Mosi-oa-Tunya - 'The Smoke that Thunders'

It was time for the standard tourist visit to Victoria Falls, aka Mosi-oa-Tunya, aka 'The Smoke that Thunders' (although Eva and I think it should be more aptly named 'The Smoke that Gets You Soaked').

Apologies for the splurge of photos - these are only mine so far, and if I add some of Eva's later there'll be even more! we just couldn't resist though.

We got dropped off by a taxi from Livingstone - the falls are about ten minutes out of town. On getting there, it turned out we had to pay 100 Kwacha for entry, which we weren't expecting, so we were really hoping it would be worth it...

We certainly weren't disappointed. The first thing we saw when we entered through the gates of the park was a downhill trek to the 'Boiling Pot'. My curiosity got the better of me, and despite the warning to take plenty of drinking water which sounded ominous, we decided to follow the trail. Downhill was fine - we were surrounded by baboons and it was a little like walking through a jungle.

As we got further towards the bottom, we started feeling the spray sifting through the trees, and soon we were presented with a view of the Boiling Pot: so named because of the swirling currents created by the falls.

a good view of the Victoria Falls Bridge

We then made our way back up again (which definitely took more effort than getting down) and carried along the trail which took us around opposite the falls. It was a relaxing walk, except for when Eva was attacked by a large baboon which felt the need to cling on to the back of her rucksack. She screamed, and I shouted at it to 'let go' (which I'm sure it understood...) and we weren't bothered again.

you can see the Knife Edge Bridge, which we later walked across

We then decided it was time to get close to the falls. The ominously named Knife Edge bridge was the best way to get a good view, so off we went.

baboon under the rainbow - pot of gold?

off the edge of the Knife Edge Bridge

There was a man renting waterproof capes, but we though ‘nahhh, it’s warm enough to dry off.’ As we walked along, getting absolutely soaked by the spray, I liked to think you could tell the English people: they were the ones who were equally as soaked as us – who cares about a bit of rain?

When we emerged from the spray-cloud, we had a little wander upstream whilst drying off – here the view was very pretty but not quite so dramatic as the falls themselves. This really is a different side of Africa from the towns we’ve been in so far: partly because the landscape is so different, what with having water, but also because the locals are obviously very used to having tourists around, and have planned their lives around the trade. Where the trail ended upstream, there were little huts dedicated to selling jewellery and other little African novelties.

Mr Livingstone

We’d walked over all the trails we’d seen inside the park, but hadn’t had the chance to cross over the Victoria Falls Bridge, which looked like it would have a good view. The other side of this touched down in Zimbabwe, and the thought of setting foot in another African country was appealing. However it turned out, after walking all the way across the bridge, that we needed a Zimbabwean visa to get into their National Park (which we probably should have foreseen). It wasn’t all a wasted journey though – before we got to border control we encountered a herd of warthogs (or at least that’s what we thought they were).

zipwire across the gorge - we may or may not be trying this at some point...

We had a bite to eat in the cliff-top cafe to end the afternoon, and we’re going to have dinner in the hostel tonight and try to make some friends (there are a lot of people our age here, it’s quite big).

We’ll update tomorrow – all I’m going to give away is that we’ve got an exceptional day planned, and it will definitely be worth reading!

London, Lusaka and now... Livingstone!

I know it’s been a while since we updated this, but we have neither fallen off the face of the planet nor has anything else drastic happened. We’ve just had a few slow days in Lusaka (don’t judge us – I think we needed the break) so thought we’d save the update until something more was happening. So now we’re in Livingstone (we arrived this afternoon after an eight-hour bus ride) there should be a lot more occurring for us to write about!

Just to fill you in on the past few days: I think the last time we wrote on Monday, we were lounging around and considering an Italian dinner and a movie. We caught a taxi to the shopping mall where we’d seen a recommended restaurant in the guidebook, but it turned out to have closed down. Eva’s pasta craving needed to be sated, so we wandered down to the next mall where we’d seen an Italian previously. As soon as we walked in, a massive coincidence occurred: the first person we met was Matthew, one of the South Africans we’d been with the previous evening – as it turned out he was the manager. We had a good meal and then watched After Earth at the cinema opposite (probably wouldn’t have been a normal choice for either of us, but choice was limited and we had a good time).

