Saturday 27th December 202
Fortunately we woke up to a dry, not very cloudy sunny day after a rather long night’s sleep and feeling refreshed headed to breakfast, in “another” hotel!!! The anticipation of the quality of breakfast each time we move to another hotel is quite exciting!!!!
Ok, water bottles full and we headed off to visit the Victoria Falls, known in the local “Lozi language” as “The Smoke That Thunders”. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The track from the hotel, about 1-km down to the fall’s entrance was a wide path but though it was only 1030hrs, it was getting hot. As we approached the entrance we were bombarded by vendors selling all sorts of carvings, trinkets and many other things!!!
To enter there is a fee of $50 per person if you are from the UK, less for Americans if they show their passports and I suspect much cheaper for the local population. This country apparently went bankrupt several years ago and now everything is in US $, hence the discount for them!!!
We paid, entered and followed the trail and soon came across the first vantage point and marvelled but knew there was more to come as this trail ended, It turns out 1 & 2 are on the eastern end so turned round to head west where and now followed the mai trail, lookout point after lookout point, heading west along the face of the falls; seventeen lookout points in Zimbabwe and we stood at each one and enjoyed the spray coming off; it was so, so hot, not a cloud in the sky. We stopped at Dr. David Livingstone (1813 – 1873) statute erected in 1955 to commemorate the discovery of the falls by him on the 16th November 1855, quite an imposing statute but most probably reflects all his missionary work, anti slave attitude and many other good deeds.
Victoria Falls is classified as the largest, based on its combined width of 1,708 metres (5,604 ft) and height of 108 metres (354 ft), resulting in the world’s largest sheet of falling water. At the western end is the famous “Victoria falls Bridge”, built in 1905. The Victoria Falls Bridge is a historic steel arch bridge over the Zambezi River, connecting Zimbabwe and Zambia just below the falls, famous for its spectacular views and bungee jumping. it was part of Cecil Rhodes’ vision for the Cape-to-Cairo railway and a marvel of “early” 20th-century engineering. This steel bridge was manufactured in England, then shipped out and constructed across the river. Unfortunately Cecil Rhodes didn’t live long enough to see it completed. It was originally designed for “the” railway but today it is for cars and pedestrians.
Today we walked about three and a half miles in total but did get a cab up the hill back to our hotel, we were exhausted and very, very hot but fortunately there is the Rain Forest Cafe just by the exit gate, and it was doing a roaring trade! Here we enjoyed some refreshment before getting into our cab.
Back at the hotel, the pool called, so a quick visit to get “togged” up and straight into the refreshing water; brought back memories of our pools when we lived back in Spain.
Being our last night here in this superb hotel we decided to eat-in, so after our pool and sunbathing session, we showered and put our “glad-rags” on and enjoyed a moonlight dinner under the stars; no need for jumpers!!!
Back in our room after a superb meal where Christine enjoyed another Ostrich Fillet steak, we crashed-out, oops another early night!!! Tomorrow we board the Rovos Train to Pretoria on the last leg of our adventure in this part of the world