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Today we left Kasane to head to Livingstone and Victoria Falls. The highlight today was by far the border crossing from Botswana to Zambia. This was more like the dodgy experience we were expecting in Africa. When we arrived at the edge of the river at Botswana we cleared customs and made our way down a dirt track to the river. Here we were faced with a car ferry (debatable!) that had broken down. Meanwhile, on the Zambia side even though the border had opened at 6am and it was now 7:30, the ferry driver had not turned up for work. Once again the word ferry is used loosely here, see photo for a better description. We waited around in no mans land, which is known as the Caprivi Point, as it is the meeting of 4 countries, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Also the people are very colorful to say the least. Eventually the ferry from Zambia came across and as we are tourists we got to jump the queue and were first on. Much to the disgust of the local truckies, some that have been waiting up to two weeks to cross this point. We got onto the ferry on foot, but our truck was blocked in by the truckies and was forced to wait behind for the next one. So once on board we stood amongst a huge semi trailer and about 200 other people all with bags of food and worldly belongs that we think they were trying sell on the other side. This was made clearer half way across when our ferry was intercepted by local canoes from Zimbabwe who paddled up to the ferry and received bags of goods over the side. Our suspicions were confirmed by Allan, our guide as illegal smuggling... And it all happened in broad daylight in front of local officials. Once on dry land again, we officially entered Zambia with no problems, but we had to wait for our truck to make it over. We were happy to stand around and watch the soap opera unfolding in front of us, as dodgy deals were done and money changed hands for goods that appeared out of nowhere. Finally back in our truck we continued the last 60km to Livingstone. We stopped briefly for lunch (an experience of African fast food that we would rather forget) and then got to our campsite, the Waterfront. The rest of the afternoon was our own, and we enjoyed a final dinner with our group and guides. We have all become like family in the last 3 weeks, being such a small group we got to know each other well and enjoyed a good laugh about our adventures, including those today at the border. Which really was a unique experience, and actually really fun.
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