Victoria Falls

In the morning we take the shuttle bus to the falls. I've been trying to upload to the blog yesterday, but the internet connection is so slow as to make it useless.

The patch: in america the patch would mean a nicotine patch. My friend Chris got some patches for us to wear in Zambia. The patches you wear here are mosquito patches. Well, I guess they are mosquito-repellent patches. They secrete some chemical into your skin which causes your body to secrete some pheremone in your sweat which is unpleasant to mosquitos, so they will bite you less.

There is a $10 entrance fee for the falls. Monkeys and baboons block many of the trails. One baboon seems to want to show us a fresh wound on his forhead. The waterfalls give off a mist that falls on us like rain and forms a vail that shrouds part of the falls from our site. Beyond walking around to see the falls and across the smaller "knife bridge", we decide to walk down to the "boiling pot" near the bottom of the falls where it forms a whirlpool. Halfway down the trail we hear gunshots, though, and decide to head back up.

There is no food that we can find there, so after playing xolyphone with a local old guy, we head back to town to get lunch. We'll go to the bridge that crosses the gorge later.

I stop on the way back at the Ocean Basket restaurant, talking to the taxi driver on the way about the economy. Zambia seems pretty nice, pretty safe compared to South Africa. People have a positive attitude here. Yes, he says, it's gotten better since the newer president was elected in 1991. He allowed in foreigners more and foreign investment. And it's also gotten better in Livingston because of the problems in Zimbabwe. The problems in Zim have caused a flight of many of the white, educated people there across the border to Livingston. Most of the houses on the main road have been bought by Zim refugees and used as houses or turned into restaurants or stores.

The Ocean Basket has surprisingly good, fresh seafood. The even have lobster, and sushi. Well, tuna, salmon & prawn nigiri and maki. This is the third place I've noticed in Zambia that has greek salad on the menu. And they had feta cheese at the grocery store. Why?

As I'm walking back to the hotel, a nicely dressed guy in a nice SUV asks me if I want to buy any "stones". Stones? Oh, diamonds. Those kind of diamonds. No, thank you, I don't have anyone special right now ;-)

Then I arrange to go on a gorge swing near the bridge. Chris and I go, although only I'm interested in "doing it." Somehow I convince myself to do all three (zip line, gorge swing and bungi jump). I don't really like the thrill of danger like I used to, but I do like pleasurable experiences, especially uncommon pleasures. I know that these things aren't really that dangerous, even if they are pretty scary.

I do the zipline first, which goes from the Zambian side of the gorge to the Zim (Zimbabwean) side, looking down from the bridge. Even though I'm going to the Zim side, I'm not really going into Zim proper. I'm staying in the "international zone" in the middle. I didn't need a Zim visa to go, just a free ticket from the Zambian side proving that I had come from Zambia and would be going back there. The zip line is fine, a little scary, but really all you do is lift your legs up while the guy is holding you, and then he lets go. You don't "jump" yourself. Since you're leaning back in the harness the whole time, though, you can't really see much, since you're always facing up towards the sky.

I walk back across the bridge half way towards the Zambian side. I had imagined the swing to be something where you start with tension on the line on one side of the gorge and swing over to the other. Oh, I was wrong: You stand on the edge of the bridge, in a safety harness, connected to a thick cable that loops way down then back up & connects about 200 feet away from you to the middle of another cable strung across the gorge. You jump from the bridge, in free fall for about 5 seconds, until the cable grabs tension and swings you out and away from the bridge. Now, I know that sounds really scary, but it was surprisingly pleasant. Stepping off the platform is, well, SCARY. But after you do it's pleasant free fall. Don't forget to breathe! When the cable grabs there is a jerking motion, but not too bad, and then you're sailing pleasantly and smoothly through the gorge, back and forth, easily able to see everything around you. The gorge is much more pleasant from this position than from the bridge or anywhere else. You're alone, it's peaceful, and it's beautiful.

Once you stop swinging they reel you towards the bridge with a pull cable attached near the top of the cable supporting you, then some guy repels down from the bridge, hooks on to you, and a winch pulls you both up.

I was not very enthused about the bungie part. I kept joking with the staff to distract my mind. "Hey man," the guy said, "you already paid for it, you have to do it!" "Hey, can I pay you $20 extra NOT to do it?" My favorite joke was "Don't worry, no body has died here this week." (They've been doing it over 10 years and no one has died.) You can just fall off if you want, but it's better to hold your arms wide, like Jesus on the cross, and jump up and out. It's surprisingly hard to command your legs to jump "up and out" like that. I jumped more out than up. The free fall was nice, a little longer than the swing. Remember to breathe! When the bungie catches, though, it jerks you and bounces you around, you're looking at everything upside down, and you're randomly spinning around. The swing was much nicer. Eventually you stop bouncing and some guy lowers down, hooks on to you, and they winch both of you up.

I have enough time when we get back to swim in the pool, shower, and send the previous blog entry & upload pictures. It takes about 30 minutes to upload a few pictures.

Dinner at a "traditional Zambian restaurant" that caters to westerners. Good, and probably the closest thing we're going to find to authentic Zambian food in this touristy town. They do a "dance show" at the end of dinner that looks surprisingly like the electric slide. Susan does it with them and says that it IS the electric slide, there is only one step different. Did they get this from America, or did America import it from here? I can't believe in the cultural convergence of line dancing.

After dinner we go to Rhapsody, a trendy bar that caters to well-off locals. We meet one guy (lighter-skinned black) who has lived his whole life in various parts of Africa (Liberia, Tanzania, Zim, Zambia). He's obviously international in education and outlook, although completely comfortable and "at home" here. Another girl is working here who is from Northern Ireland. She wants to go to the Congo to see what a real warzone is like. "I grew up in the troubles in Northern Ireland, which was a low intensity conflict. I want to go see what a real conflict is like, how it changes the people. I'd like to go to Iraq too, or better yet Afganistan. I tried getting a job in an NGO in those places, but I don't have any skills they're looking for. If I go to Congo and start writing about it, maybe I can get work as a war correspondent from conflict areas."

In the morning, while we're waiting for the day trip to Chobe, I meet a guy who leads "walking safaris." We talk while he's waiting for his daily wards. He's from UK, but he's lived in Zambia for 10 years, and in Africa for 25. He used to drive trucks down through Africa when he started. From Zambia to SA? No, all the way down from Europe. Through Morocco? Yah, through Morocco, west africa, and on. Don't they bring goods up on truck from Capetown through Africa? Yah, but they used to truck them down from Europe, when they wouldn't allow trucks from SA because of apartheid. But I didn't truck goods. We would take people. People? Yeah, we'd take about 20 people down all the way through Africa. How long did that take? About 6 to 9 months. In a bus, you mean? No, in the back of a big 4WD pickup truck. You'd stay in hotels along the way? No, we'd just camp along the way, mostly in the bush.