Flying into Victoria Falls, we were hoping to catch a glimpse of them from the plane but were unable to. Once landed, we had to show our COVID vaccine card prior to heading to customs (surprisingly have only done this in 4 or so countries we’ve visited). Heading down to customs we may have skipped past the line (we thought people were still filling out forms oops) and were guided to the visa line. We weren’t sure exactly what visa to get as we didn’t know if we were going to hop into Zambia or Botswana. Once through customs, we had to grab some cash from the ATM. Since the currency crashed in Zimbabwe, they had switched over to using US dollars. However, we found most places didn’t have small enough bills below $10 to provide change so we tried to pay most things with card or give exact amount.
After getting our cash, we were bombarded by a taxi driver that refused to take no for an answer. Grant tried to tell him we had a ride arranged with the hotel (which the driver tried to tell us his taxi company was the only one N1 Hotel used). After a couple minutes bantering back and forth, I finally had enough and told the guy we didn’t have time to check the names on peoples sheets so to excuse us while we took a look around. Thankfully, we found our driver and we were able to hit the road.
Turns out the airport transfer company is conveniently one of the only tour operators in the whole city, so they “let us” (was a mandatory stop en route) take a quick pit stop at their office to figure out some activities for the weekend. We had already decided we wanted to do some of the activities, so it worked out. After booking, it was off to check in to the hotel. Grant had chosen a hotel within walking distance to Victoria Falls park and ended up being near some good restaurants. We could definitely tell the difference between Victoria Falls and other places in Africa we had visited. The town was centered around tourism and was the best English we had heard from all the waiting staff. Our first stop was to the The Three Monkeys restaurant where we had some delicious pizza. I tried the Mexican pizza and Grant tried their arrabbiata pizza, both of which had quite the spice to it. While there we asked our waiter if it was best to head into the falls that day or wait until the morning as it was raining off and on throughout our meal. We decided to postpone until the next day and enjoy an evening relaxing in the hotel as we had been in go mode the past week in Kenya.
The next day we grabbed breakfast at a local cafe near the hotel and found out that tipping in most restaurants in Africa is different than in America. Our waiter, Fah, told us that the tip doesn’t go to him personally but is shared amongst the kitchen and wait staff. But people are so appreciative of whatever tip they receive especially if it’s more than 10%. During breakfast we saw a monkey hopping around the roof tops looking for tourists to drop their food.
After breakfast, we walked the 1km to the park entrance gate of Victoria Falls. The day started out with some clouds but a few minutes into the park we were showered with mist from the falls along with a light rain shower. There were several viewpoints along the trail to stop and take pictures of the falls. Seeing both Iguazu Falls and Victoria Falls, the amount of water and power of these falls is amazing. There were times where the mist was too much and you couldn’t see the falls at all.
After snapping the pictures and videos we wanted, we decided to take a quick walk on the bridge over the Zambezi river to cross into Zambia. [Mainly to get that Zambia passport stamp]. After crossing customs we were “greeted” by two guys that walked with us for about 5 minutes trying to get us to buy crafts or to “sell us activities at local rates.” I got to hear all about the “80% unemployment” of Zimbabwe from the guy talking to me (the Internet didn’t seem to back-up this statistic). They eventually left us alone – we found Victoria Falls had some of the most people approaching you trying to sell things but all were harmless. It is also crazy how many baboons and monkeys you will see no matter where you walk. Though I had no desire to get too close to them. We quickly walked back to our hotel as we thought we had a helicopter ride to catch but after having it pushed back a couple times due to the clouds and rain it was finally canceled for the day. As more rain was scheduled for our last day in Victoria falls, we were worried we wouldn’t be able to do any of our planned activities.
We ended the night at the local brewery next to the hotel where a (maybe) local singer was playing some music. They had a popcorn machine and I was thrilled to find out they give it to customers as a sort of appetizer. I think the US should definitely follow that trend! Grant had a steak that was really good – we ended up reading that Zimbabwe was known for their beef for a long time before the country’s economic collapse and subsequent foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in the meat. However, apparently in the last few years the industry is making a big comeback – and we agreed after tasting it! After dinner, we stayed for a song before retiring back to the room knowing we would (possibly) have a busy day in the morning.
Rinehart's Roaming The World 