The next stop on our tour de Africa was finally visiting (and seeing) Victoria Falls. As most of you know there have been two failed attempts, described in Fall in Victoria Falls from 2019 and last year. I am ecstatic to report that I finally saw the falls.
Getting There
It was quite a journey from Botswana to Victoria Falls Zimbabwe. First there was the two and half hour drive from the lodge to the airfield. Then we waited for the plane that was itself waiting for room to land. Because of the flooding, the airfield we were using was really crowded. Once on that plane, we flew to Kasane, Botswana. From there, we met our guide and drove about 20 minutes to the border crossing from Botswana to Zimbabwe.
First, we got out of the van and passed exit immigration in Botswana. Then we walked to the Zimbabwe building (I say that loosely) to pass Zimbabwe immigration. I had arranged our entry visas in advance so the whole thing was pretty quick. Then back in the van for the 30 minute drive to our lodge in Victoria Falls.
Our Very Special Guide
We were also able to visit with our tour guide who helped us so much when I broke my leg in 2019. Even though we only spent one full day with him, he took good care of us and he has been communicating with Mike periodically since my accident. We wanted to take him and his boss to lunch but that didn’t work out. While he wasn’t able to guide us this time, he met us at the airport on arrival, at our hotel and in the park itself. Each time there were lots of hugs and assurances that I was well. Im so glad we were able to thank him in person for all of his help that day. It was obvious that it meant a lot to him too.
The Batonka Lodge
The Batonka Lodge had very nice accommodations set in two separate buildings. Our room faced a swimming pool and a bar that probably gets used during high season, but we were there in winter. The first day when we checked in we noticed a lot of shoes on the lawn in front drying. The next day after our visit to the falls we understood the shoes and ours joined the others.
The baboons were plentiful and one of them passed through pool area while I was sitting outside. Another nice thing about this lodge was that breakfast was served on a lovely shaded patio and they also served dinner. The only downside was the practically nonexistant Wifi, but that wasn’t uncommon.
A Little History of the Falls
The falls were discovered by the first westerner Dr. Livingstone in 1855. Livingstone has a statue, plaque, island in the falls, and a town in Zambia named after him. He was a pretty important person.
To our knowledge, there are three enormous waterfalls in the world. Niagara Falls on the New York, Canada border, which we saw again last year for the second time. There is Iguazu Falls, on the Argentina and Brasil border, which we saw in 2024. Finally, there is Victoria Falls on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, which used to be called Rhodesia.
As you can see in the sign below, there is quite a competition between the falls for widest, longest drop, and water volume. After seeing all three fairly recently, I have to admit that I was most impressed by Iguazu, which is the widest. Niagara takes the record for the most water volume and Victoria Falls is the highest. This visit completed our waterfall trifecta.
The Falls
The entire reason we came to Victoria Falls was to actually see the falls. I will admit that I was really nervous after the previous failed attempts. So, I held Mike’s hand nearly the entire time. After going through the gate we stopped at the spot where I fell the first time and documented the scene. Then we walked slowly and tentatively down the path to the falls. There are many designated stops along the trail and we stopped at all of them. Before we left the parking lot our guide go us some rain ponchos, it turned out we more than needed them at the end.
I think we took a selfie at every view point where you could actually see the water not just the spray. So we proceeded from viewpoint to viewpoint holding hands the entire way. I only got nervous when we got closer to the end of the trail because the rocks were very wet and slippery. About 3/4 of the way to the end we had to don our ponchos because it was raining on us heavily, not from the sky, from the waterfall. As I said, the river was very high. Close to the end of the trail we could see a number of rainbows but the last viewpoint of the bridge had the best rainbow.
By the end of the walk, maybe an hour, we were both soaking wet. Even with the ponchos but we dried out pretty quickly when we got closer to the entrance. Still holding hands, we exited the national park and congratulated ourselves on our accomplishment. I know it is silly but this milestone was important to me.
The Booze Cruise on the Zambezi River
The first time we were in Victoria Falls we took a booze cruise on the Zambezi. Since we had such a good time the last time we wanted to do it again. There were a number of differences this time. First, we were assigned to a boat that wound up waiting for a lost tour group. Their driver didn’t know what he was doing.
Eventually the group appeared, but our boat left more than 20 minutes late. It turned out that they were from Spain and the couple at our table didn’t speak any English. So we spent the entire cruise practicing our Spanish. They seemed very appreciative that we tried.The other big difference was the water level. Because the area had so much rain the water level was really high so the animal sightings were a bit disappointing. We did see hippos, lots of them, and a beautiful sunset.
The Town of Victoria Falls
We had our last day free so we decided to take a taxi into town and wander around. But before that, while going to and from the falls, we passed two interesting places. The first was the hotel that we stayed at the last time we were there. It was all boarded up and overgrown. We were told that it didn’t survive Covid.
The next was the place we had a lovely dinner in 2019. We figured out that it was the Victoria Falls Hotel so we had dinner there again. The hotel looks onto the falls and a wonderful steel band playing during dinner. It wasn’t the same as the last time because I was pretty buzzed. But it was fun to go back.
We took a taxi to the main part of town, which really turned out to be a shopping mall of sorts. While I would love to take home a large wooden giraffe, it just wasn’t possible. After a super short time of being pestered by the merchants, we decided to walk back to the hotel. The bottom line is that you don’t go to Victoria Falls for anything other than the falls.
Livingstone, Zambia
Our next stop was Kenya and a night in Nairobi. The best was to get there was on Kenya Airways from Livingstone Zambia. So, our guide drove us across the bridge and we went through Zimbabwe immigration followed by our entry to Zambia. While our passports did get stamped, and we took a little driving tour of Livingstone, Mike said we couldn’t count it on our country list because we weren’t there long enough.
Livingstone is much larger than Victoria Falls. Besides looking prosperous our visit really wasn’t long enough to have an opinion about the town.
They did have a nice empty airport with only two flights leaving that evening. So off we went.
