Dr. Livingstone, I presume?

Livingstone, Zambia, which has replaced Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe as the local tourist mecca, is named for the eponymous Dr. Livingstone who is the first white man to discover the falls. Livingstone named the falls Victoria after his queen, replacing the much more colorful local name Musi-ao-Tunya, which means "the smoke that thunders." The famous quote and title of this post was supposedly uttered when one of his countrymen also traveled to Northern Rhodesia and spotted the only white guy within a 100 mile+ radius. Such a small world.

Today's Livingstone is full of opportunities to injure oneself -- from bungee jumping, to gorge swinging, from lion walks, to elephant back safaris. Never mind the highly persistent guys trying to sell you worthless 100 trillion dollar bills in defunct Zimbabwe currency. Pete and I managed to navigate all of the above dangers -- except we didn't visit the lions, we needed to leave something to make us come back!



An alternate title for this post could have been "The Post Our Parents Should Skip" -- not because both of us zip lined across a gorge and jumped off a bridge twice (bungee jump and bridge "swing"), but because the next day, after talking to many locals, we decided to head over to Vic Falls, Zimbabwe. About 15 of the 20 people in our group made the trip across the border, and 6 of us headed over early in the morning to do our elephant safari there (amazingly, it was much cheaper in Zim).

We were ferried across the border by the elephant safari operator, who also has an operation in Zambia since tourism to Vic Falls has dwindled to a relative trickle. Our transfer guide drove us over shockingly well maintained roads (apparently Vic Falls is hosting a major conference for African leaders in a few weeks) to a gorgeous lodge within national park property. After meeting our elephants, and a couple who were in training, we mounted up and went for an incredible hour long ride through the national park.

Afterward, we got to feed the elephants and then were served the best breakfast we'd had in about a month. While we ate we chatted with the Scottish owner and his Zimbabwean colleague about the state of Zimbabwe. People are hopeful, and Vic Falls has remained in a bubble thanks to tourism.

After our breakfast, we got a ride to falls, which is incredible from the Zimbabwe side. Since the water level is so high right now it 's actually impossible to see the falls through the mist on the Zambian side. We hiked around and got soaked thanks to the spray from the massive waterfall. Rainbows appear everywhere around you because there is so much water in the air, and "thunder" is the best way to describe the sound of all that water careening down.

We grabbed lunch (pizza and milkshakes, ha!) and headed for the craft market. In the market it was much more apparent that Zimbabwe is hurting thanks to the government's policies. We were the only group there, so the ratio of sellers to buyers was about 10:1. It was overwhelming to have so many people aggressively trying to gain your attention -- but we managed to drive some hard bargains and walked back across the border with some fantastic crafts. All in all, we were really glad we went across the border. We never felt unsafe and we got the chance to experience the falls at it's best.