Whilst spending time with the South African guys on Sunday, it was revealed that Matthew was a very good cook. Fortunately for us (we are jammy devils), this ended up with us being invited round again on Tuesday to experience this wonderful cuisine. We’d done nothing but laze around the pool again on Tuesday daytime (Eva is looking enviably tanned, unlike myself) so when Ryan picked us up in the afternoon we were feeling very content – especially at the prospect of having dinner cooked for us. However as soon as the cooking was about to commence, the power went out. Never fear – what is a barbecue for after all, with Guy to cook the meat (although apparently the term is ‘bry’ in South African). The pièce de resistance was Matthew’s garlic bread – easily the tastiest of its kind I’ve ever consumed.

So now we’re up to date with today. We’ve been up since 6am in order to catch the bus, but we’ve just been out for dinner so at least we’re fed (we attempted to get crocodile, but apparently they’d run out so we had to make do with pasta). Accommodation for the next few nights is in a 16-person dorm – not sure how much sleep we’ll get.

The plan tomorrow is to venture over to Victoria Falls, so be prepared for some good photos!

Lots of love and hope everyone’s had a good week so far.

Quick Update: Barbecues and Loving Life

As was expected, yesterday was rather unexpected (ironically). Dudley the crocodile man never showed up (what a surprise) but Ryan, one of the South African guys who we'd been talking to the night before and who said he would have liked to come and see the lions, did turn up. We waited a bit for Dudley but when it became evident that we were waiting in vain, Ryan said he'd take us instead. 

So we set off for the farm which has the lions living on it, but after a few minutes we realised this might not be advisable - the lion farm was just outside Lusaka, and sometimes immigration control to enter the city is strict, and we didn't have our passports with us. So instead we decided to drop into the zoo. It was fairly small, and was certainly missing some animals you might find in a UK zoo (penguins, for example...) but we saw some pretty interesting creatures including two lions, monkeys and ostriches (which I have concluded are the most freakish animals ever). 

After wandering around for a while watching animals in the sun, we joined Ryan and a couple of his neighbours for a barbecue dinner, which was absolute bliss! There was not a chicken in sight for once: instead we had beef and lamb and sausages, with salad and potatoes (vegetables have been a forgotten luxury). We also caught the end of the tennis (hurray Murray!) which caused some controversy in a house full of South Africans: I was all for Murray, being mildly patriotic when it comes to sport, but Guy (one of the dinner guests) was rather put off by his personality. Ah well.

We got back to our room fairly late in the evening, and this morning it was an early start to get to the immigration office and renew our visa. We were expecting the process to take forever, what with the usual state of organisation here, but it actually happened extremely fast: the woman obviously knew exactly what we had come for and just whipped our passports off us, stamped them, and that was that. We had a bit of a wander around the city as we returned back to the backpackers by foot, and now we're all ready to spend a lazy afternoon by the pool. The hope is to find an Italian tonight and go to the cinema - life is good.

We hope everyone's enjoying the sun back home - long may it last! Lots of love, and it's not long til we're back now.

Drinking with God (We Love Lusaka!)

We arrived in Lusaka on the bus yesterday afternoon, and we had a most delightful welcome! We had arranged to meet with one of the BBC guys (Boyd) who was going to show us round Lusaka's nightlife. As might be expected in Zambia, this didn't actually happen, but what did happen was brilliant anyway.

We alighted the bus to be inundated with taxi driver requests (some more forceful than others - one actually pinched us). We eventually chose a guy who was rather more polite than the others, and haggled with him to get a price which seemed remotely reasonable (still probably too expensive, but cheaper than any UK taxi). As soon as we'd dumped our bags in our room (which was delightfully clean and simple but has hot water and WiFi!) we headed straight back out and took a taxi to Manada Hill shopping centre - seeing as we thought we'd be going out with Boyd at this point, Eva figured she needed something to wear. We entered the place like children in a sweet shop, and after having a bit of a shop around, stopped for a cocktail. Although I don't usually enjoy large shopping malls, it was such a relief to be there - after living in small towns in the bush for weeks, a shopping mall just seemed to be the epitome of choice and things which actually work (I know that sounds a bit pathetic, but it is nice to have a bit of organisation after nothing going to plan for a month).

We'd heard about a recommended Indian restaurant, so after our cocktail we headed off there (chomping at the bit at the prospect of good food). When the taxi pulled up at the restaurant, it all looked rather closed, but we found our way to a deserted outdoor bar at the back where there was a waiter, who told us it would be half an hour until we could order food (I'm not sure that he realised quite how desperate we were). We spent that half an hour poring over the menu in minute detail - we decided to go the whole hog and have starters, curry, rice and naan. There was far too much, but we were so determined to eat and it tasted so wonderful that we managed nearly everything. Each with a definite food baby, we returned back to the backpackers to get ready for or night out.

