THIS IS OUT OF ORDER, SORRY. IT COMES BEFORE OUR 3 DAYS IN JOHANNESBURG
We had just one night again at the Club Safari in Johannesburg before flying to Victoria Falls in Zinbabwe. We had to buy US$ at the airport as many cash transactions in Zimbabwe are in US$. We took over an hour to get through immigration and seemed some of the holdups were because people didn’t have the dollars to pay the entry fees of $30 each for single entry! We took a taxi to the Kingdom hotel and on the way organised to go for a helicopter flight later that afternoon over the Victoria Falls and to go on a sunset dinner cruise on the river above the Falls. The Kingdom hotel reminds me of Indian Raj building with elephant tusks on the top of the roof of each building and imposing pillars of stone and concrete.
Livingston said of the Falls “scenes so wonderful must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight”. The helicopter flight is called the flight of the angels! There was another couple with us so we had good views of the Falls and surrounding areas. The deep gorge below the Falls goes for about. 120kms. There are two power stations below the Falls, I assumed one was for Zimbabwe and the other for Zambia, across the other side of the Falls. The Falls look absolutely amazing and we could see the huge spray(rain) generated by the water falling on hard rock at the base of the Falls. Great flight!
We ate snacks at the poolside bar that evening - cocktails, crocodile kebabs, other nibbles as the restaurant only offered a buffet meal.
The following day we slept in and then wandered down to the Outlook Cafe which overlooks the gorge below the Falls. Had bought some postcards so wrote on them while waiting. There are lots of zip lines across the gorge but there was no-one ziplining or bungy jumping while we were there. I had the ostrich kebab which came suspended on a metal frame above the plate of vegetables!! Outside the front door were some amazing “people” manufactured from car parts, body and engines. We had a relaxed dinner at the hotel.
On Monday morning we walked down to the Falls walkway to see the whole length of the Falls. It took us about two hours and is about five km round trip. There wasn’t as much spray as some days apparently so we were able to see quite a lot of the Falls. We walked down to the tallest bridge in the world which connects Zimbabwe to Zambia and watched cyclist taking huge loads across on the back of their bikes. ThE bridge has railway tracks and road across it. Livingston is the town in Zambia just across this bridge. We didn’t cross the bridge as we would have had to pay more entry fees - for both countries! $30 to $50 each. We enjoyed lunch at the hotel cafe again, kebabs and Croque Monsieur with cocktails. Later that evening we were picked up to go on the Sunset dinner cruise. We had a small corner table on the deck with 18 American tourists at the long central table. Unfortunately we had lots of rain clouds around so sunset wasn’t as good as we had hoped. It was pretty good however and we saw many hippos in the river. Some even obligingly opening their mouths for us. It was a lovely cruise and I appreciated my gluten free meal.
Next morning we were on our way back to Johannesburg for 3 nights.
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