The Reason for the Trip

Today marks the end of my 45th year on earth.  It's been a very nice day.

It started off with an early wake up to get to Cape Town airport for a flight at 0700.  Unfortunately, I discovered that credit cards are not widely accepted in South Africa as they are in the US as I wound up stiffing the cab driver R10 (10 South African Rand) from my R252 fare as I didn't quite have enough due to a miscalculation.  He took all of the Rand I had so I'll have to get more when I get back tomorrow.

There were a lot of Americans on my flight from Johannesburg to Livingstone, Zambia.  There appeared to be a few independent people like myself but most were part of tour groups.  This became even more evident on arrival based on all the groups that were being met by drivers.

The flight was uneventful and as we approached Livingstone, we flew over some of the Zambezi rapids upstream of Victoria Falls.  I tried to see if I could see the falls when we banked for landing but I couldn't.

My ride to my lodge was waiting for me at the airport though I didn't realize it at first.  Richard Chanter is originally from the UK and transfered into Zambia (Lusaka, the capital to be exact) where he ran a hotel.  Upon retirement there, he decided to open his own here in Livingstone.  He and his staff could not be any more friendly or helpful.  I have a pretty nice room with the pool right outside my deck.

After a brief rest due to my early morning, the staff called me a taxi and I headed to Victoria Falls.  My intention was to start on the Zambian side then go to the Zimbabwe side.  However, my driver convinced me that it would be a better idea to start with Zimbabwe then come back and do Zambia.  Therefore, I decided to take his advice.  He got me through Zambian Immigration (that double entry visa came in handy) then dropped me off outside of the Zimbabwean Border Post.  Zimbabwe was a little more typically African with it taking two or three times longer than I expected but I eventually made it through.

Walked up the road a few tenths of a mile and got to the entrance to the Zimbabwe Victoria Falls park.  After paying $30 (Zimbabwe has adopted the US Dollar as its currency.  Years ago the currency exchange rate was in the hundreds of millions or billions to the dollar.  I was offered a 500,000,000 shilling and a 1,000,000,0000 shilling bill but didn't take them up on the offer), I entered the park.  There were a total of 16 viewpoints of which I hit 15 of them.  The last was next to the railroad bridge and didn't look like it had much to offer.

Here are some of the photos of the falls from the Zimbabwe side.  The statue is of David Livingstone who was the first European to see the falls.

There was also the opportunity to see some wildlife while walking around in the park.

I tried to go to the Zambian side but did not convert any money into Zambian Kwacha which is the only currency the park accepts.  Rather than change it on the street, I may try to change some in the morning before heading back to South Africa.

I had a nice dinner here at the hotel and finished my book.  It's been a pretty low key day and I'm perfectly happy with that.  I should sleep quite well tonight.