Victoria Falls

Zimbabwe is already in a down turn. Initially we considered spending more time in this fascinating country. However, based on some travel warnings and the information that it is difficult to get access to things like fuel we decide to only visit the Victoria Falls. For this we first need to cross the border from Botswana to Zimbabwe. Our second border crossing and one that does not feel as good as the first one. While it's much faster here it is also significantly more expensive. For the visa, road tax and a useless insurance that is mandatory we pay in total 110 EUR.

 

Anyway, it is what it is and we make our way strait to the Victoria Falls. To our surprise there are hardly any tourists. That also means all the locals who have something to sell concentrate on the two of us. We enter the park, the sun comes out and produces a fantastic play of colors. We walk around the falls and take many pictures before we make our way to the camp site Nyathi Camping. Nobody is interested in Zimbabwe Dollars and so we pay everything in Euro as we don't have enough USD which would have been cheaper.

 

Karin's dream was always to do a rafting trip on the Zambezi. This is exactly what we do the next day. We get picked up at 8 am, get a short security briefing and then make our way in a truck downstream. Equipped with a life jacket, helmet and a paddle we have to walk the last meters down the steep slopes to the river. We get started in a group that consists of the two of us, one US lady and a whole bunch of guys from South Africa. We are a good group and get along very well.

 

At rapid number 8 the raft turns suddenly over and everybody falls into the river. Karin takes a big mouthful of water but everything is good. We are on the river for most of the day and the rapids further down are not that huge at the moment. We also have to paddle quite a bit. Once at the final destination the long walk up again to the top of the canyon starts. 200 meter in altitude is what we need to cover on a hot sunny day without any shade. Luckily they are prepared and a cool beer is waiting for us at the top.

 

We board again the truck and make our way back into town. This is also a good opportunity to see a bit more of Zimbabwe and we really like it here. To bad what's going on politically.

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