Victoria Falls

By Zach.

The road out of Kasane is lined with trucks for at least 2 kilometres. All waiting for their turn to take the barge across the river or for completion of the new bridge, whichever comes first. Someone told us it can take up to a week for a truck to reach the front of the line as the barge only takes one at a time. The bridge will make a huge difference but construction faces it's own challenges. The bridge is shaped in a large curve as Zimbabwe has insisted it not cross it's section of the river. Foot passengers get to skip the line so it's not an issue for us and we are in Zambia about half an hour after reaching the border. One hour and an eventful taxi ride later we are in Livingstone. 

Considering it is home to one of the wonders of the world, there is not a lot in Livingstone. The hostel is pretty nice and there are a few good restaurants but the usual trappings of tourist towns are missing. But you don't need much else when you've got the Victoria Falls. From the hillside outside the hostel we could see the spray from the falls rising hundreds of metres into the air. The river was at it's highest when we were there, which meant the power of the falls was at it's fullest. We were warned that we would get wet but for some reason we assumed this referred to a light mist. We took our rain coats just in case (thank God) but the reality of what we were about to walk into didn't really dawn on us until we met the line of soaking wet tourists coming the other way.

 From the Zambian side of the Zambezi river there is a cliff jutting out some 50 metres from the edge of the falls with a path of stone steps leading down to a bridge which takes you out to an island of stone rising a hundred metres from the river below. Over all of this is a storm. The spray from the falls rains up into your face as you cross this bridge, continuing up into the sky only to descend and wet you again in huge torrents. A rain coat is small defence against this monsoon. We stand in the middle of it all straining to catch a glimpse of the falls itself, visible only momentarily through lighter patches of the rain. Eventually we climb back to the Zambian bank of the river and take a look from behind. The water rushes past at high speed and signs warn us of penalties for swimming (aside from death). Navigating the other direction we follow the cliffs around to view the falls from a distance. We can barely make out the bridge that we stood on not half an hour before through the thick of the rain. From here the spray makes several rainbows and falls on us as the light mist that we expected. We look down on the churning circle of water called "the boiling pot" where the waters of the Zambezi crash up against yet another cliff and create waves and whirlpools before eventually escaping down the river.

We spend a few days in Livingstone waiting for the full moon and my birthday, which happen to coincide and present us with an amazing opportunity. When the water is high and the moon is full the spray creates a lunar rainbow and the falls are open at night to showcase this spectacle. I start the day with a cycling tour of Livingstone, one of Lonely Planets recommended highlights. My guide, Wezi, who moonlights as the goal keeper for Livingstone's football team, takes me on a tour of the local villages. He explains what life is like for the locals here, starting with our ride out through the wealthy suburbs of the town itself. Green lawns and big houses are the standard markers of wealth but they become particularly apparent as we move into the next suburb. Small squat uniform buildings that once accommodated government employees are now the middle class part of town. The people who live here have good jobs as cleaners or cooks or gardeners in town. Some of them can even afford to have electricity hooked up to their homes. Further out we reach the villages. Here the houses are more like huts made of wood and mud and thatch or tin broken up by small fields of maize. Wezi stops here and we are mobbed by children. He tells me to take some photo's and show them because they never get to see their own reflection or image, so this is a treat for them.

Outside the village is the quarry. A medium size hole in the ground in which men and women are breaking down chips of blue stone by hand. They break chunks away from the quarry wall and slowly break them down to the point where they can be hit with a hammer and smashed into coin sized pieces. These pieces are packed into large sacks, each one the product of many hours work that will sell for approximately $5AUD. Wezi points to an old lady sitting slightly off by herself, raising a stone with both hands to slam it down against an anvil rock. He tells me she is 80 years old and my heart breaks. This is life for those born in the village, he tells me. The only hope for something else is education, which is not free in Zambia.

From there we ride back across town to another of the middle class suburbs where we visit a primary school. This school is free, funded by the cycle tour and other projects. Here the students learn in English and Tchonga, they are fed and helped with clothes and given all sorts of support that they would otherwise not receive. My perspective on education is definitely changing thanks to Africa. There are plenty of problems with the system we have in the western world but you can really see how essential it is when it is missing. We finish with a quick stop at the local market and maize mill (where they make the flour for nshima, this will be important later in Zambia) and a local bar, where I try the local beer. Chibuku is somewhat similar to the beer we tried in Soweto, only thicker and more sour. The first cup is ok but I soon regret buying a whole bottle! 

After the tour we head down to the falls to meet up with Joel and Amy, an American couple we had met a few days earlier who had told us about the lunar rainbow. Now, the thing here is that the Falls are open on full moon nights from 6pm but they shut the park at 5pm and kick everyone out and you have to pay to get back in (at an increased rate). It's already a fairly steep $25 to get in and none of us are keen to pay the extra so we hatch a plan to take some snacks and a couple bottles of wine in during the afternoon and hide out round the far side of the falls and watch the sun set while we wait for the gates to reopen. As we are setting our little picnic up a baboon appears and steals Joel's rain coat (one of the ones you can rent at just outside the rain storm section of the falls) takes it off a ways and proceeds to try and eat it. I manage to get it back by tempting the baboon away with a packet of chips which I throw down the path before retrieving the abandoned jacket. We relocate our picnic away from the baboons and enjoy the rest of the sunset.

6 o'clock comes and goes and we theorise that we should give it an extra half an hour for the crowd to build up before slipping back around to the top of the falls. We make it past the gate no problems and are almost to the falls (and the crowd where we can blend in) when a security guard appears with another man. It seems Joel and Amy thought they had bought the rain coat where in fact they had only rented it and the man who runs the stall had been looking for them to get it back. The security guard, suspecting (correctly) that someone is sneaking into the lunar rainbow session, is helping him look. In any other continent that would probably have been the end of our plan, but this is Africa. The security guard asks us if we have our tickets and without blinking Amy replies that we threw them in the bin when we got in because we didn't think we needed them any more. There begins a little game of bluff and negotiate. The security guard, rather than kicking us out or taking us back to the ticket office, produces a ticket and offers it to us. Joel in turn offers him a tip for his trouble and two mins later the four of us are watching the lunar rainbow spectacle for less than the price of a single ticket and richer one entertaining story.