Livingstone (Zambia) - June 29th-30th

June 29th-30th, 2008:

Short: Day of relaxation at Jolly Boys, Germany loses to Spain, Nikolai pouts, A new day!, Bungee jump, Victoria Falls, Town errands, Sunset on the Zambezi

Long: There is really not that much to say related to June 29th. We spent most of the day at Jolly Boys just lounging around, updating the blog, and catching up on random errands. One shock of the day came when we handed in our clothes for laundering. Laundry service in Zambia is apparently quite expensive, with a 5kg bag running right around $40. I began to complain and one of the managers explained that there are simply not enough washing units in the city and that they pay the same rates to launder their own sheets. While Zambia is very poor, it is also becoming one of the most expensive countries in Africa to travel in. Fuel has jumped to around $3 a liter and food prices have doubled or tripled when compared to Botswana. In general, inflation is high, but the currency has appreciated tremendously because of the resources boom over the past few years (One of the major industries is mining). During the evening we headed to Fez, a nearby club that offered a big screen projector, to watch the European Cup championship. Sven, one of the German’s that accompanied us through Chobe, also joined, and was kind enough to supply us with beer all night as a thank you for the ride. Unfortunately for Nikolai, and all other Germans, Germany lost to Spain. There was a little sulking, but it wasn’t too bad.

The next day we hopped on the Jolly Boys shuttle and headed to Victoria Falls. July is at the tail-end of the “high flow” season for the falls; however we could still see the mist created by the falls from 2 km’s away. I scheduled a bungee jump earlier in the morning for 11am and we headed directly for the jump platform. The jump is from the bridge that crosses the Zambezi, less than 1km from the falls. When we passed the Zambia immigration office they issued us a “gate pass,” a little torn piece of paper with the number two on it representing how many people were in our party, and we continued on to the bridge that links Zambia and Zimbabwe. You jump almost directly on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. This wasn’t my first bungee jump, (I have jumped in New Zealand before) but this was a longer jump at around 112 meters. It was great. I did my best to point at the camera positioned to my left, only to learn later that camera took no pictures…only video. I did though managed to give a decent thumbs up, and a smile, on my first rebound up towards the bridge. After the jump we waited at the registration center for almost an hour in order to purchase pictures. The jump center has been in operation for a few years, but is still excruciatingly slow in processing video/pictures. We did though manage to get some good photos of the falls from the bridge. After finally picking up pictures we entered the park and toured the falls.

I knew I had packed rain ponchos for a reason. The falls at this time of year shoot mist and spray directly up and onto all of the tourists that enter the park. Almost everyone uses a raincoat in order to remain somewhat dry. There are few walkways that escape the water. We found the amazing, in large part, because the water falls from the wide Zambezi River directly into a narrow gorge. The massive amount of water falling into this narrow gorge allows for you to get very close to the falls (from the other side of the gorge), as well as experience the spray and mist. As you can see from the pictures, the area is wet, green, and beautiful.

After attempting to keep dry at the falls we headed back to town and again ran some errands. For some reason both Nikolai and I thought Livingston would be a fairly touristy city, but found it to be otherwise. We saw very few tourists while we were downtown. A lot of tourists visit the area, but it seems most stay at the expensive lodges outside of the downtown area. Both Botswana and Zambia are not cheap when staying in lodges, with one night running between $250-$700 dollars. We grabbed some lunch and even managed to load, and print, four pictures for the Chobe park ranger we met two days before. We will try and mail them tomorrow. During the evening we took a taxi to “The Waterfront,” a nice lodge and restaurant situated directly along the Zambezi River. The food was pretty awful, but as can be seen below, the sunset was outstanding.