An early start for breakfast on Monday morning in order to get to the border early was frustrated by a miscommunication with the lodge staff. The net result was a later arrival at the Botswana/ Zimbabwe Border. Clearing Botswana was smooth, the border crossing at the Zimbabwe gate was a total rock show. Three leisurely hours in a hot queue later we were clear and on our way to Victoria Falls (another hour by road). After a quick lunch we went into the Victoria Falls National Park to check out the falls for a few hours. This was Mark’s third visit to the falls, but they remain just as fascinating as the first time in 1999.
After the falls we headed back to our hotel and the our last dinner with our Nomad Tour Group. They were a good bunch of people – as it turned out four of the 5 amigos who started in Cape Town three weeks earlier were staying on in Victoria Falls. We were joined on Tuesday by Kevin’s wife, Sandy, who had flown up from Cape Town to join Kevin for a holiday in Zimbabwe.
On Tuesday we went white water rafting down the Zambezi for the day. Warren and Kevin did it too, so we had a ‘Nomad Crew’ boat with our rafting guide Kazi. The walk-in and walk out of the gorge were tricky, but the rafting was awesome. Even better , although probably nothing to do with our efforts and everything to do with Kazi, the Nomad Crew actually did white water rafting rather than white water swimming 😀. The smug levels were high after not flipping the raft.
After all the excitement it was time for a quick shower and off to a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River above the Falls.
We saw crocodiles, hippos, buffalo, and African Fish eagle. And drunken Russians – four of them drank two bottles of tequila in less than an hour 🙄. It was quite an effort for them to get down the gang way at the end of the cruise!
The sunset cruise was followed by dinner back in ‘town’ at a nice place. Wednesday saw a welcome sleep in, fond farewells to the remaining friends and departure from Zimbabwe by air . We arrived in Johannesburg for an overnight stay around 4pm . And got to say goodbye to Warren again, his flight was late in and we saw him collecting bags at OR Tambo, in transit back to Cape Town.
Ness’ and Mark’s Wandering 