Travel Tuesday
What an amazing place Victoria Falls is... truly a wonder of the world.
Imagine this: a couple of Australians standing near the edge of the Falls, getting really wet from the spray, arms in air, screaming like banshees. Yes, that would have been us! We even managed to get other visitors to join in with us along the way. We certainly laughed a lot. It was a fun way to enjoy the Falls, I must say.
A similar photo now features in a poster in the window of our Travel Agent Reho Travel, the owners of which are our adventure buddies. It is rather handy travelling with your travel agent. It certainly helps when there’s an issue with ticketing or some such thing.
One great thing about travelling with a larger party than just Daughter and I is that where there are some activities we can do separately, we are able to consider doing so. This also applies with helping the travel buddies do what they want to do as well, as was the case with the Lion Walk vs. the Elephant Walk. We all would have loved to go on the Lion Walk, but the minimum age is 15 years old. Therefore the two 9-year olds were not able to participate, unfortunately. Given that Daughter wanted to do something with me, our decision was made, it was the Elephant Walk for us. Travel Buddy Daughter was then able to join us, leaving the Travel Agents to Walk with the Lions.
The little ones and I rode the African elephant, named Jack, the largest dominant male in the herd. Call us lucky, I know! It absolutely bucketed rain the whole time though, hence why we wore the same coloured raincoats, and were really really soggy by the time we finished. What was it with us and precipitation we often asked; no idea but it was certainly a feature of this adventure.
As for Zimbabwe, it really has turned into a sad place. I remember it being the most beautiful and vibrant place when I first visited in 1996 that we could not appreciate this time around. We came directly to Victoria Falls via Zambia and then almost straight out again via Botswana. No experiencing the place at all really. Where as last time I was there, we had moved all around Zimbabwe, and really enjoyed it. Even to the point where we managed to watch an indigenous Australian band called “Yothu Yindi” play in a park in the middle of Bulawayo one delightful afternoon. I think we were the only travelling through white folk there. It was fabulous. We wouldn’t have dreamt of doing that again this time around, sadly.
When I had also previously been in Victoria Falls on that same trip, one of the key things I had to do was High Tea (as mentioned in an earlier blog entry), which was absolutely fabulous. This time around, I really wanted to do that again with Daughter in tow, but it just didn’t seem to be the same. So instead we all decided to go for dinner at the beautiful Victoria Falls Hotel. Thank goodness the powers that be have managed to keep the hotel in one piece, and still as glamorous as ever. Interestingly enough though, the actual dinner bill for 5 of us was Z$214,880,875.00.
Yes that's right, and as a result, we managed to be billionaires for the day! How you may ask?
Given that (at the time) $1USD bought $1.8 million Z$, it didn't take much to convert into billionaire status -- first time for everything! Lunch, consisting of a couple of omelettes and drinks alone, cost us $42,000,000.00... go figure!
If that’s the closest we get to billionaire status, then we can at least tick that one as done!
Happy Travels
the entrepreneurial mother™
YOu fools, you missed a great opportunity. It is not at all dangerous for tourists to travel through Zim. The media in the west is miss-representing the place. I have spent a lot of time there and even got married there and it is perfectly safe and the people are extremely friendly. It's true that things are difficult in economic terms but no different than many african states and far safer than some. I would recommend anyone to ignore the black progaganda about the place and enjoy the beauties of Zimbabwe. Vic Falls is far better fromt he Zim side. Dan Barker Dorset
Posted by: Dan Barker | Wednesday, December 02, 2009 at 06:31 AM