Who doesn't?
I
got to Shoestrings Backpackers and set up my tent under a tree ($7/night
camping), then wandered around a little bit to see the place, as it’s pretty
big. A few strings of lights were hanging in the restaurant area and a tiny
tree sat on the counter. It was Christmas day, after all, but the decorations
were subtle and not obnoxious and in-your-face like they would be in the US.
People didn’t really seem to make a fuss about it being a holiday, and that was
nice. It was just a good day to relax. After I was done looking around at the
artist displays in the back, I came around the couches in the lounge area. Two
guys were sitting there, and one glanced at me and said, “You look bored,” in a
distinct Irish accent. Correct you are, sir. So I sat down and talked with
them.
The Irish one was living
in Vic Falls for a few months as a rafting guide on the famous Zambezi river, having
gotten a degree in criminology and forensics and not using it in any capacity.
Instead, he works as a rafting guide going all over the world, switching
hemispheres following the season. I mostly hung out with them for the day, as
there weren’t many other guests at the hostel. The other guy, a Zimbabwe-born bar
manager of the hostel, told me that the hostel would soon be overflowing with
people coming for the same reason my PC Lesotho friends and I were coming for:
The Vic Falls Carnival, a music festival/New Year’s party. That wouldn’t start
for a few days, though, so the town was still relatively empty. I would be
meeting my PC friends in a few days, and I was very excited not to be solo on
my travels for once. Temporary friends are nice, but they’re nothing like
getting to hang out my PC crew.
That
night, sure enough, the creatures emerged from throughout the town for a
festive night of dancing at the hostel. Along with a nice Australian woman, I
helped the bar manager DJ the party. And by DJ, I mean lining up Youtube videos
on the laptop connected to the big speakers, strategically learning to read the
mood of the crowd and see what we should play next, accepting and rejecting
suggestions, etc. It got really fun and everyone was dancing, and we didn’t
even notice that it was almost 2am (even though the bar is supposed to shut
down at 12. Oops.) The night ended with, what else, a few of us jumping in the
pool to escape all the itchy mosquitoes. Oh man, are there ever zillions of
mosquitoes here. Bug spray for days.
Fire poi
Me + manager + Australian
I
still had a few days before all my friends came, so I did a few things around
town, ya know, other than the main attraction of the falls, because I wanted to
wait to go with them. One morning, I went to see the “Big Tree,” which was,
surprise, a big tree. It was a huge 1000+ year-old baobab. The rest of the day
consisted of doing a little barefoot run (I didn’t have any shoes but Chacos)
with the two guys around town and then, again, jumping in the pool. In this
heat, pools just give you life. That night, it was much like the night before,
but a little calmer, with me meeting more Zimbos and travelers around the pool
table, and I even got to meet some of the coordinators of the Vic Falls
Carnival, which was cool.
Might I take a
moment to mention how awesome all hostel dogs are. Every hostel should be
required to have at least one resident dog. They just add so much to the
personality of a place. Shoestrings had two, a big old one named Morgan and a
little limping one named Mojo.
Mojo-jojo
Turns
out that even 2 days past Christmas continues to be a public holiday here, so I
couldn’t get a sim card to whatsapp my friends and coordinate with them.
Fortunately, Shoestrings had (paid) wifi. It being limited, I spent a good
chunk of time reading and writing, as I was used to doing in this internetless
life. I got bored, so I walked up to one of the hostel staff guys who is also
an artist, and asked for a recommendation on somewhere to walk to and visit. He
was immediately like, “Yeah, let’s go for a walk,” and just decided to come
with me. Well there you go. A personal guide to the town- perfect. He must have
been almost as bored as I was. We went to the Elephant Walk, which was an area
of shops and artists selling all kinds of locally-made crafts and things.
There’s a crocodile cage diving place, and though we declined to actually get
in the water, we were able to walk across a rickety bridge over the tank and
watch these huge crocs swimming around. Then we went to the schmancy Vic Falls
Hotel and, from the back lawn, saw the iconic bridge that goes from the
Zimbabwe side to the Zambia side of the river. After that, we briefly went to
the Overlook Café, which looks out over the gorge and the mighty Zambezi below.
