Day 25
Today I'm in: Livingstone, Zambia
About half an hour after taking off from Johannesburg, the haze vanished and we flew for an hour in clear skies over the parched brown expanse of the Kalahari Desert. Right before we landed in Livingstone, the plane passed low over Victoria Falls, giving me an amazing view - people pay a lot of money for helicopter rides to get this same view, so I was happy to get it for free!
Livingstone is a pleasant little town. The main street is Mosi-o-Tunya Road, which is lined with shops, restaurants, banks and taxis. It's a reasonably hectic place but still has the feel of a small city, which is what it is - there are about 300,000 people here. The falls are the main economic driver, not only from tourism but from the hydroelectric generators positioned downstream in the Zambezi River gorge.
I'm staying at Zig Zag Guest House and Cafe, a cheerful little collection of buildings south of the main commercial strip. The cafe is popular with both tourists and locals and there are 12 rooms located in the back in a low-rise building with a swimming pool. It's perfectly safe to go walking in Livingstone, even after dark (a nice change after Johannesburg) and people are constantly coming and going.
But the main attraction, of course, is the falls. I took a cab from the hotel to the park entrance which is about nine kilometers south of town (the city of Victoria Falls, on the Zimbabwe side, butts right up against the falls, but Livingstone is some distance away.) The park itself is well organized and has a lot of paved trails that run along the ridges overlooking the falls, along the riverbank and down into the gorge below the main drop.
I made the very wise decision to rent a raincoat, but I missed the memo about wearing sandals, which was a problem because at Victoria Falls you get very, very wet. The amount of spray from the falls is like a torrential downpour in places and my sneakers took the brunt of it. At times you can't even see the waterfalls through the mist - it depends on the breeze and how briskly it's blowing. There's a footbridge that crosses the main gorge that literally disappears into the spray - that's where I got the wettest.
Besides the trail along the falls, there's also a long trail that passes near the pretty frightening lip of the falls (where I posed as quickly as I could for a picture and then cleared the hell out of there) and along the riverbank. This trail is inhabited by a pretty large colony of resident baboons, who became pretty aggressive toward tourists until a few years ago, when almost half of them were trapped and released elsewhere in Zambia. When I walked past, there were only two of them in the bushes, but on my return walk, there were literally dozens of them lying on the pathway. I had to stand there for about 25 minutes waiting - I wasn't about to walk through their midst, especially with babies everywhere - before a "helpful" local came along and threw rocks at them, which send them running for cover.
All in all, a pretty incredible place, the wet sneakers aside. To cap it all off, in the cab on the way home we passed a herd of elephants feeding on the side of the road. Perfect!
Today I'm in: Livingstone, Zambia
About half an hour after taking off from Johannesburg, the haze vanished and we flew for an hour in clear skies over the parched brown expanse of the Kalahari Desert. Right before we landed in Livingstone, the plane passed low over Victoria Falls, giving me an amazing view - people pay a lot of money for helicopter rides to get this same view, so I was happy to get it for free!
Livingstone is a pleasant little town. The main street is Mosi-o-Tunya Road, which is lined with shops, restaurants, banks and taxis. It's a reasonably hectic place but still has the feel of a small city, which is what it is - there are about 300,000 people here. The falls are the main economic driver, not only from tourism but from the hydroelectric generators positioned downstream in the Zambezi River gorge. I'm staying at Zig Zag Guest House and Cafe, a cheerful little collection of buildings south of the main commercial strip. The cafe is popular with both tourists and locals and there are 12 rooms located in the back in a low-rise building with a swimming pool. It's perfectly safe to go walking in Livingstone, even after dark (a nice change after Johannesburg) and people are constantly coming and going.
But the main attraction, of course, is the falls. I took a cab from the hotel to the park entrance which is about nine kilometers south of town (the city of Victoria Falls, on the Zimbabwe side, butts right up against the falls, but Livingstone is some distance away.) The park itself is well organized and has a lot of paved trails that run along the ridges overlooking the falls, along the riverbank and down into the gorge below the main drop. 
I made the very wise decision to rent a raincoat, but I missed the memo about wearing sandals, which was a problem because at Victoria Falls you get very, very wet. The amount of spray from the falls is like a torrential downpour in places and my sneakers took the brunt of it. At times you can't even see the waterfalls through the mist - it depends on the breeze and how briskly it's blowing. There's a footbridge that crosses the main gorge that literally disappears into the spray - that's where I got the wettest. 
Besides the trail along the falls, there's also a long trail that passes near the pretty frightening lip of the falls (where I posed as quickly as I could for a picture and then cleared the hell out of there) and along the riverbank. This trail is inhabited by a pretty large colony of resident baboons, who became pretty aggressive toward tourists until a few years ago, when almost half of them were trapped and released elsewhere in Zambia. When I walked past, there were only two of them in the bushes, but on my return walk, there were literally dozens of them lying on the pathway. I had to stand there for about 25 minutes waiting - I wasn't about to walk through their midst, especially with babies everywhere - before a "helpful" local came along and threw rocks at them, which send them running for cover.
All in all, a pretty incredible place, the wet sneakers aside. To cap it all off, in the cab on the way home we passed a herd of elephants feeding on the side of the road. Perfect!
Awesome pictures! I liked the part about throwing rocks at the baboons too.
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