Enter Zambia

Well this was an interesting border crossing! Just a few words to get your imagination ticking along and your heads spinning like ours.

Botswana side of the ferry waiting in line:

Driving into pure chaos, touts approaching all windows the moment we park the car in line, goods trucks queued up for kilometers down the road, people absolutely everywhere, lock the car, army men with very old looking guns. Ferry only takes 6 cars at a time, the race is on. This line takes no prisoners baby!

On the ferry:

Completely open. Infinite variations of very ripe body odor that instantly disintegrates my nostrils and force my facial expression to look like a kid who is trying to look directly at the sun… except I am trying to locate a portion of fresh air to inhale. Hot heat from the sun burning down on us, strong engine fumes stinging my lungs, machine noise creating a loud ambient hum, local chatter and laughter, ticket man surrounded by frantic ferry-goers all wanting to be processed first, no one has heard of lines, a loud South African woman demanding something but I don’t know what, quick get back in the car because we have already reached the Zambian side.

Total ferry ride time: approx 7 minutes. There was a lot to take in in 7 minutes.

Zambian side:

Foot traffic swarms off the ferry all at once, cars charge down the ramp like fierce bulls to a matador and his cape. Park the car, pick a spot, anywhere, just park it! Lock it. Man selling mantelpiece ornaments approaches, army man with gun sporting a great green knitted jersey with leather elbow patches shows us where to go, the heat is hot, we line up.

Carnet de Passage does not have Zambia on it, shit, wait a long time, visas get processed, this room smells riper than a ripe thing, just when I thought nothing could be worse than the ferry. Waiting some more… Fiver goes to change money and buy insurance for car. Another ferry unloads and the visa line grows longer. Where is a toilet? Down behind another office, someone has emptied a rubbish bin into the toilet entrance, nice. A large rough looking man sitting on a rusty broken chair demands money for the toilet, I’ll hold on instead. Carnet de Passage is stamped, get back to the car and meet Fiver on the other side. Drive 10 metres to border gate, returning back to car park spot 1 minute later - Need to pay road tax, carbon tax and police tax before we can leave (10,000 Zambian Kwatcha straight into the policeman’s pocket, no need for discretion here, no point). Nothing is in order, too many separate payments to too many different little officey shop things. No more secret payment surprises, now we can leave. Meet Fiver in the COMESA office on other side of the gate, a giant wasps nest hums with activity on the ceiling while she and the insurance lady chit-chat. Twenty grueling minutes later and a terrible map drawing of Livingstone in hand (a T-junction with some scribbles and dots surrounding it) we pass a “Hakuna Matata truck” and enter Zambia.

Half an hour of driving, heads still spinning we pull over for lunch. Eat lunch, yum yum crunch crunch, get back in the car, pull back onto the road, drive 10 metres, pull over again… Flat tyre.

Lets go to Victoria Falls, morning noon and night!

Victoria falls. The notorious Victoria falls, the FAMOUS Victoria falls. They were something else, that’s for sure! We went in the morning, to, you know, catch the morning light as photographers do. There is something about waterfalls that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and no not that instant effect they have on your bladder, its.. something else. Once through the entrance gate, we journeyed down the waterfall track, and pre-conceded images in our minds of what we were about to see were instantly replaced by the real experience. Sights, smells and sounds all flooded in at once. It was so loud. The violent thundering sound of constant water plummeting down into the white mist below was almost deafening, yet it made me smile. The mist in the air settled in my hair, giving me a ‘very bad hair day’ look, but it didn’t matter because I was at the Vic Falls. Welcoming the mist to cool us from the sun, but hiding cameras under jackets for protection at the same time, we approached the little lookouts one after the other, in hopes of getting a better view than the previous marvel. Rainbows were everywhere, revealing themselves around nearly every corner, or hovering above pockets in the cliff valley below. We even saw a full circle rainbow. The white water was fearlessly spilling over the edge and franticly churning about at the bottom before finding the powerful current to take it elsewhere. Just magic! Everything about it made me smile.

I had been thinking about the bungee jump for quite some time now, but on the day I was suffering from quite the severe (and unpredictable) case of Tsodilo Hills and wasn’t confident in the probability of returning from such an activity without Tsodilo occurring on the way down (see Tsodilo Hills blog for definition). You never know with this sort of thing, so I’ll just wait for the Nile bungee now.

We went back to camp and had some lunch, downed a coca cola or two, squeezed in a quick nap and then headed back to the falls for sunset. Just when we thought the morning session couldn’t be topped, the sunset sights trumped on in. It was the whole morning session again, but golden. GOLDEN!

It was like someone had placed a yellow tinted adjustment layer over top of us, gorgeous light falling everywhere, making the view even more photogenic than before.

This time we headed to the bridge for some variance; you are now entering Zimbabwe, you are now entering Zambia, you are now entering Zimbabwe again. Had to do it.

Moonbow, Lunabow, dreambow!

Imagine one of those airy dreams, almost nightmarish but not quite, one of those backwards ones where nothing really makes sense, except it does. Now add a glossy cinematic feel to it, as if it were discovered by some indie film art director but put to life with a Hollywood sized budget where no special effects have been spared.

That. Is what the moonbow at Victoria Falls is exactly.

Only 3 days a month can you enter the Vic Falls at night; the evening prior to full moon, full moon, and the following evening. This is when the moonlight is so strong that it has enough light power to create a rainbow. Our eyes don’t see all the colors of a normal rainbow, however what we do see at night is a glowing white arch, perched over top of almost silver looking water, tumbling into darkness below. There is a hint of light coming from Zimbabwe in the far distance, but that just adds to the overall gobsmacking portrait in front of us.

Group laughter, tour guides and loud attempts to talk over the noise were not overthrowing the roaring falls this time. Instead, whispers were exchanged, darkness welcomed a calm feeling of solitude, and tears of absolute bewilderment and awe rolled silently down cheeks…

Then there was the mood killer; some brainless person scuttled in view, trying to capture the dreambow with their piddley 3 megapixel camera on bloody auto-flash! Aimlessly taking numerous photos, while wondering why he wasn’t able to capture the image, spoiling poor Stuarts 1minute long exposures. Fiver went nuts, it was awesome.

Moonbow, lunabow, dreambow – it is definitely one the most remarkable sights one can see.