  A few elephants, hippos, crocs, and glasses of wine later, we watched the sun set through the clouds.  A perfect end to a beautiful African day.  Our cruise was quite international with visitors from France, Spain, UK, and USA.   Luckily, the French guys spoke a bit of English, so I didn't have to try to butcher their beautiful language again.  I did tell them I loved Paris, and I swear in French they said something to each other about it being funny that an American loved Paris.  Ha!

We ended the evening with a dinner of delicious warthog (perhaps they just caught the ones grazing in our front lawn area?) at the hotel restaurant, overlooking our waterhole.  (Lagan, my warthog also came with potato lasagna - I think you would have been in heaven with the tasty carbs)  A herd of elephants and buffalo kept us company during dinner, entertaining us until our food arrived.  As we left the restaurant, a group of male singers arrived to serenade the diners with traditional Zimbabwean a capella tunes.  VFSL knows how to treat its customers well.