February 24, 2007
Today is my first and only day in Livingstone. I awoke to the noise of people eating. My room was right off the dining/kitchen area, and the hostel starts making breakfast at 7 am. They do have quite a good breakfast service. The most expensive thing on the menu is a full English breakfast for 25,000 kwacha (under $6 USD). I think the least expensive was two slices of toast for 5,000. Coffee and tea were free all day. Which isn’t saying much. Every hostel I was in, with the exception of Villa Weise in Swakopmund, offered free coffee and tea. The tea was mediocre and the coffee was always instant. Yeck. Instant coffee was pretty common in southern Africa for some reason. Nazma’s family drinks it. We had it every day on the safari and the hostels in Zambia served it. Now that I think of it, Jay & Monique in Switzerland drank it. Honestly, though, it’s not that bad. A strong cup of instant beats a crappy cup of brewed coffee any day. I had the full-up expensive English breakfast as I was starving.
Martin was to meet me at the hostel at 10:30 to begin our adventures. I talked to the front-gate man and he made sure a cab was waiting to take us to the falls. Martin got there early, we took a quick look around Fawlty Towers, chatted for a bit and then went to the activities office to see what we could book. We were planning on going to Victoria Falls to check it out, then on a sunset cruise (or “booze cruise” as they call it) later in the afternoon. We made the cruise reservation and we were off to the falls. I’d catch the 3:30 bus from Fawlty Towers later for the booze cruise.
The front gate man hailed our cab and we negotiated a return trip to and from Vic Falls for 50,000 kwacha. It’s a 15-minute or so ride to Vic Falls park. We agreed on a 2 pm return time and hopped out of the cab. Entry fee to the park was 40,000 kwacha. Not bad, really. There’s a maze of small concrete trails winding throughout the park area. It’s thick with trees and you can’t see very far. We passed a statue of David Livingston and a small souvenir/refreshment hut on the way to the falls. The last thing we passed before getting to the falls was a bunch of tourists crowded around the poncho rental man. Martin and I had already decided to brave the falls without a rain coat. I vaguely remember thinking the falls really didn’t sound that loud, given how close we were to them. We walked on, avoiding tourists groups and finally got our first glimpses of the falls.
We took a look at the higher parts of the falls first, maybe putting off getting wet for a bit. There’s a trail that runs along the edge and up to where you can get a view of the water before it falls over the edge. When we were there, the water was very high. The amount of water falling over the edge is just huge. I didn’t realize how wide Vic Falls is. We couldn’t see the far edge of it from where we were standing (though, this was party due to the large amount of spray). The upper part is really quite boring, so we headed back down the trail to see what we came here for.
As we drew closer, we started passing more and more people who were absolutely drenched. It looked quite refreshing, really, as it was quite hot. We reached the stairs that take you out parallel to the falls. More drenched people. Some had rain coats, most didn’t. I was in for quite a surprise.
I have never gotten so wet, so quickly in my life! It was astonishing. I guess maybe because the water isn’t falling from hundreds of feet in the air like it is from a rain cloud. We were very close to the source. The amount of water was simply amazing! It was a bit too surprising at first. I thought I’d get wet, but didn’t think I’d be fully - and I do mean fully - drenched in the first five minutes. At this point, my feet were still somewhat dry (gore-tex lines shoes). We reached the footbridge that spans one of the gorges and takes you to the island in front of the falls. There was a small river running over the entire surface of the bridge! Since the ends were lower, there were small ponds. Small, but too big to jump over. My feet were now wet and my shoes were squishy. About half way over the bridge I had the thought “I wonder how my camera is doing.” My camera was in my camera bag, in my small backpack on my back which felt totally soaked as well. My next thought was, there’s nothing I can do about it now!
We got off the foot bridge and stomped up the stone steps, which was also a waterfall at the time, and started along the ridge trail. There were points along the trail that were just far enough away from the edge that no spray/rain was falling. It was here that I took the only picture I could close to the falls without getting wet. My camera was fine. Totally dry inside it’s double-bag. We were soaking wet and walked along all of the trail that we could close to the falls. It was a bit disappointing that we couldn’t see the falls very well. Being wet didn’t really bother me. It was part of the experience I’ll definitely never forget. After we’d had enough, we walked around the back side of the island and caught some different views of the area.
We weren’t done being wet, yet. We still had to go back over the footbridge to get to where we came from. Having had enough of the falls area, we were going to hike down to the whirlpool and see what that is all about. We got to the trailhead and there was a somewhat nice local trying to sell us on some goods. It was particularly strange, because this bloke had nothing on him. He kept saying his “shop” was at the bottom of the trail. So, he followed us all the way down the trail trying to talk to us, asking us where we were from, our names, etc. Saying several times that he had good trinkets and such at his shop at the bottom, even though we’d brushed his sales pitch off several times already. Sure enough, when we got to the bottom, he asked us again and showed us a few of the wooden carving he had for sale. He was a nice enough person, but couldn’t take a hint. Finally he left us alone when some other unsuspecting tourists came to the spot where we were resting and admiring the view.