We sat by the small pool as night fell, waiting for Boyd to turn up. With no appearance an hour after the arranged meeting time, we were feeling a little silly all dressed up with nowhere to go. Although surrounded by lodgers such as ourselves, the only friend we'd managed to make was the cat which had jumped onto my lap and looked ready to spend the night there. We'd given up hope when the barman from the poolside bar wandered over with two beers for us - apparently someone at the bar wanted to buy us drinks. We accepted them, naturally, but after having drunk only half of it the barman came back, saying that there were more for us behind the bar! Curious to meet our anonymous benefactor, we made our way over (nearly throwing the cat in the pool in the process) and it turned out that the guy buying us drinks was a young Zambian man who evidently had a lot of money as he was buying round after round for everyone in the bar. He began introducing us to everyone: it seemed no one was actually staying here, but the bar is apparently a popular haunt with the locals. We ended up talking with everyone rather late - I was especially intrigued by a middle-aged white Zambian man who hunts crocodiles in his spare time (only to release them again - apparently it's a pest control kind of thing). He's promised to take us to see some lions today (although whether that will actually happen is doubtful).

The title of the blog came from a bizarre conversation we were having when everyone had forgotten Eva's name. I was trying to give them hints: "It's biblical," I was saying (that seems to be how everyone here recognises it), "three letters..." 

"Isaac!" Dudley the crocodile man suggested, "Moses!" 

I pointed out that they were neither female nor three letters long. "Think earlier," I hinted, "Beginning of the Bible... Three letters..."

"GOD!"

Eva and I nearly split our sides laughing. So that's who she became for the rest of the night.

Our breakfast this morning consisted of toast (the first we've seen since being here) and actual real filter coffee. We feel spoilt.

We'll try and update again tonight, but judging by the manic spontaneity of our lives at the moment, who knows. Hope everyone's having an equally brilliant weekend!

Let's All Co-Operate!

After a confusing start, we’ve had a rather relaxed day today.

We had arranged yesterday to meet Kenneth at 9am at our guesthouse, and around 9am the receptionist knocked on the door to tell us that Kenneth had rung to ask us to meet him at the local bus station down the road. So we wandered down, but he was nowhere to be seen. No surprise there, we thought, but after waiting for a while we wondered whether the receptionist had got her wires crossed and meant the inter-city bus station. Just to check, we started walking back up the road, when we noticed a Zambian man shouting from a distance. Thinking it was just another person chasing us for a marriage proposal (this is no exaggeration - it happens every time we go out), we kept walking, until I suddenly realised (much to my embarrassment) as he began running after us that it was the leader of the drama group from the other day. It turned out that it was he whom we were supposed to be meeting – Kenneth was attending a funeral (how he didn’t know about that yesterday we may never be sure). 

Anyway, apparently seeing as Kenneth was otherwise occupied we were going to be taken around by the drama-leader (whose name I unfortunately cannot remember as it is rather complicatedly foreign to me). Apparently it was International Co-Operatives Day today – the co-operatives are groups of farmers who join together to support each other and to receive benefits from the government towards costs such as fertiliser and seeds. However they are currently threatened by corruption within the co-operative groups and by the drought this year – the theme of this day was to emphasise how important it is for farmers to stick together and to encourage them to vary their produce from purely maize, so that when the weather is different they might grow crops which are suited to the conditions (after all the maize-based products we’ve been subjected to, Eva and I were greatly in favour of variation).

After sitting around outside the government offices for a while, the drama-leader told us it was time to go to (what he seemed to call) the ‘march pass’. We had absolutely no idea what this was, but followed him as he walked up the road to the outskirts of town. We eventually figured out that several farmers were supposed to be meeting in order to march through town to raise awareness for the Co-Operative Day – except when we arrived at the meeting place, we were the only three people there. An hour later, people started turning up (Zambian time, as ever) and so with much singing of farming-related songs, we progressed through town.

the march beginning to form

there were quite a few people...

we had a motorbike squadron leading the way

the speakers' area when we arrived

the drama group performing the welcome dance

We didn’t stick around for much of the rest of the day, as we couldn’t figure out what any of the speakers were saying (drama-leader had to go and join his group as they had been roped in by the Minister of Agriculture to perform a play, so we lost our interpreter). The rest of the day we spent sunbathing and making plans to go to Lusaka tomorrow…

...about which we are very excited! REAL FOOD! We cannot explain how much we are looking forward to this.

So, with this in mind, we’ll sleep with sweet dreams. Hope you all do too.

bonus picture of the day: Eva caught me trying to eat a home-made toffee I bought from George's yesterday. Enjoy.