Adventures in Victoria Falls!

           As our way to celebrate the end of the semester, seven of us girls traveled the 20 hour bus trip to Victoria Falls in Zambia. Although we were only in Livingstone, Zambia for two full days, we packed in so many adventures and sightseeing excursions that we were always busy and got to experience a lot of Livingstone in just a short time. In our two days there we went white water rafting on the Zambezi River, went on a sunset dinner cruise on a different part of the River, explored Victoria Falls and got insanely soaked by its spray, I got mugged by a baboon at the Falls, and we all took a bike tour around Livingstone and its surrounding villages. It was quite an eventful weekend and I am thrilled we had the chance to visit such a beautiful Seven Wonders of the World.

            A couple days before we left for Victoria Falls, we all realized our student visas were expiring the day before we were supposed to leave for the Falls. That is not good because Namibia could charge us a fee for staying too late in the country and then not let us re-enter the country from Zambia. We quickly went to the Department of Home Affairs to get this fixed (on the day that we were supposed to depart for Vic Falls) and it took so long we almost missed our bus! We were very clearly freaking out as we sprinted from Home Affairs to the bus station. Thankfully it all worked out in the end, but we certainly cut it close!

            Flying to Victoria Falls is insanely expensive so we all decided to take InnerCape, a bus system kind of like the Greyhound in the States. From Windhoek to Vic Falls, it is roughly 20 hours of sitting in a bus. Quite understandably, it felt like forever! On the way to Zambia our bus broke down so we were stuck for about an hour, but thankfully we were on our way pretty quickly. InnerCape is a Christian company so they played many movies with Christian themes. They played a movie called Son of God which showed Jesus' life and, of course, added some Hollywood flares. It was pretty funny seeing how much we all remembered from church and trying to figure out if certain scenes were "Hollywood-ified". On the way back to Windhoek, we learned about "disease mats" where every once in a while we would all shuffle off the bus and walk over a mat doused in some sort of liquid to get rid of whatever diseases we may have on our shoes from Zambia. It was comical to see all us sleep-deprived people trying to figure out what was going on. At least it was a good way to stretch our legs!

            In Zambia, we stayed at Livingstone Backpackers, a hostel right near downtown Livingstone. It was a phenomenal hostel! We met so many wonderful people who told us of their travels around Africa and where they were from. Since a lot of them were from the States, we got to discuss different current events with them and catch up on everything America. When we went to Vic Falls for the day, some of the guys we met came with us. It was very nice to travel with other people, make connections with random people in a foreign country, and see how small this world really is becoming.

Having a movie night with our new friend :)

            On our first full day in Livingstone, we went white water rafting and got to do a sunset dinner cruise on the Zambezi River. I have never gone rafting in my life so I was pretty nervous about it all. When we got the safety briefing, it actually freaked me out even more, but Kalie told me that this stuff hardly ever happens when you raft. To get down to the Batoka Gorge to start rafting, we had to hike down a pretty steep mountain that had us all wondering when it would end. For about half the hike, it was too steep so workers had built a kind of staircase/ladder thing that we had to walk down. So basically we had to walk on sticks for probably twenty minutes. Once we got to the bottom of the Gorge, the rafting began. Rafting is actually super fun! After I was in the boat, all my nervousness went away and we all had loads of fun. The rapids ranged from class two to four. Since it was high season, there was no real worry of getting hit by rocks so the guides let us all jump in the water and float down some of the calmer waters. The water was not cold at all so it felt great to cool off and jump in. The Zambezi does have crocodiles, but since it was so hot they were hiding on the banks and in the water. So, technically, we actually swam with crocs without even knowing it! Toward the end of the rapids, our raft FLIPPED and we all were thrown out and covered by the raft (our guide had been trying to flip us for a while lol). Once we were all out of the raft all the girls started zooming down the rapids, but I wasn't moving. I guess I was stuck in a whirlpool which kept me in one spot. I swam a little bit and then got picked up by another raft. Although I was scared at the beginning of rafting, I loved flipping and swimming down the rapids. That evening we did a sunset dinner cruise and got to see the gorgeous sunset in one direction and the cloud of mist from Vic Falls in the other direction. We finally saw crocodiles and hippos on this cruise which added to our already long list of animals we have seen in Africa. We met many people from all over the world, including some people from Canada who came over to Zambia with Habitat for Humanity to build houses. I had no idea that Habitat did international work so it was great to talk to the team leader about their work and what they have done in the past.