We stayed there for a while, chatted a bit and started to dry out from our soaking. I had all synthetic clothing on. Having put them on that morning hoping that if I did get wet, at least I’d dry out quickly. It wasn’t until we were drying out on the rock that I remembered my money belt! I had it on, of course, and it was completely soaked. My passport will never be the same! And, I’ll always remember how it got into the slightly mangled state it is in!
Once we were dried out enough, and took pictures of each other, we headed back up. While we had been sitting down there, looking at the Zambezi Bridge, we decided we had enough time to walk out onto it and take a look before the cab came back to pick us up. It was 1:20 or so and the cab was to fetch us at 2:00. Back out of the Vic Falls park gate/fence, we walked along the road, trying to keep our distance from the people in huts selling stuff just off the parking lot. Almost immediately someone approached us from behind trying to get our attention. Martin and I each had told the person we weren’t interested and kept on walking. Finally … whoops, it ended up being our cab driver! We didn’t recognize him! He was trying to get our attention to say he was ready to take us back. He was a half-hour too early! We told him we were going to walk to the bridge and we’d be back shortly.
The walk to the bridge was made interesting by the dozens of people trying to sell us stuff. Another vendor walked with us for quite a ways trying to sell us two carved wooden masks. Then we had to go into the Zambian border office to tell them we just wanted to walk out onto the bridge and not cross over into Zimbabwe. It apparently would be a bit of a pain in the ass if we were to go into Zimbabwe. They gave us a little scrap of paper with some kind of stamp on it that would let us come back without any problem. We walked out to the bridge, snapped a couple photos, and had to wait for a train to cross the bridge until we could walk back. We were a little late getting back to the parking lot and I had hoped our cab driver wasn’t irritated with us for being late and for blowing him off earlier in the parking lot. He didn’t seem to be and we were off in the cab. Martin’s accommodation was pretty close to the falls, so he asked to be dropped off there - the cabbie wanted to charge him extra, though and Martin didn’t want to pay. Martin ended up getting dropped of at the turn-off for the Waterfront. He was gonna walk it. Later he told me he didn’t realize how far it was from the main road. I think he said it was a good 20-minute walk, but wasn’t a big deal.
On the way back, the cabbie picked up 4 more people. Being a cab driver is a good business in Zambia, it seems. I say this because the driver already had my 50,000 kwacha coming. Then he picks up these three other guys, for who knows how much, then he picks up one more dude. He totally packed the car as full as it could barely-comfortably fit! Everyone was nice and I was dropped off first, luckily.
So I had a little over two hours, I think, before it would be time to catch the bus to the booze cruise. I was starving, so I took a little walk to a place I had seen earlier and heard about. It was a new place called “African Visions” and it was right across the street from the hostel. Before going there, I was going to change a little more money at the Bureau de Change before grabbing some food. I’d been in the change office two times before and hadn’t a problem. This time I had a $20 USD bill and the girl wouldn’t change it. There was a tiny 1/4″ tear in the middle on the bottom and she said she wouldn’t change it because of that. I complain for five-minutes and she still wouldn’t take it. A tear doesn’t make it worth any less! What the f@#$? She was just being a bitch, I thought, in my irritable, starving state.
Luckily … the restaurant would accept my $20 and give me change in kwacha. I needed some food and local currency. I can only just barely recommend African Visions as a place to eat. The place was nice, people were friendly, food was good (I had muesli, yogurt, fruit and juice), but they tried to screw me out of 20,000 kwacha on the exchange. I think my bill was round 30,000 kwacha. I gave them the $20 USD bill, which was worth just over 80,000 kwacha. She gave me 30,000 back! I forgot to mention the service was super slooooooow. So, I was already a bit irritated at that, now the short-changing. I wrote out the currency exchange math on a piece of paper and took it to my server and explained that she’d shorted me. She took it in back, told them, and they just shrugged their shoulders. I started yelling through the small service window that went into the kitchen. “One US dollar is worth 4,180 kwacha! 20 US dollars is worth 80,000 kwacha! my bill is only 30,000 kwacha! you only gave me 30,000 kwacha change! what kind of exchange rate are you giving me anyway? huh? hello! you owe me 20,000 kwacha!” Finally, the girl came back and said she’d have to walk to the Bureau de Change to see what their rate was. I told her I had just been there and I know exactly what the rate is! She came back and handed me a 20,000 kwacha note. I didn’t leave a tip. They probably expected one too … not a chance!