These warthogs were just wandering around town
The back yard of the hotel with the bridge in the distance
One of the crocs was an albino
It was the day my friends were arriving from Lesotho on a loooong series of bus rides. They wouldn’t arrive until the evening, but it was my job to find our Air BnB. I was up pretty early at the hostel and packed up as tons of other people were coming in and setting up their tents. My mission was to find this house we had rented before the crew showed up on the Intercape bus. I carried my stuff down the road to the street where I was somehow very convinced, but very wrong, that the Air BnB was on. I had no address, just a (wrong) street name and some vague instructions. I knocked on several houses, whose residents directed me to several other houses, without success. I went to the nearby convenience store where this lady led me around to another street to a house where the very nice woman inside called the dude in charge for me (remember, I hadn’t been able to get a sim card, so I couldn’t call anyone myself). She asked him to meet me at that convenience store. Anyway, I met the guy and he was sweating because he sprint-biked over to meet me. Man, everyone was bending over backward to help me and were so friendly. I was a lost traveler in need and everyone I encountered did their best to get me pointed in the right direction. People rock.
The guy walked me to the house and I was so happy to have finally found the place after a couple hours of wandering around. I just chilled out in the (air conditioned!) house, watching Hunger Games on TV, using as much wifi as I wanted, and just enjoying the total luxury life that I didn’t even know I had been missing for so long. The crew finally showed up and I was so happy to see them! Like I said, vacation friends are alright, but actual friends are awesome. It was just for a few days, though, then it would be back to solo travels.
It was ten of us in this little two bedroom place, and even though they moved in more beds for us, one of us still had to sleep on the couch and two on the floor with our trusty sleeping bags and pads. And there was only one bathroom for all of us. But we made it work.
The next day was rafting day. So awesome! The eight of us who wanted to go rafting got our own boat with our stellar guide. We spent the day paddling 30km down the “mighty Zambezi” following the directions of our guide. He yelled paddle and we paddled. While going through some particularly intense rapids, he yelled get down and we got down. After conquering each rapid, he yehawed and we yehawed in return, all raising our paddles to do a group high five. We went over 19 rapids in total, up to class 5. We had a couple people fall out (or intentionally jump out…) on the big ones. At one point, we had to get out and hike around a class 6 rapid called “commercial suicide,” and just watching them send the empty boats down it made us all thankful we weren’t going through that one. At the end, we jello-leggedly climbed up the steep gorge to be welcomed at the top by an awesome lunch. After eating, we went back to the rafting office in the truck while we got rained on. It reminded me of getting soaked in the Okavongo. We jokingly shouted “get down!” as we hid behind the bench seats to avoid the rainy spray. White water rafting down the Zambezi was one of the coolest things I did in Southern Africa. It was such a great day!
Hold on!
Get down!
Yeehaw!
Yep, we survived
That
night we went to Shoestrings backpackers for the opening community party for
the Vic Falls Carnival. It was insanely crowded, but I managed to say hi to the
staff I had been hanging out with a few days earlier when I was staying there.
At one point, one of my friends and I went around to the bar to get some drinks
and were told that happy hour was over, so the drinks were double the price
they were just a little while earlier. This being Zimbabwe, I started to
negotiate with the guy. Ok, if you won’t give us drinks for $1 each like they
were before, how about 3 for $4? I was kind of joking, but he shrugged, sure. Somehow
I just got a little too carried away with the friendly haggling, and the bar
guy was either really nice or had stopped caring about enforcing prices, and we
ended up getting something like 4 for $5. Hah, I love this place.
While
a bunch of other crew members went to the Devil’s Pool (a natural pool on the
edge of the falls), the others of us who didn’t feel like shelling out over a
hundred dollars for that went into town. My friend Jen was so sore from the
rafting and climbing up the gorge, and she didn’t even want to move, so we
dropped her off at a restaurant. The two of us left, Danielle and I, went to
see the famous falls themselves. It was $14 per person for the SADC price
(thanks, Lesotho), and I think $20 for the international price. The park was
awesome. It was a rainforest on the edge of the cliff. Looking out, you could
just see SO MUCH WATER! And this was the low season! But it was so cool, with
mist flying everywhere.
Danielle
Me
Water water everywhere
And even mist rainbows
That
afternoon, we all went to the train station, yes the same one where I arrived
from Bulawayo, to get on the afternoon train to the “bush party.” The train was
filled with Carnival goers ready to party. After about half an hour, we arrived
at a field with a DJ/stage in the middle, a bar on one side, and a couple food
stands on the other side. We met lots of other PCVs from other countries, among
Zimbos and other travelers. At one point, I found some people I had met at the
hostel, Zimbabweans who hung out there a lot, who told me that they didn’t want
to pay for the entry to the party and instead gate crashed by taking an
overland truck out there. I just laughed; that’s the spirit. It was pretty fun,
but by around 9pm, having been there for 5 or 6 hours already, we were bored
and got on the train back.
