Victoria Falls

Unexpected adventures and hard (emotional!) landings.

Nov 4 and 5 were our final days together as a team and my final days in a comfy hotel in Victoria Falls. 😭

There are a ton of exciting, adventurous things to do in Victoria Falls but as I can a) do many of those at home (with Canadian safety standards and Canadian healthcare as back up!) and b) was spending a whack of cash to do a hot air balloon ride in the Serengetti I hadn't really planned anything for Victoria Falls. Happily, my new Canadian friends Shauna and Charles and German friend Tina were planning to go do an excursion called the  Devil's Pool and invited me along. I hadn't heard of it but when they told me it involved boats, water and the edge of the waterfall I was in!

It was expensive (as is all of Zimbabwe which is excruciating for local people!) but it was SO worth it! We crossed the border into Zambia, which was relatively smooth, and were taken to a put-in point on the Zambezi river.

We donned life jackets (so glad I would be face up and at the surface if we crashed on a rock and ended up going over the waterfall!) and zipped off to Livingstone Island. Once we arrived we put our phones in a waterproof bag which our guide carried while we swam out to THE EDGE OF VICTORIA FALLS!

After that we swam back to Livingstone Island for a fantastic breakfast (did I mention our pick up was 6:30am?!), took some more pictures,

and then it was back to the mainland, through the border and dropped off at our hotel in no time. It was fast. But it was a very cool experience.

After a quick shower and a snack we turned right back around and went out to look at Victoria Falls from the park on the Zimbabwe side. It's a 30USD entrance fee for international visitors (WTF?!) which we didn't love but we figured we couldn't come to Victoria Falls and *not* go to the official park.

Even at low water and even as spoiled as we are for natural beauty in BC the falls were amazing.

After an early start and lots of walking in the sun we decided we were done for the day so we headed back to the hotel for shower, nap and lounge by the pool.

A lovely way to end my trip with G Adventures. 🍹☀️🏊‍♀️😌

Nov 6 was the official first day of my Intrepid trip but our meeting time wasn't until 4:00 so I lounged by the pool until about 3:00 when it was time to leave the comfort of the "Classic" G Adventures trip and lug my bags up the street and around the corner to the very basic Victoria Falls Rest Camp.

So, just to review, the pool I left,

And the pool I arrived at,

😒

I'm not going to lie. It was a very hard landing. I made some fantastic friends on the G tour and the hotel we were at was lovely. Then suddenly I was in the middle of a run-down campsite, with 12 people I didn't know, right next to a nightclub. Why did I decide to do the hotel part BEFORE the camping part again?! 😭

Luckily, I immediately made friends with a fantastic pair of Australians named Lisa (mom) and Hannah (daughter) and Nicolas, a cheerful and punny French-Canadian and we entertained each other for the evening.

The Aussies and I decided to upgrade for the evening b/c we were a bit worried about rain but the upgrade was veeeery basic. It saved us from the noise of the night club but that was about it.

Ba.Sic. It felt like a, 1950s sleep-away camp bunkhouse that had received onl the most basic maintenance over the years.

Our G Adventures trip had stayed at lots of nice little hotels with campsites on the back or side so I had higher hopes than this for the Intrepid trip. Luckily our other sites were mostly better but of course I didn't know that at the time. I was worried this would be a looooong 28 days.

Nov 7 was another day in Vic Falls and I didn't feel like doing any more adventure stuff so I spent the day doing errands. In the evening I went out with the Aussies, the French-Canadian and a Brit and we did a sunset "safari" on a little local train. It was so fun!

The back of Hannah's head on the left (brunette) and her mom Lisa on the right (blond.)

Unfortunately, we did have a *bit* of a hitch when the train's engine conked out about 13km out of town. 😬
Luckily, the conductor was able to contact the little train station (I was very glad of that b/c in Zimbabwe you never know what the back up plans are, or if there are any!) and we had only just left the old siding where we dropped off some staff who were making a table of cocktails and snacks ready for us. So, after some fruitless attempts to push the train and ALOT of photo taking (I may have been getting twitchy about the ratio of photo taking to problem solving!!) we walked back to the siding and had a lovely drink and some snacks while we waited for rescue.

Thank you to Nicolas Lapierre for taking this photo! I was hungry and grumpy and so I didn't really take any pictures which, of course, I later regretted.

I did get a nice sunset once we were rolling again tho,

Then we had a big dinner in Vic Falls and retired to our campsite to sleep before our first big driving day with Intrepid.