The restaurant had also wasted the 30 minutes I had hoped to spend in the nearby internet cafe. I needed to print out a few things and the cafe next door had a decent rate. I only had a few minutes to get back to the hostel and get ready for the bus to the waterfront for the cruise. I hadn’t changed out of the clothes I had soaked earlier at Vic Falls. Not that I was wet, I was completely dry by this time. I just thought I might change for the evening activities. When I got back, I decided it didn’t matter. I had my nicest shirt on already anyway!
3:30 rolled around and I made my way to the front gates. There was quite a large group of people waiting already. All for the booze cruise! I wasn’t the only person waiting alone, but for some reason, I really didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Partly because I knew I’d be meeting Martin, and I knew I’d have someone to talk to on the boat. I don’t know if I’m the only person like that or not, and I suspect not. If I have plans and/or already know someone in/at a place, I don’t really feel the urge or need to start conversations. If I’m alone and don’t know a soul, I’ll make the attempt at connecting with someone and usually succeed. This was one of the times I didn’t have the energy to start something. The bus pulled up and we filed in. Right after I sat down, the front gate man tapped on the window to get my attention. He had arranged with a cab driver that was there to pick me up the next morning. Along the same lines as my previous story about the safety necessity of taking a cab after dark, when you arrange a cab, they make sure you know which cab, what number, you will be meeting. He introduced me to the cab driver too and we agreed on 35,000 kwacha for a ride to the airport. As this distraction was going on, someone was calling out my and Martin’s name. I finally realized it and found out what they wanted. They were doing a head-count to make sure they got everyone that signed up. Martin was missing, and since we signed up together, they were wondering if I was onboard. I raised my hand and said “I’m Steve and Martin is meeting us there!” There was some noise from the bus, giving me a hard time for holding them up.
After I spoke, it was obvious I had a North American accent. A girl in the row in front of me turned around and said “Hi Steve” in an accent I couldn’t immediately place. She immediately introduced herself as Ilke from Belgium. She told me the majority of the people on the bus were also from Belgium, students on a trip together along with a few professors. Ilke and I talked for the whole bus trip. It was nice.
Once we got to the Waterfront - the same place Martin was staying, which is why he met us there - I jumped out to look for Martin. I had to find him, but also we both had to pay for the cruise. I did shortly, and introduced him to Ilke and others who said something like “so that’s Martin!” Martin and I ran upstairs, paid and then made our way to the boat, almost the last to get on.
The cruise was great! We cruised the Zambezi river, up-river from Victoria Falls. You could see where the water dropped off and the spray went high in the air. I definitely recommend the booze cruise, and I’m glad I went even though I had had some reservations. It was a tremendous deal, I think. It was $35 USD for unlimited alcohol, and not just beer and wine, spirits too. Snack and appetizers and a decent dinner was included. Martin and I found a place to sit amid the crowd. We shared 1/2 a table with some of the Belgian girls who were initially not that talkative and were chatting amongst themselves in Flemish. Martin and I talked about this and that, London, traveling, etc. We’d had a beer already and I think most people were finished with their first drink. A server brought around plastic-wrapped trays of snack, which is what finally broke the ice between us and our Belgian table-sharers. Martin unwrapped the tray and we all took a skeptical look. I really can’t remember how the conversation started. Probably the usual “where are you from?” bit. Which, in my case, with some people, is a conversation starter on it’s own. It just happened that some of the Belgian students were studying political science and were instantly curious about my stance on Mr. Bush.
To everyone I’ve met, including the group of Belgians, as soon as you say “I think he’s an awful president, I hate him, he’s created nothing but problems and the war in Iraq is a complete mistake … blah blah blah” (all of which I firmly believe) they are willing to accept you. There is nothing about being an American, other than if you like Mr. Bush and you are loud and obnoxious, that the rest of the world dislikes. So, from there, we had plenty to talk about. There was one girl, whose name I can’t remember, who was incredibly beautiful. It was hard to talk to her, actually, because I was so enamored with her. She had very black hair, and was quite tan, very voluptuous and tall and her accent was heart-melting. She was interesting to talk to as well, although she did have her flighty moments. I hate being so bad with names … there was one other Belgian girl who joined us at the table whom I talked with almost the whole night and I was quite attracted to. In the end, I didn’t get her info.
We all continued drinking. Ilke stopped Martin returning from the bar once and asked if I was drinking enough. So, Martin brought me two beers … I really didn’t want to get drunk! I was leaving the next morning was my excuse … I did drink several beers that night, mainly because I finally decided we were drinking early enough and we were eating, too. And, everyone seemed to be behaving for the most part. What I really can’t stand is when people drink too much, too fast. People getting stupid drunk and especially getting sick is one of my extreme pet peeves. I hate it and hate people who do it. Dinner was decent. They had a vegetarian option, but it wasn’t much of an option, so I’m glad I hadn’t requested it. It was nice to be on the river with a bunch of happy people at that hour. The sun finally was getting down towards the horizon and the sky was looking nice.
