Mini Adventure Day 1 - Sunset Cruise on Zambezi River

Let the Adventure Begin!

Jameelah, Brooke (from Flordia - Ava Marie Law School), Erin (Howard), and I embarked on our mini-adventure on Wed morning. Our flight left Cape Town around 8AM, we landed in Livingstone, Zambia around 11:30 AM. Zambia and Zimbabwe both border Victoria Falls – we chose to fly into Zambia as that was the only direct flight from Cape Town so we did not lose time with a layover in Jo-berg. Although we flew into Zambia, it was much less expensive for us to stay in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
The Zambia airport was rather small, there are no gates – all of the planes just park on a strip outside and passengers walk into the airport. We had to buy a double entry visa into Zambia, one entry for when we arrived and one for when we had to come back to fly home.


I felt special - I have never had my name on a sign at the airport before!

As we crossed the border from Zambia to Zimbabwe (about 15 min from the airport) we had to go through exit customs in Zambia, where we got our first view of wildlife. Trucks are required to stop at go through the exit checkpoints, often times these trucks are carrying food or wheat as their cargo – the Baboons have learned to hang out at customs and jump onto the trucks from the roof of the customs building when they arrive. There were about 15 baboons sitting on the roof of customs or just walking around the street entrance to the customs building!

I loved the name of this truck - until our guide informed us that Hakuna Matata does not actually mean "no worries for the rest of your days..." It was actually someting made up for Disney - way to ruin my happy time!



One of the baboons just hanging out on top of the truck!

We crossed into Zimbabwe just after we went over the Victoria Falls Bridge, which was built over 100 years ago by the son of Charles Darwin, it crosses the Zambezi River at the base of Vic Falls. Customs in Zimbabwe was interesting; they asked about 5 min of questions wondering why we were coming to their country which I found odd for a third world country. Zimbabwe doesn’t just stamp your passport, they give you a full page sticker Visa, which they put over one of my Mexico stamps – luckily it was Mexico or I would have been upset, as my passport is starting to look really cool!
Once we got into Zimbabwe we had to stop at the bank – the currency in Zimbabwe is USD. They switched to the USD in 1992, from the Zimbabwe dollar after political turmoil and hyperinflation eroded the value of the Zim Dollas to the point where denominations were being issued for as high as $100 Trillion dollars! Although they also accept South African Rand, they make the rand to dollar 10:1 as opposed as 6.8:1 which is what the exchange is, it made sense to use USD. It was interesting because the ATM’s only gave $100USD bills, and no one “had change”, so until you find a vendor who can make change you are basically forced to use Rand. I did buy some old souvenir dollars, although my currency only goes up to 50 Billion Dollars J All of the USD they used was very dirty and worn, although it was usually printed after 2000, they used a ton of $2 bills which made me laugh because they are so rare in the US, but so common in Zimbabwe. The small bills ($1’s & $2’s) were really dirty and made you feel like you had to use hand sanitizer after you touched anything – I think they get the money that the US deems to worn to be in circulation any longer.

I was really excited when I saw this guy outside the bank! Maybe it is becuase I haven't been looking, but I have not seen ANY MLB team shirts, until I saw this!! Although he had no clue who the Brewers were, he said an American gave him the shirt, it still made me happy!

After customs we swung through our hotel to drop our bags off, let me tell you we were staying in a pure lap of luxury at the Spraview Motel! I think the last time the hotel was updated was in the mid 1980’s – which was the common theme of the entire town! For those of you that are lucky enough to get an AMAZING Sprayview Motel postcard I am sure you will share in my excitement for the hotel and want to visit just for the luxury of the hotel!


My amazingly large and plush bed! Honesly maybe the hardest thing, other than the floor I have ever slept on - it made me wish for Brewer's doggy Bed!



The awesome in wall radio, you had to hold in the power button to get it to play music.

That is until Brooke and I put our minds together and set up this amazing feat of  engineeering ...

After we checked in, we headed out of town about 20 Min to the Zambezi River for a sunset cruise. The Zambezi River is the 4th largest river in Africa flowing from Zambia through Angola, along the borders of Namibia, Botswana, Zambia again, and Zimbabwe, to Mozambique, where it empties into the Indian Ocean. On just the drive to the river cruise we saw impala, kudu, warthog, and elephant! I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking for the trip – the sunset was AMAZING, as you can see from the picture on the top of the page, I have never seen the sun so fire red!

We were greated by traditional Afrcan dancers

Jameelah and Brooke are on the far side of the table, myelf and Erin on the near side

Hippo!

More Hippos! We saw Crock ans elephant, but they were not as awesome as the one's we saw on Safari so you will all have to wait for those ;)

Sunset off the back of the boat!



Brooke and I with one of the dancers after hte riverboat cruise

 Well, I ifgured I would start everyone out with the "boring" day of the trip - we wanted to relax after the plane ride and  what does a better job of relaxing than a tranquil boatride with Crocks and Hippos! The rest of the trip is sure to have some entertaing posts with WhiteWater Rafting, Safaris, Victoria Falls and random shots around Town. I will try to get htem up as quickly as possible... Only 5 more days in Africa than its off to Greece!