Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls

It feels like a lifetime ago that I was in Zimbabwe and Victoira Falls but it was a great place to visit and there was a lot to see and do.

We arrived into Victoria Falls mid morning on Wednesday the 23^rd April and headed to one of the activity centres to book into the optional activities available.  Unfortunately due to it being rainy season some of the activities were unavailable but we made do with our choices.  I ended up signing up for a helicopter ride over the falls for Thursday afternoon.

We had a lot of spare time in the falls so a few of us decided to live it up in luxury and headed to Victoria Falls hotel, a stunning 5 star hotel, and spend the afternoon having high tea looking out to the falls, it was a magical experience and nice to finally feel human again.

That evening saw us have our final dinner together as a group as there were only 6 of us continuing onto Nairobi (we met the rest of our new tour the following night).  We went out for a “family dinner” at Mama Africa where I experienced my first full meal of crocodile, it was nice but nothing amazing and a little too chewy.  The night carried on to the early hours of the morning as we partied it up at a nearby backpackers. Called the ShoeString.

New Friends from the 1st half of the tour.

Thursday saw a group of us head to Victoria Falls to look around and experience the falls in it full glory.  We started by crossing over into Zambia by foot to where the bungee jumping takes place – none of us took part in the bungee but we watched it for a while before heading into the Victoria Falls National Park.  The falls were spectacular to see and we all ended up drenched as the mist was so powerful.  We walked back to the campsite to freshen up and jump into dry clothes before heading off to the heli pad for our afternoon helicopter ride.  It was my first time in a helicopter and I loved every minute of it.  Again, to see the falls in its full glory and from above was amazing and a memory to keep forever.

Crossing the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia over the Falls

The mighty power of Victoria Falls from the ground.

5 Amazing new Friends - Chris, Tegan, Thomas, Greta and Maddie.

The evening saw the 6 of us meet our new group, there were 8 new people joining us the majority of which were from Canada.  They all seemed nice and we were excited to start the next chapter of our adventure together.  But before that chapter could begin we had a big birthday dinner for Maddie at Victoria Falls where we had an amazing buffet dinner and a show.  It was nice to spend time together one last time before we had to say our goodbyes the following day.

Our last full day in Victoria Falls was spent saying our goodbyes to our new friends and relaxing by the pool.  We walked through the streets and looked in shops but mostly took it easy before starting the next half of the trip.

We continued to travel through Zimbabwe and headed for more Nature Reserves.  We started with Hwange National Park and saw an amazing collection of animals on our full day game drive including Elephants, Giraffe and the smaller game such as Zebra and Impala.

A Stunning Bull Elephant in Hwange

A Wild Painted Dog, a rare sighting in the wild, we were lucky to come across a pack of 12.

A slightly awkward looking Giraffe eating grass. 

The following day we went to a new Game Reserve dedicated to the Rhino.  We were so fortunate to have the opportunity to walk with White Rhino and got about 10 meters from them, knowing how lucky we all were we spent a lot of time with them just watching and admiring there amazing beauty.

2 of the 5 White Rhino we saw.

Me and a couple of White Rhino, just hanging out.

We also stopped by a local village where we met their Witch Doctor and learnt about the native way of life, it was interesting however a little staged and rehearsed.

The Witch Doctor