We flew from Mfuwe International Airport to the almost as small Henry Mwwanga International Airport in Livingstone (yes, the “Doctor Livingstone, I presume” Livingstone). Small, yes. But immaculate – super impressed with how sparkley all the airports we went through were compared to those in the US. We all have some serious cleaning and polishing to do here….
We stayed at a resort called The River Club. It was so purposefully 1900-colonial-era British that we started saying “cheerio,” “pip-pip,” and “old boy” in our sentences. A fascinating place that is laid out like an old English gentlemen’s club, it was full of antique furniture, photos, silver, art, and books from the early 1900s through 1970. The proprietor and owner Peter, a former Royal Army Engineer, was a walking encyclopedia on the history of the region and so friendly. He was always willing to stop and chat (which, with Alison’s questions, would turn into a half-hour discourse on some aspect of Zambian culture or history). The staff was fabulous, the food excellent. They even had little portable charcoal grills they would drop beside you if you were sitting out watching the sunset on a chilly evening.
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Our room (rooms, actually, as it was a split-level bungalow) had a balcony with an unobstructed view of the river and the sunset. The resort was clearly still recovering from Covid (like everywhere we went), and there were little things here and there out of place but we would go back in a heartbeat. It was a unique place to stay and Alison spent hours browsing the books and mementos in the different parts of the resort. The silver dollar-sized flat spiders hiding behind pictures on the bedroom walls ("totally harmless") and the lizards ("totally harmless") in the bungalow added to the rustic charm, and the crocodiles and hippos ("not totally harmless") floating by underneath the balcony added a certain zest to the stay missing in most US accomodations.
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Our first day, we did the historic Victoria Falls
bridge tour, which was fascinating. Finished in 1905, and at the time
the tallest bridge in the world, it was built and assembled in Britain
then disassembled and sent piece-by-piece to Zambia via ship, rail,
elephant, and cart – truly modern meets old means! Some of the pieces
were 10-ton support beams, forty feet long; it’s hard to imagine how it
all worked. When they built the bridge, they had to do it from both
sides to meet in the middle, and they met flawlessly (once the air
cooled down overnight). The construction used two electric cranes, odd
to hear when you tend to think of 1900s as the age of steam, not
electricity.
The tour was excellent. An actor pretending to be
Georges C. Imbault, the French engineer who was responsible for
construction of the bridge, provided history and led us on the tour
across the catwalks underneath the bridge itself. We had to wear
harnesses with safety lines (doubled up so you could cross barriers
while always having at least one safetly line connected); they didn’t
feel that necessary but added a sense of safety. Occasionally, people
would plummet off the bridge on the other side toward the raging Zambezi
River below (bungee jumpers to be precise).
One fun fact is that
the Zambezi River is the dividing line between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and
the bridge is kind of a "no man's land." We had to give up our passports
to walk all the way across the bridge and pick them up again when we
left. But we can validly say we went to Zimbabwe on this trip,
too!
Entertainingly enough, when we were at the Bushcamp Company
Bilimungwe camp, the host told us a story about one of her friends who
had done the Victoria Falls bridge bungee jump. Except her bungee
line SNAPPED, sending her plummeting into the rapids below! The friend
managed to swim to shore, breaking a leg in the process of scrambling up
the rocky riverbank in the fierce eddies from the river, but surviving
the incident otherwise uscathed. Thinking this had to be an urban
legend, Alison asked the Victoria Falls bridge guide about it. His
eyes lit up. "Yes, yes, 2011, I remember it well!" And The River Club
guide with us also remembered it! Both assured us that the safety
procedures for bungee jumping have vastly improved since then.
We did not bungee jump.
One other note. The same
Bilimungwe host told us about a friend of hers who was impaled on the
horn of a rampaging buffalo and lived to tell the tale (with a big
scar). Alison pointed out that being her friend was dangerous.
Or lucky...
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 You could see the technology changes that occured over time like changing from rivets to bolts |
 Bungee jumper. There were also zip lines across the river. Both looked a litte too extreme for us (see above story). |
In the evening, we went to see the “moon rainbow” over Victoria Falls. On a night with a full moon, light reflects from the mist of the Falls which results in a rainbow. It’s more interesting in theory than in practice; you could see the rainbow but not as clearly as the iPhone did, with its ability to do long exposure times, in this picture. For us, debatably worth the three and a half hour trip: driving to the Falls, waiting for the moon to get high enough in the sky, drinking a few Gin and Tonics to pass the time (like you do), and then driving back.
The next day started with a high speed boat ride up the Zambezi River - exhilarating and fun! It included a couple of stops to see sights along the way (hippos, beecatchers, alligators, etc. – by now feeling normal to see!). It ended at the Elephant Café, which offered an opportunity to feed a number of marginally domesticated elephants and a remarkable lunch looking out over the Zambezi. The staff did a little presentation about why it was important to elephant conservation to have attractions that let people have direct experience with these highly intelligent animals. Having by then seen elephants in the wild, and almost as close, it felt kind of off somehow. Which is ironic because prior to this trip, Alison would have jumped at the chance to feed or ride an elephant like we did in Thailand. Now? Not so much.
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In the afternoon, we went to see Victoria Falls itself beyond the bridge tour … and it’s everything you would expect from the world’s second largest waterfalls. The locals call Victoria Falls "Mosi-Oa-Tunya" -- "the smoke that thunders" in the Lozi and Kololo languages -- a name suggested by the roar of the waterfalls, the columns of fine spray that smoke from the abyss, and, on attaining a height of from 200 to 300 feet above the upper water level, condense into a perpetual rainshower. The walkway along the Zambian side ventured into the “mist” zone. Where we learned that “mist” means “monsoon levels of rain.” The “mist” from the Falls made rainbows everywhere you looked, some of which were even circular. It was wonderful, sodden fun and the Falls? Truly magnificent.
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We had a short break, then it was time for a sunset cruise, a more sedate boat ride up and down the Zambezi. It was relaxing being out on the water, with the ever-present G&T in hand. We saw crocodiles, hippos, monkeys, water birds and a mass of Egyptian Geese. Then the ride was cut a bit short by engine failure, and we were towed in before the sunset really took hold but even that was silly and fun. Plus we then got to watch the sunset next to the aforementioned charcoal brazier, drinks still in hand!
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 Getting a tow after the engine fail |
 Staff waiting to help secure the boat |
The next day, we left for Botswana to meet up with Joe and Mel.