Day 22. Mukuni Village and Devil's Pool

Tuesday January 4th. Today we had buffet breakfast in the restaurant in the lobby. Then John and I were picked up for our tour of the Mukuni Village. It's a 700 year old authentic village, with two chiefs and 7000 people. They live in wood huts covered in the termite mound mud, so that the termites don't eat the houses. The people were glad to see us, the children were happy and the village was very interesting. No electricity except in the local shop, no toilets, (they go in the woods), except for one for tourists and a one room jail cell. The school she showed us was closed for holidays, but had all the windows broken and the furniture inside with ancient.

Then we had the driver drive us to Victoria Falls. Amazingly beautiful, majestic falls. They are set in the forest and absolutely gorgeous. But Kristian, Iguacu Falls are still a bit better! We wandered around there for a couple of hours admiring various viewpoints. We got soaked by spray.

Then we took a taxi back to the Waterfront Lodge to pick up a couple of things. We were picked up again a half hour later to go for a tour of Livingstone Island and the Devil's Pool. We met up with Larry and Corey there. We had to take a small boat across part of the Zambezi River to get to the island. Then we waded through some shallow water, and swam across some deeper water about 30 to 40 feet from the lip of Victoria Falls! We worked our way across with three guides to a little piece of rock on the lip. Then we were shown how to jump into Devil's Pool which is right on the edge. I went first and when you jumped you went under water. When you came up one of the guides grabbed you and showed you were to sit in the water right on the actual edge! The water in the pool is flowing over and dropping 150 metres!

After that they took us back to the island via the same route. When we got to the island we had “high tea” under an awning. They served us good food and we had a couple of gin tonics.

Then we came back to the lodge again and had a couple of drinks with our departing friends. We head off tomorrow early.