The African adventure continues in Zimbabwe from Matopo. Previously: Walking with rhinos – Matopo National Park Zimbabwe

Jan 29.Victoria Falls.

Today is Friday. Good to know. We packed up and left by 6:40 am. 10 minutes late but that’s not too bad. Upon arrival in Victoria Falls we immediately disembarked and entered the park to see the falls. They are SPECTACULAR. There’s so much mist that it feels like it’s raining so I wore a poncho to protect the camera.

After listening to the spiel on activities in the area we walked to the campground where Florence had prepared a delicious tuna salad. Sue and I decided to take a couple of vacation days and upgraded to a permanent tent which is a dome tent on a concrete pad with two real beds in it. LUXURY! It had a light bulb that worked intermittently when the power was actually on which isn’t often. Zimbabwe seems to have frequent power outages. We were told it’s because they sell too much of it to Namibia.

Dinner was at the camp restaurant where I thoroughly enjoyed a crocodile pasta pesto thing and Sue had crumbled wart hog.

Even on “vacation” we’re not allowed to sleep in. Breakfast was at 6:30 am and I don’t like to miss meals. We checked on doing laundry but the camp had no power so we opted to wait.

Some of the others were jumping off the bridge so we decided to go watch. That involves crossing the border to Zambia but you can just get a pass to walk on the bridge rather than pay the visa fees again. There was much excitement. They all survived and enjoyed their crazy experiences and we walked back.

Sue and I got money from the ATM and it spits out 50’s which is a real pain as nobody ever has change. Not only that, a lot of their money is REALLY dirty and apparently Botswana, Namibia and SA won’t exchange dirty money. TIA (This is Africa) 😀

Still no power so the laundry lady offered to do it by hand. I felt kind of bad as I could do it myself but she could use the money so we left it with her.

After a lazy afternoon we met our new group and crew who will be going with us the rest of the way to Cape town.

These people don’t believe in sleeping in. The generator for the restaurant woke me at 6 am and workers don’t speak quietly. Oh well. It was a beautiful day. This lack of power was getting really old. I was really looking forward to a hot shower.

We’ve got a bunch of vegan and vegetarians on this trip so when Munya cooked bacon for breakfast we got to pig out. Bonus!

Today we learned that you lock your tent. Not to keep out humans, but to keep out the blue monkeys. Persistent monkeys fiddle with unlocked zippers till they get inside and take any food, including peppermints. 😉 Our tent was locked yet one of the stinkers still managed to get in and take my almonds. Grrrr. I thought I’d made it monkey proof after that but no, they came back and got my sandwich bag of supplements. The silly monkeys didn’t like them either as they just threw them all over and left them.

After a delicious dinner at the Shearwater cafe we said good-bye to those leaving our group and headed for bed, our last night in a real one for a while.