Victoria Falls

The day started out with a lovely breakfast.

All of it was delicious.

At just after 8:00 my driver picked me up for the tour of the falls. Jonty told me that he had arranged private tours, but this was a small group of 7 people. I don’t mind at all and, in fact, after speaking with one of the couples I have now added Perth Australia to my ever-growing list of travel destinations. I think I’ll take it on before Southeast Asia in fall 2026.

Anyway, Victoria Falls were absolutely amazing! Given the width and amount of water, it is the largest falls in the world.

Jo, the tour operator, gave us raincoats but the spray was very heavy, and I ended up pretty wet.

We caught a beautiful rainbow on one of the smaller sections.

Here’s a video of the wide middle section of the falls. The border between Zimbabwe and Zambia is in the middle.

Near the 1st overlook is the statue of Dr. David Livington. He spent years in Africa and while his body is buried in Westminster Abbey, his heart is buried in Africa.

When I was arranging this trip, I asked Jonty what I could do with the 3rd day in Vic Falls. His suggestion was Devil’s Pool. I took one look at a YouTube video and give it a hard pass. Here’s a video of Angel’s Pool in Zambia. Devil’s Pool is the exact same concept just in Zimbabwe.

Would you do this? I don’t think so.

They’ve never lost a tourist, but a guide died about 7 years ago. Apparently, a tourist lost his balance, fell into the water and started to drift towards the falls. The guide jumped in grabbed him, shoved him to safety, but continued down the falls himself. How horrible!?! I’m sure my day trip to Chobe in Botswana will be excitement enough.

Here’s a pic of me and my new friend from Perth, Lakshmi.

At the end of the path, we came to Falls Bridge, the connection between Zambezi and Zambia. We could have walked over the bridge, been given a pass to the Zambia side then come right back. I thought about it (that would have given me country #60) but decided against it. First, I had already walked over 7000 steps. And second, I didn’t want to figure out how to get home as I would have been on my own.

On the way back to the van, we found a couple of baboons hanging out by the trees.

These guys were entertaining the crowd when we made it back to the buses.

I came back to the hotel for lunch then texted Stanley to pick me up for the market. His colleague, Sydney, came and drove about 10 minutes to the Elephant Walk market. It included about 50 small shops all selling pretty much the same things. But I got some very cool items for less than $50. A few handwoven baskets, some teak wood bowls and a salt/pepper shaker set made of olive tree wood and cow bone. Don’t ask me what I’m going to do with all this stuff but don’t be surprised if some of you get something in your Christmas stocking because I have no use for all of it.

After resting for a little while it was time to head out for my sunset cruise on the Zambezi River which is the 4th longest river in Africa after the Nile, Congo and the Niger rivers. Lakshmi and Soumya were also on the cruise, so we hung out together. It was a beautiful evening and there was an open bar with heavy appetizers to munch on. I had a local Zimbabwe beer which was quite good.

Here’s another video that wouldn’t embed so just click the link if you want to watch. https://youtu.be/Bt1xzXSyhf8

There were at least a dozen boats on the river and, just like on land, you could always tell when there was something interesting to look at because that’s where all the boats were congregated.

In addition to the elephants, we saw about 9 hippos, one was actually almost fully out of the water.

We sat and watched these guys for quite a while. It was quite fun.

There were a couple of monkeys hanging out. I’ve seen more today than I did in 3 days at Sabi Sands.

That was about it for animals. We saw a warthog in the parking lot, but it was dark and he was running away from the headlights, so I didn’t get a pic.

Since it was a sunset cruise, we hung out to watch the incredible sunset. I have seen some serious beautiful sunsets since I’ve been here, and this one was no exception.

Once back at the hotel, I had a small bowl of soup and a virgin daiquiri for dinner. The soup was amazing, but the drink would have been better if had run.

It’s 9pm and I’ve been up since 3:30am (hate it when I do that) so I’ll close for now. Hopefully I’ll sleep all night tonight. That would be a nice switch.