Shenanigans That Side: Livingstone, Victoria Falls, and Botswana

On a Tuesday evening I set off with one of my friends from Mpelembe, Mutuzana, and another Spanish friend working in a village not far from Kitwe, Carola. We took the night bus down to Livingstone where the beautiful Victoria Falls are located. Don't worry mom, the night bus was perfectly safe. 18 hour bus ride for $25, not bad!

Upon arrival we were told that this evening was the last night to view the lunar rainbow at the falls. Sounded exciting. As it was getting dark we packed a nice picnic dinner of fried chicken, chips (fries), and Heineken and headed to the falls with our new friends, Irene (Italian), Mikela (Italian), and Japhet(Zambian). Once at the park we found our way to the edge of the falls and found a stunning view. We were standing at the top of the falls on the Zambian side, and from there, plunging down hundreds of feet to the bottom was a vivid rainbow created by the full moon. I've never seen anything like it. Who knew you didn't need the sun to create a rainbow?!? Very hard to capture with a camera but Carola managed to get a couple of good shots. Eventually we found a nice little spot away from the tourists that still had an amazing view of the falls, rainbow, sounds of the river, and sat down to eat our picnic with smiles on our faces. Good for the soul :)

The following day we got up early to explore the falls. Luckily Mutuzana had been to the falls several times so he acted as tour guide the whole day. In case you're not aware, Victoria Falls is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. And rightly so. Victoria Falls is also known as Mosi-oa-tunya which means 'the smoke that thunders'. Very good description. From miles away you can see the cloud of mist that is created by the falls and as you get closer you can hear the thunder long before actually seeing the water. April is the most thunderous time to see the falls as the Zambezi is at its highest from the rainy season in Zambia and Namibia. From any of the vantage points I couldn't actually see the bottom of the falls because there is so much mist.

In the morning we crossed over the knife bridge which crosses directly in front of one section of the falls. During the low season, you can sit on the bridge and look at the view, but in April, we had to run across the bridge and get pelted by sideways rain created by the falls. I was absolutely drenched by the end of it. Note to self, bring a raincoat next time. It took a long hike down to the bottom of the gorge and several hours basking in the sun to finally dry out.

Here's a cool difference between the US and Zambia. Up at the top of the falls, near the place we had eaten dinner the night before, you can get right up to the waters edge and see where the water starts to fall no more than 20 feet away. No rails, no fences, no ropes keeping you out of the water. There is, however, a sign saying to be cautious of surges of water when walking through the river. So basically there is nothing more than common sense stopping you from walking out into the river and being swept in an instant over the edge. It was fantastic, you could enjoy the sites without having to look through a fence. Sure people have been hurt (killed) but I guess it's nature's way of wiping out the stupid people. Another cool difference, one of the park rangers let me test drive his segway along the trails in the park. That would never have happened in the States for so many reasons. I digress...

Now here's the fun part. Carola and I decided to go bungee jumping to the base of the falls. It took a beer for me and a coffee for her (very Spanish of her) to get up our courage but we did it. We actually did a combo package. Zip line across the gorge, bungee, and gorge swing. Bungee jumping was absolutely terrifying but satisfying. It was a 111 meter jump, 4.5 second free fall. Looking down into the water with your toes curled over the edge of the bridge is the worst feeling in the world. I had no choice in the matter, I was actually given a shove on 5,4,3,2,1,BUNGEE! The cool part was that when I finally controlled the urge to pee my pants, stopped screaming, and opened my eyes, I was surprised to see that I was plunging into the center of a completely circular rainbow! Then when you bounced up and could see sideways there was another rainbow, and another, and another! So cool.

That evening Carola and I said goodbye to Mutuzana who was headed down to Zimbabwe to visit family, and went out on a sunset cruise on the Zambezi. Nice views, open bar, good convo (Carola is in International Relations so I picked her mind about everything), quite perfect. We needed the laid back evening after our adrenaline pumping afternoon.

The next morning we got up early to go on a safari in Botswana, Chobe Park, with the Italian girls. After a quick bus ride and ferry across the Zambezi we were in Botswana! The safari started with tea and sandwiches on the boat(how British of them) for a 2.5 hour river safari. April was the perfect time to do a river safari, the water was so high that you couldn't really see the other side of the river. Gorgeous. Next we jumped in the truck and headed out into the bush. We saw and heard so much wildlife. I was so happy, had this huge grin on my face the entire time. At one point we were close enough to reach out and touch an elephant. Cool.

That night we arrived at our camping spot. Totally fancy, I'm ruined for minimalist camping forever. They had already set up all of our tents, we had down comforters instead of sleeping bags, basins outside each tent for warm water in the morning... As we were sitting around the camp fire drinking wine that evening the girls started to get worried about the animals coming into camp. Our guide, Jensen told us it wasn't a problem. He said that if you had to get up and pee at night, stop for a couple of minutes and listen to what is outside. He said he had been telling us to listen to the sounds all day so that we could recognize what animals were around the camp that night. HA! We then spent quite a bit of time listening to the bush and classifying what we heard. We could recognize a rutting impala-safe to go out of the tent, breathing elephant-not safe, leopard-not safe, panting lion-not safe, roaring lion-definitely not safe. So we all went pee right before bed and prayed we would not have to get up again. So there I was, couldn't sleep, and heard the sawing of a leopard maybe 100 meters away, and a male lion walking back and forth along the road 50 meters from camp. It was really fun.

Since we hadn't seen a lion the evening before, we got up at 5am to go on a lion hunt. We had been listening to him the night before so we knew that the lion was close and just started driving the roads near our camp. Eventually someone spotted him and the guide told us to be quiet so we could track him...he would lead us to the rest of the pride. Cool. So we followed him for a few minutes and sure enough, eventually he led us straight to two lionesses and 3 cubs. We had some really good views of the lion which apparently is rather rare. The male got within 20 feet of us and the cubs came out onto the road right in front of us and were rolling on the ground playing. Of course by this time there was only 1 camera in the group with battery left so I don't have any really good pics. If only the camp had outlets to recharge the cameras....

The really fun part is that in the middle of our lion hunt we got a flat on the truck. Jensen decided we couldn't go any further and that he had to change the flat. He tried to change it with us all in the truck but the jack kept slipping. We had to get out of the truck. There we were, standing outside the truck with a pride of lions just around the corner. Through nervous laughter we all kept watch in every direction in case they decided to come back for us. It was really fun.

Next comes the part I had been anticipating all weekend. Getting back across the border into Zambia. I had been operating on a semi-legal visa for the past two weeks. I was nervous that the immigration officers would realize that my visa wasn't legit and not let me back in. Of course I knew that if all else failed, 1 million kwacha ($200) slipped into his pocket would easily solve that problem but I didn't want to pay. I was the first of the group to go through the line, only had to pay $80 for a brand new (also semi-legal) visa and I was home. Amazing how unorganized and corrupt this place is.

Another 20 hours of travel and I was back in my own bed. Overall, pretty nice little weekend.

Lunar Rainbow