Zambia to Botswana: 20th Aug 09

This morning we went to have close up look at Victoria falls. Although we’d flown over them in micro lites and rafted in the waters below the falls, we hadn’t actually been up close to them yet.

Due to a freak of nature, the water doesn’t (as usual) go down the falls and then in a straight line down the river, it actually falls into the gorge and immediately flows off to the left or right, flowing into the second gorge somewhere near the centre of the falls – so you are able to stand on the other side of the gorge and walk the length of the falls, actually in front of the water – very cool!

We’re in the middle of the dry season here so although there were millions of tonnes of water cascading over, the falls weren’t in their most dramatic mode. The benefit of that was you could actually see the drama of the gorge – usually it’s just covered with water. We walked the length of the falls (over a mile) and saw loads of rainbows in the mist – these are about 7 permanent rainbows in various places and from various angles on the falls – really beautiful.
After the trip one of our group, Martin, bought a souvenir bank note from Zimbabwe – just cross the gorge. It was genuinely for ONE HUNDRED TRILLION dollars!

After the falls we said goodbye to our friend Jill, who is returning to Britain. We hope to stay in touch with her. We then set off for Botswana.
The campsite in Botswana is in the grounds of a lodge adjacent to Chobe national park, one of Africa’s prime nature reserves. We sat on the banks of the Chobe river to watch the sunset over Namibia, which is the opposite bank, and watched some baby monkeys play around us. Unfortunately there weren’t any spare rooms for Matt and I to upgrade so we’re back in the tent again! Evening was spent sitting around the Camp fire toasting (more like frazzling) marshmallows – they were horrible! Early start tomorrow for a game drive!