Getting off the train
Yay friends!
New
Years Eve day, we didn’t do much, mostly just wandered around town to the fancy
hotels and took photos, then went to the 3 Monkeys restaurant for pizza and
burgers.
Behind the hotel
Colorful flowers everywhere
On the rickety croc bridge
All day, every day
4 monkeys
Our
Air BnB was only a few blocks from the school where they were having the New
Years Eve concert, so we walked over there. We all got into the spirit of New
Years by channeling our inner Kesha and glittering ourselves out. The concert
was really good, with Southern African bands like Kiffness and Goodluck. Well
after midnight, I started walking back with one of my friends. After a
longer-than-expected walk, we thought we were starting to get lost. I hadn’t
brought my phone for fear of it getting stolen out of my pocket (a few other
people did end up getting stuff stolen), so I couldn’t break out maps.me to see
where we were going. After a while, luckily, a car passed, stopped, then
reversed and pulled up next to us. They asked where we were going, and when we
told them, they said that this was definitely not the right road, and that if
we continued, we’d just walk right into Botswana and run into animals and lions
and things on the road. They offered to drive us home. My friend said no
thanks, but I was like yes, please and thank you. So we both got in the car and
they drove us through the bush on these dirt roads all the way back to our
house. We were very grateful, and thankful that, again, every single person
here has been so nice and helpful.
Glitter-fied
New
Years Day started slowly, and we eventually made it to the Overlook Café for
lunch. I got a crocodile kebab, which was pretty tasty. Those who hadn’t been
to the falls went to the park, and the rest of us went back to the house for a
lazy day of naps and watching movies on TV.
Meanwhile, at the falls...
The
next day, the rest of the crew got up early to leave for their bus. They had
almost 40 hours of travel ahead of them, and I did not envy them at all. I did
have a twinge of empathy for them; it was like when I had gone on vacation and
it was time to come home, how I had this overwhelming, impending sense of doom
to leave the fun to go back to my relatively boring and lonely life in Lesotho.
But thankfully I still had a few months of traveling ahead of me. I stayed and
cleaned up a little bit in the house, then walked back to trusty Shoestrings
for another night in Vic Falls before I would head out into Zambia.
As I walked down the
streets, most of the tourists were gone by that time, so I was once again approached
by tons of guys in the street to buy old Zimbabwe Dollar notes, jewelry,
statues, bracelets, what have you. Being on a backpacker budget, I told them
that I didn’t have money to spare. They offered trades, wanting to trade for my
water bottle, shoes, hat, any t-shirts, towels, anything. It’s so hard to get
quality things in this country, especially with there not being any money, so
trading was just as good. Then if I told them the truer truth of me literally
not having any more room to carry these crafty things as I traveled for months,
they would sigh and bid me good travels. I did end up buying a few old Zim
Dollar notes, as they were very small, and seemed like cool souvenirs.
Official gazillionaire
One of the most
interesting conversations was at the hostel with some staff members about what
they thought of the new bond notes. They were only introduced about a month
earlier, so I was curious. People really don’t like them because they don’t
have any value outside of Zimbabwe. Other than the country not being able to pay
foreign debt with them, people can’t use them to cross the border to Zambia to
buy things like they were used to doing. The government only brought around
$50,000 worth to Vic Falls, which is definitely not enough for the needs of a
town this size. And even though the bond notes are tied to the USD now, they
wouldn’t be for long, and people feared runaway inflation again.
I was avoiding
setting up my tent for only one night, so I decided to lay on the bug spray and
sleep in my sleeping bag on one of the couches outside. The mosquitoes decided
that this wasn’t happening, so after a while, after one of the security guys came
over and told me that I’d get eaten alive, I broke down and set up my tent, AKA
my mosquito-free haven.
The next morning,
just a few hours after I had set it up, I took my tent down and packed up. I
walked to the border across the bridge, stopping to watch people bungee jump
off of it, and shortly got my $50 single-entry visa into Zambia. I’d officially
been to all the countries in Southern Africa Woo hoo!
Zim/Zam bridge
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