The road to Victoria Falls
The following blog is a recount of my time travelling from Namibia to Zimbabwe via Zambia to start my two-week overland truck tour.
3 August
After months and months of excitement about my overland
truck holiday coming up, it was finally time!
Everything was packed and I said goodbye to all my CCF buddies with a
little sadness but a lot of rush (the lady who was meant to be taking us in
decided at the last minute to shunt our ride nearly 2 hours earlier!). We arrived into Otji and hung out in Wimpy
for a few hours before getting onto our chariot for the north: Intercape (not
quite a chariot, more of a very normal-looking bus). Very surprisingly, given its reputation, the
bus actually arrived EARLY! We found our
seats and settled down. All seemed to be
going well until about midnight when there was a loud bang on the bus, which sounded
like something hit the floor of the bus, and then it got quite cold. It turned out that a rock had hit the window
near the front of the bus, causing it to shatter! We waited by the side of the road for an hour
in the middle of nowhere in the pitch black whilst the driver tried to fix the
cracks; at one point he came on board and shouted “Does anyone have any
duct tape?”! Fortunately for us, one man
came prepared and we were able to patch the massively splintered window up with
trusty tape. Onwards we went into the
night, trying as we might to get any glimpse of sleep but mostly failing due to
the sheer lack of space and uncomfortableness of the seats.
4 August
At Katima Mulilo, the border stop in Namibia just before you
hit Zambia, I met Rodgers from my Masters course at a random petrol station at
7 am. A bizarre meeting indeed but very
nice to catch up! He was really hungover
from out partying the night before – the same as I always remember him! After a quick chat, the bus was ready to
depart and off we headed on to Zambia.
The border post at Zambia is a rather odd place with absolutely
no sights anywhere telling you what to do (apparently you have to get your
passport stamped on one side of the border, walk about 500 m and then find a random building
on the other side to get another stamp) so we followed two German dudes that
sort of looked like they knew what they were doing. All went well and we were able to pass easily
through, although we learned an invaluable lesson: always carry a pen with you wherever you go in Africa, for they are extremely useful things. We returned to our
uncomfortable bus and travelled on through Zambia, stopping off briefly in
Livingstone and arrived into Zim 4 hours later than expected. Surprisingly, the border post in Zim was a
million times easier to get through than what it was at Harare airport and the
Customs officials were even FRIENDLY! On
the way to our hotel, we saw a herd of wild elephants on the roadside – very
cool. We got to the hotel just in time
for our truck tour meeting and ended up inadvertently being upgraded from a
chalet to a whole lodge! We then met the
rest of the people from our tour group, including 3 families. I first thought that might be a bad thing but
decided that it will probably be for the best being as they don’t want to party
all night.
5 August
An early start (the shape of things to come) to take a horse
riding safari into the bush near Vic Falls.
Arrived at the stables to be greeted by a rather fierce Rhodisian old
white lady atop a horse who scowled down at us and said “I hear you are both
experienced riders, but what do you mean by experienced? How experienced? Have you played polo? Do you professional show jump? Do you own your own horse?”. Rather bewildered by this assault so early in
the morning, I mumbled something about working at a horse sanctuary in Malta
(totally forgetting that I’d trained Arabian horses in Oregon), which didn’t
best please her. “But that doesn’t
count! You can look after a poor horse
but not RIDE one!”, so I retorted that I did know how to do dressage and
jumping, which apparently appeased her.
We then found out that our guide used to work at Antelope Park so we had
a big long chat about that place and about how naïve/stupid/selfish many tourists are apparently in the name of
conservation but really all the want to do is hug a cute animal.
Later that day we went on to Vic Falls National Park. Only one word can describe this place:
BEAUTIFUL! It is such a spectacular
place and I can really see why it is one of the Seven Wonders of the
World. We wandered along the whole length
of the falls (there are many, not just one waterfall). We got showered on by the falls, which was so
refreshing and invigorating. The air
seemed so clean and cleansing. We then
walked through the rainforest and had loads of photo opportunities. A very enjoyable place to visit and I really
recommend it to anyone!
Stay tuned for my next blog about my experiences of Botswana.
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