Kiwis, Jumbos and seeing the other side of the Victoria Falls

Posted on 27 September 2009

Through word of mouth and the St Francis Bay community, we were given the telephone number of Anne Taggart. Sadly we unable to meet Anne, but she had organized accommodation for us at the Vic Falls Rest Camp.

We arrived and were shown around, still suffering from the night before in Livingstone. Our aching heads and unhappy empty stomachs had us bee-lining for the restaurant and pool.

After eating fried crocodile, which I humorously started calling “Fishken” because of its fishy taste and chicken texture, we retired to a beer to plan the day.

While sitting, beer in hand, we received a sickly stare from across the room. The girl walked over and ordered a glass of ice. She then introduced herself. Lynda was feeling even worse than us. She and her friend Kirsten had been on a bender too. They had been in Vic Falls for the last seven days and had not been to the see the falls yet. We laughed considering our first sight of the falls on the Zambian side was on our forth day. We made arrangements to go, hangovers and all, and afterwards Marc could throw himself off the bridge.

Unlike the Zambian side in dry season, the falls on the Zimbabwean side is impressive. The plummeting river is deafening and large plumes of mist are blown by the wind, shocking you with its cold touch and comforting you from the unbearable heat of the Zambezi Valley. I am certain that the Zimbabwean side will not be as spectacular in flood because there would be so much water that the mist and spray would blind the view.

The four of us walked back to the bridge to organize Marc’s bungi jump. Unfortunately they had already started packing away and he would have to come back in the morning. We headed back to town. Marc and I were suddenly husbands to the Kiwi girls. They had so many advances from the local guys in Vic Falls over the past week, that they had said they were married, to keep them at bay. There were no advances while we walked with them back to Vic Falls Rest Camp, but apparently they were asked the following day why their husbands were traveling on bicycles.

Marc was up and at the bridge at eight o’clock for his jump. They only let him leap at nine. It seems that even adventure sports in Africa take their time. I prepared the food for the day and waited till Marc got back. He was buzzing and only when I saw the footage was I relieved I was not there. I would most definitely have had to man up and jump.

Our trip to Kasane was going to be hot. We only got out after ten and had 100 km to cycle. We pushed through the midday heat in the Zambezi National Park. Stopping only for lunch and keeping our eyes wide open for elephant and lion. We were blessed with a hot, dry tailwind keeping up our pace. 20 km from the border we heard a crack. To our right was a whole herd of elephants, not more than 20 metres from us, not a comfortable situation when you are pedaling up hill and know that if they charge they reach 40 km/h in about five steps.

This was the moment that Scotty, our rafting Welshman’s joke came back to mind. “Did you know that a male elephants sexual organs are in their feet?” “Because when he stands on you, you are F****d!” It was a strange time to be remembering jokes.

We crossed over into Botswana, our seventh and last country until we roll back into South Africa. We cycled into Kasane, dodging even more elephants and finding warthog in the Spar shopping centre. Botswana was already exciting us.






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