Woke up at 6 and jogged to the bridge that connects Zambia with Zimbabwe. We are afraid to spend much money and even more afraid of bungee jumping, or breaking the back while white-water rafting, so jogging 11.6km is a cheap way to do something mildly extreme. The road is dusty, and not always smooth, the sun is quickly rising and it's getting hot, baboons and criminals and hiding in the bushes.
Just before the entrance to the Mosi-ao-Tunya National Park, the road passes a couple of fancy hotels. E.g. the Royal Livingstone has been built for people who don't mind spending 800 USD to spend a night next to the Victoria Falls. Every evening they offer something called "afternoon tea" where for 18 USD one can eat as much cake and sandwiches as possible. This is actually pretty good value...
Next to the hotels, we spot a couple of zebras and giraffes. Unclear if they live in the national park or the hotels' private garden. Zebras and giraffes live friendly side by side, not stepping onto each others toes (odd in the case of the zebra, even for the giraffe): zebras graze, giraffes browse. Giraffes can spot a predator from a distance using their eyesight, while zebras report the danger relying on smell and hearing.
Upon on arrival at the border (around half eight), we sit down, drink water and have some biscuits. I've just realized that we have left the passports at the camp. Can one enter the bridge without a passport?
Trip odometer: 11.6km Moving time: 1h 34min Total time: 1h 41min (stopped to watch a couple of zebras and giraffes) Moving average: 7.4km/h Overall average: 6.8km/h Time at finish: 8.33 Elevation: forgot to record as baboon attacked
We sit one on each side of a narrow path, leading to the immigration office. At one point I notice a baboon walking along the path between us. He (she?) (it?) looks casual, as if coming from the office, on his way back to his car, or going to the bridge. The next thing I notice, is a tug-of-war fight between Cs and the baboon, using my backbag as the rope. The baboon loses, but manages to grab our pack of vanilla biscuits with him. He eats it in about 1 second (incl. opening the pack).
We can enter the border area without showing our passports. One only needs to express his/her wish to see the bridge, and gets a stamped piece of paper in return. This piece of paper is handed over to a man at the gate, and we're on our way to the bridge.
Still few people on the bridge. Just people who are selling obsolete Zimbabwean dollars (e.g. the largest nomination is 100 trillion dollars), woodcarvings, and njama-njama necklaces, and people who are setting up the bungee ropes.
From the bridge, one can see the Zimbabwean side (e.g. a large white building, the Victoria Falls hotel), the 1st gorge with the "boiling point" and the first 4 rapids. The waterfalls are not really visible, strangely, one cannot see the "smoke" from here at all. ("Mosi-oa-Tunya" stands for "the smoke of thunder".)
It's still early — nobody bungee jumping, and down by the boiling point, rafters just getting ready, both on the Zambian and on the Zimbabwean side. But the sun is already very hot, and we are constantly hassled by people who just don't care that we already have many woodcarvings, necklaces, and even 5 different obsolete large nomination Zimbabwean bank notes. We just don't need any more of that stuff.
So we find a staircase next to the bridge, going up to something that seems to be a picnic area. It turns out that it's a bungee jumping registration center. We are allowed to sit at the bar that offers a good view to the bungee jumpers. The registration lady probably hopes that we change our mind and go for the 100 US dollar 110 meter jump never-the-less.
At some point the jumping starts. Some people also do the gorge swing: free-falling into the gorge and swinging back. The rafters have also started. The first few rapids that we can see from the bridge before the river zigzags into the next gorge, are not so impressive: nobody flips over.
At some point we leave the bridge. Water is finished, baboon stole the biscuits. The only food left is an orange but don't want to eat it as it would make the hands sticky and there is no water to wash them.
Taxi to town costs 50,000. We have decided to spend as little money today as possible, and thus try to find somebody who would share the taxi. Not many people are going back to Livingstone, it's still early, people are just arriving at the falls.
We buy a bottle of Coke (3000). A local woodcarver points us to a dala-dala station, although they are not called "dala-dala" here. The system is the same however: one has to wait until the minibus is full (approx. 14 people), before it leaves the station. The price is good though: 2500 ZK per person to Livingstone. While we wait (approx. 1h in total), we talk to the driver. As always, we introduce ourselves as coming from Finland. This keeps things simple as nobody really knows where Estonia is (not many people actually know where Finland is either). The driver knows that Finland is in Scandinavia and asks about the current weather in Finland, as usual. Then he mentions "sisu", having seen this word on a medicine box, or something of that sort. This is quite surprising.
The ride back is quick, the bus stops only once before reaching the main station in Livingstone, just next to the Zimbabwean black market where one can buy cheap Nikolai vodka, or vodka made from sugarcane, or vodka in a plastic bag with a picture of Rambo.
We buy a 500ml bottle of water (2000), then two soft drinks and a pack of potato crisps at Shoprite (10,900), then eat at a fast food place: spring roll, chicken pie (9500). Then walk back to the camp (about 15min walk) and swim in the pool.
Then back to town. The latest "Harry Potter" at the Capitol (10,000 each). We are the only members of the audience. The film has lousy sound plus the air-conditioning is buzzing in the background. The movie has occasional Chinese subtitles, and starts skipping in the end. Can't really follow the story and fall asleep a couple of times.
After the movie, have an ice cream (3000) and then spend 45min in the internet (6000) before going back to the camp. The Dropbox uploads all the files except for the 155MB video of the Duma Explorers singing the Kilimanjaro song. The internet is slow, it would take another 5h to have this file uploaded.
Go back to camp, swim, have a beer, and write this text.
Total cost of the Livingstone experience for two: 3000 + 2*2500 + 2000 + 10900 + 9500 + 2*10000 + 3000 + 6000 = 59400 (approx. 12 USD)