Victoria Falls from the Zimbabwe Side

The spectacular end view from the Zimbabwe side.

 Views of the main falls.

Mosi oa tunya, "the smoke that thunders", the name the natives gave the falls.

 Devil's pool on the Zambian side of the gorge.

 The dry section where you can actually see the size of the cliffs.

 The international bridge between the two countries.

The white water rafting route that John and I did in 2011.

Saturday, October 14^th Continued.

While we were on our game drive Timon our guide, took all of our passports and information to the border crossing and managed to get all of our visas filled out without us having to be there. This saved us about three hours of lining up at the border with all the other tourists. A visa for a US citizen was $30 and for a Canadian it was $75! Obviously Canada charges them a lot or did something that Zimbabwe didn't like.

When we got to the border it looked like disorganized chaos with lines of trucks waiting on the half paved, half dirt road. We got off the truck to get stamped out of Botswana and then sure enough there was a long line of people waiting to buy their visas on the Zimbabwe side and we just drove through slowly with a customs guy talking to our driver and then away we went without them looking at our passports.

The drive for the next hour was through barren bushveld until we reached the town of Victoria Falls. When we arrived Timon gave us a quick orientation and then we went and set up camp. Then we regrouped and walked across the street to the activities booking centre. There are lots of activities to do here, from white water rafting, elephant safaris, bungee jumping, zip-lining and other things. When John and I were here before we did most of things I wanted to do: rafting, elephant safari, lion walk and devil's pool, so the only thing I still wanted to do was to take a helicopter flight over the falls.

After we got all of that sorted, Timon drove us to the entrance to the Victoria Falls National Park. When we entered we had the rest of the afternoon to explore at our leisure. There are 16 viewing sites along the falls. The first couple give a gorgeous view from the end of the gorge and where part of the Zambezi River falls over the cliffs. I walked along and enjoyed the views and the spray. I loved the main falls area and from there I could see the people sitting in the devil's pool that John and I sat in in 2011. The water looked lower and there were eight people in the pool and eight more waiting their turn. Interesting to see it from the other side. About half way along there was no more water coming over the cliffs. We were here in the dry season and the water was much lower than when I was here in 2011. However you could clearly see how tall the cliffs are. Apparently in the wet season you can't see much of anything because of the huge amount of spray that rises up from the gorge and soaks everything around it.

When I finished the views I walked around the edge of the cliff to the view point of the international bridge and saw baboons crossing from one country to the other via the lower beams of the bridge. I guess they put that there as a wildlife route. Then I left the park and walked the three hundred metres to the ViewPoint Cafe where I met up with Dwayne and Browen, Conor and Natalie, and a few others. We had a couple of Zambezi beer before heading back to camp. We walked back and ignored all hawkers trying to sell you souvenirs of the big five and one billion dollar Zimbabwe notes.

We had our last group meal to the restaurant at the campground. Timon had the people leaving stand and say something about their experiences and then included me too as I arrived on day three, and a few others. We had a good time and then we all headed off to bed to get ready for tomorrow's activities.