Back again.
We had a very delayed flight from Johannesburg to Victoria Falls as the plane was kaput in Harare and they had to fly one in from Zimbabwe for us, but we finally got here. We couldn't see the Falls from the plane, as the airport is 20 Kms away in the middle of nowhere. It is incredibly dry here, just sticks of trees and sand everywhere. ( from the Kalahari Desert apparently) just so different to the green countryside up north.
The Lodge had no record of our booking despite having sent a transfer for us, but its the end of the tourist season ( that's why we've been in so many near empty hotels ) so we got a room ok.
We walked to the Falls the next AM, we could hear them from far away.
The water level is low but they are still spectacular. They must be amazing in full flood, but also the spray would be so big I doubt you could get great photos. We were getting wet as it was and having to protect and dry the cameras.
It was incredibly hot and we had to keep buying drinks non stop.
The Falls are next to the border with Zambia and there is a very high rail/car/ pedestrian bridge over the gorge joining the 2 countries built by the then rulers -the English in 1905. It was bought out in pieces and assembled in 14 months.
We walked over it, watching the crazy bungee jumpers, and set foot in Zambia then came back.
We then spent ages looking at the local craft/souvenir shops, where I resisted again( the souvenirs here aren't really my thing) but Courtney bought a nice tablecloth.
The next day we went on a day trip to Chobe National Park in Botswana , where there are an estimated 120,000 elephants living!!! Many come to visit from Zambia and Zimbabwe and go home again in the wet season but many came from Angola in the civil war and refuse to go home. There are far to many for the area but there is no culling or family planning allowed as every other country has poaching and can't maintain their herds.
We saw 100's of elephants, it was fabulous. The park has the massive Chobe River going thru it dividing it from Zambia and there are islands of green lush grass. The elephants swim over each day to picnic then go back into the dry barren sand at night, each family following their own path, not sharing paths.
We saw lots swimming over, right next to big crocodiles who don't attack them.
Buffaloes also swim over.
We also saw giraffes in the park and the usual varieties of antelopes.
It was a great day.
On leaving our accommodation there was some argy- bargy about our bill as they had no record of our booking and I didn't have a copy as my email account had been blocked. Anyway we came to a compromise ( I had to pay extra!!)
On reflection I think we were totally at the wrong place and expect to go home to a credit card bill of a no- show at another hotel in Victoria Falls!!!
Not happy and have no idea how it happened. At least we weren't out on the street with no accommodation.
I didn't really like it there,it wasn't unsafe just yuck, and to many locals all desperately trying to make a living from the tourists.
We had to drive to Zambia, at Livingstone to get our flight to Cape Town. Livingstone used to be the Capital of Northern Rhodesia and was a very nice, clean well laid out town with many buildings over a 100 yrs old.
So that ended our tripping around strange countries, the rest of the time is in South Africa. And it's a lot cooler here unfortunately.
More later.
Carol