There was one other American on the boat who got quite drunk, and was apparently there with his newlywed wife on their honeymoon. He went around to everyone and asked what they thought about staying out on the water for a couple more hours to celebrate their marriage. I was secretly saying NO! I don’t really care about celebrating your marriage, you’re just drunk and feel like all these strangers are your friends. Of course everyone he asked said “sure” what else were they going to say? If nothing else, people were polite.
The captain of the boat was having none of the extended party-time. I was fine with that! He slowly steered us back to whence we came. I was feeling a bit tipsy myself.
The rest of the evening was quite fun. Martin had been enjoying partying with the Belgians and decided to take the bus back to Fawlty Towers, where the party was sure to keep going. I was done drinking, but definitely wanted to hang out with these cool people some more. Back at the hostel, there was a group of about 40 Irish blokes watching an England vs. Ireland football (soccer) match on TV. Most of the Belgians decided the pool was looking good and jumped in. They asked Martin and I to join them and I said what the hell! I went and grabbed my towel and jumped in with my once-soaked shorts. (I didn’t and still don’t have a swimsuit with me!).
I swam in the cloudy pool with a half-dozen Belgian girls in bikinis and a couple other quiet Belgian guys. Ilke is such a fun girl to be around. She and I were a bit friendly, even though, or most likely because, she’s romantically not into guys (a very proud “out” lesbian, she is) and she’d introduce me to everyone around. She sat on my lap at one point with her arms around my neck in the pool and I wished she thought differently! It was fun, regardless. Martin jumped in, too, after a little coaxing. After I got a bit chilled and jumped out, I toweled off and chatted with some folks sitting around the pool. The girl I had talked with on the cruise was sitting around the pool too, and I resumed talking with her, too. At one point, I was talking to Ilke again and my mobile phone rang. It was James, and Ilke insisted she answer it. It was pretty funny too, she was telling James that I was talking to a tall, blonde and beautiful Belgian girl (she was) who I’d “picked up” earlier. If only it had been true! I filled him in on the situation after she let me talk to him. It was a good time to get a phone call as I was enjoying the moment and it was fun to share it with someone. James commented that it sounded like I was having a lot more fun than what he’d read in my previous blog post about my fear of being robbed in Namibia. I was.
I was getting tired after all the alcohol and activity. Some of the Belgians wanted to go out on the town, but couldn’t reach critical mass. I was sorta glad, because I know it would have been a complete blast. But, I was being responsible and I really wanted to get some good sleep because I was in fact leaving the next day to fly to Johannesburg. I’ve never been on a plane hung-over, and I really don’t want to experience it. Before I withdrew too much from the party-scene, I got Ilke’s contact information. I really don’t know why I didn’t get the information of the girl I talked to all night. Sometimes it is strange. Ilke was outgoing, and we had talked about her visiting the US earlier, so she was interested herself in being in contact with me. And, I guess for me, there was no interest in her other than friends, so there was no pressure. I guess I had a small fear of rejection asking the other girl. Silly. I can be completely silly and naive when it comes to women. I kick myself.
Finally removing myself from the scene, and saying good-bye to Martin, I returned to my room to find my three English roommates half-dressed contemplating whether to “go out” or not. They were all young, 21 or 22 I think. Still at the age where going out on the town is everything. At that age, you feel can feel so pathetic if you don’t go out. They were seriously having a hard time with it. I asked them about their plans for the next day, of which, they had big plans. After a bit more debate amongst themselves, they even asked me what they should do … I still laugh about it … I thought for a moment. Then said, “Well, you can drink and go out anywhere. But, you’re in Zambia, you have big plans tomorrow that you probably want to be rested and don’t want to be hung-over for.” I didn’t say they should or shouldn’t go out. They all saw my logic and completely agreed. They were staying in.
About 10 minutes later one of the girls heard some people coming up from the pool and she actually said “hearing people makes me want to go out.” Like she’s missing something sitting there in her room, talking to her friends. Maybe she was missing something? The feeling of being young, maybe? It’s such a strange thing, the feeling of young and old. I can remember being her age and thinking I need to go out because I thought only old people sit in their rooms or stay at home. There is a strong pull at that age to go out and see and be seen. I guess it is good to go through, so that hopefully when you wise-up a little later in life, you see how silly it is to think like that.
They didn’t go out in the end and I laid in bed, reading until I fell asleep. It had been a great day. And, even with the small bit of fear I had initially about Livingstone, and the initial disappointment with Fawlty Towers, it had been a great couple of days. I still couldn’t believe what an amazing trip I had been on there in Africa. It had been some of the best weeks of my travels and definitely some of the best in my life. Even then, though, I was looking forward to getting back to Spain and wwoofing. It’s a thought that never really left my mind. I was also looking forward to meeting my couchsurfing host in Johannesburg the next day.