We set our alarm for 8 (ya know, so we could get an early start)...and then woke up at 6:30 lol. Guess that's what happens when you go to bed at 9? We decided we were going to eat breakfast at the falls, so we got ready for the day, grabbed our gear (including rain gear for my camera) and hit the road. The entrance to the park was even closer to our hotel than the border, so it was only about a 15 minute walk. Along the way, we saw signs for the Lookout Cafe, so we decided to try breakfast there to see what it was like since the sign said it was only 500 meters up the road.
At least that's what the first sign said.
When we got to the next sign (after 500 meters), it informed us we just had to make one turn and then it was another 450 meters up the road. Awesome. Sooooo we kept walking. And along the way passed a family of warthogs and baboons before finally reaching our destination - a beautiful cafe overlooking a gorgeous gorge and the bridge I jumped off yesterday!!
It's that small bridge all the way in the top right of the photo... ya know, hundreds of feet above the water...
How fun! While it had taken us a little while to walk there, the view was certainly worth the walk :). And not only that - breakfast there was just as fast as dinner yesterday - Jon got a full English breakfast and I got granola, yogurt, and fresh fruit, all in about 15 minutes! Huzzah! Everything was super delicious - what a wonderful start to our day at the falls!
After breakfast we headed into the park. The falls were first discovered by and written about by Dr. David Livingstone, a European explorer, in 1855 (he is the one who later went on to be instrumental in ending the slave trade in Eastern Africa.) The falls had originally been called "Mosi-Oa-Tunya" by locals, which means "smoke that thunders", as a result of the swells of fog that rise up during the rainy season, This fog can almost cause the entire falls to be hidden behind clouds of water, making it nearly invisible (while still soaking you as you listen to its thunder.)
The park is really nicely laid out, with a walking path leading you between different lookout points to see the falls from a variety of views.
I can think of no better way to describe the falls than to say this: they are breathtaking. I love waterfalls as much as the next person, but Victoria Falls is just unimaginable. The falls themselves stretch for 1,708 meters and fall from a height of 108 meters. It is the largest waterfall in the world in terms of the area of water that falls (the length x height). They are so much more expansive than you could imagine and are truly just stunning.
While walking in the park we came across all of our travel companions from our journey. It was nice to be able to see them once more before we all headed in our separate directions. Here's hoping our journey's cross again one day!
Jon and I left the falls around 2:30 and decided it was time to check out the curio market that is right outside of our hotel. I decided that for this trip I wanted to collect a bracelet and magnet from every country we visited, so we set off with this in mind. I had also fallen in love with a pair of salad tong with animals carved into them while in Tanzania, so I knew I'd be looking for a set of those, too. So we set off with our minds made up, deep into the market of about 70 different vendors.
Man, was it a mad house. We decided to do one full turn through the whole market, stopping at each individual vendors' goods to look around and ask about pricing before spending a dime. Everyone was fairly respectful of this when we told them we hadn't brought money to spend yet and were just gauging prices. We walked around for about an hour. It was EXHAUSTING. Everything was beautiful, but we honestly don't need carved masks and chess sets and book ends and bowls and place mats and scarves or napkin rings or figurines etc. etc. etc. We don't need any of it. So we walked through and then decided to decompress back in our room before purchasing the items we'd found that we liked and wanted to negotiate on.
We got back to our room just about as the Liverpool vs. Norwich soccer game was reaching half time. Liverpool was down 3-1, but we decided to stay and watch a bit of the game. In the next 45 minutes of play, Liverpool tied it at 3-3, then scored again to make it 4-3. THEN there was 5 minutes of stoppage time (extra play) during which Norwich brought it back up to 4-4, before Liverpool scored AGAIN to win 5-4! It was CRAZY!! Jon especially was STOKED to have caught any of Liverpool playing, let alone such an amazing half game (and so lucky that it was the one half of soccer we actually saw while in Africa!)
As soon as the game was over, we figured out our market strategy and headed back out. We quickly searched for and found the vendors for my bracelet, our magnet (a carved wild dog to commemorate our final game drive!), and a pair of giraffe salad tongs which I LOVE!
These are actually NOT a picture of my salad tongs. Mine are much more awesome (but are also safely packed away). But you get the gist ;-).
We decided to reward ourselves for a successful day in Vic Falls with some downtime at the pool where we met two Alaskans, Kim and Dave, on a month-long foray from South Africa to Zimbabwe. We talked to them for a while before discovering we're actually on the same flight to South Africa tomorrow and planned to split a cab. Money saving sounds good to me!
From there we got ready for dinner and headed to a restaurant called Mama Africa. Since I wasn't all that hungry, I decided it was time to try something quite different for dinner...so I ordered a "Hunter's Pot" aka whatever game was caught that day. What did I eat? KUDU (a type of gazelle)! And honestly, it was DELICIOUS. It had the consistency of pot roast and tasted kind of like it too - so good! Glad I got a chance to try something new!
During dinner a group of singers and dancers came out and did some traditional African dances. I had no idea that they had live music at the restaurant - it was really awesome to watch and hear them - they were quite talented and it was a beautiful show. Towards the end they did a rendition of "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and pulled me on stage from our table! I wish I'd had my camera to take pictures, but I hadn't brought it to dinner! Oh well, I'll just have to remember singing and dancing with them in front of the crowd :).
By the time we got home from our delicious dinner we were both so exhausted we couldn't even bring ourselves to pack. We basically fell asleep as soon as we got back, setting our alarm for the am and our 24 hour marathon of travel. Can't say I'm too looking forward to tomorrow...
Jess' highlight of the day: Vic Falls!!
Jon's highlight of the day: Liverpool's awesome win (oh, and Vic Falls)
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