The crazy stair ladder

After surviving our first rapid!

WE FLIPPED!!!

The beautiful sunset on the Zambezi

               The next day we went to Victoria Falls and saw Livingstone through a bike tour. It makes so much sense now that Victoria Falls is a Wonder of the World…it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We went to the Falls with three of the guys we met at the hostel, John, Gerick, and Dennis. When we first got to the national park we saw sooooo many baboons! They were so cute and the babies were adorable. The other girls made fun of me for calling them cute, but the baboons were just too great. Once we paid and got into the Falls area, we walked on some of the trails to reach the lookout points. When we got to the first point, I was blown away by the Falls and thought that was it. Ha! We had seen just a little snip-it of the actual thing and when we walked a little further we were drenched by the spray of the Falls. The spray and mist from the water ranged from a mist to a torrential downpour and reminded me a lot of Washington. Hearing the water pound down the Falls was incredible and it was even more mind-boggling to see that what we were looking at was only about a tenth of the whole Victoria Falls. I could have stayed and watched these Falls all day long. I can't wait to come back here someday and see them again. We left the Falls to go to the bridge connecting Zambia and Zimbabwe where many people go bungee jumping (don't worry…no one went jumping). We had to go to immigration to get day passes to go on the bridge since it is kind of in No Man's Land between the two countries. Remember how I said baboons were cute and adorable? Yeah not anymore. I forgot that you shouldn't eat food outside because baboons will try and steal it so I took out mine and Kalie's lunch to eat my sandwich. I asked Kalie to hold my sandwich and she said no because there was a baboon coming right at me. She said it so calmly that I thought she was kidding until I saw it behind me. I screamed and kind of run/jumped into the immigration building but the baboon already grabbed my lunch bag. I let it go and the baboon ran off to eat our lunches. So I got mugged by a baboon at Vic Falls! First time for everything? We all laughed so hard and Kalie and I just had trail mix for lunch. Word of advice: do NOT eat anything at Victoria Falls! Baboons WILL take your things! On the bridge we saw the Falls from that angle, looked at the bungee jumping platform (we didn't get to see anyone jump though…), and walked over to the Zim side.

            Once we changed into dry clothes at the hostel, we started our bike tour of Livingstone. The money from the bike tour goes to a local community school in one of the villages. In Zambia, all forms of school (public and private) cost money so if families can't afford it their children don't go to school. This community school was built to allow children to attend school for free. On this tour we rode through many villages on the outskirts of town, through parts of the city, by the Zambezi River, to a local market, and to the school where our money goes. It was a four hour bike ride and we were all so sore after it, but it was so much fun. It was super funny to see us all try walking around after the tour since we were all sore. Biking through the villages was lots of fun because the kids would run after us and yell Mazungu (I'm sure I spelled that wrong), which means White Person. All the children were adorable and it was great seeing so many smiling faces. Seeing village life was very cool too; each village was very different with the way houses were built, the level of trash in the streets, which people were outside and walking around at the time, and the different schools built in the villages. Many of the houses in each village are built based on the income of the people living there so some houses are simply a mud house while others are created with cement and blocks. When we reached the Cowboy Pre and Primary School, there were a couple church services going on so we were able to listen to them sing as we explored the school. There were so many children around who go to the school and wanted to hang out with us. I kind of nerded out at the school and asked our tour guide a ton of questions about it. The bike tour started in 2001 to start raising funds for the school which then opened in 2003. It began as a pre-primary school and has since expanded to fourth grade. The ultimate goal is to go up to seventh grade and possibly open another location. Right now there are about 250 students, grades K-4, and 7 teachers. Class sizes are about 30-40 kids in each class. It is incredible what they are doing at this school and if I don't get a job in the States, I may just end up there ;)

            This trip, although it was quite short, was incredible and I'm so happy everything with our visas worked out so we could go to Zambia, see Victoria Falls, and learn about Livingstone as a city. We arrived back in Windhoek today at 5:15am and now the packing for going home needs to start! There's so much to do with so little time! See you all in T-minus 2 days!