Community Festival and Victoria Falls

We’re back from Livingstone after a great 2 days vacation.

Colin arrived on Sunday after some long and miserable flights, from the sounds of them. Our driver Joseph and I picked him up and immediately went back to the village where community activities were happening, Simonga Village. Today the older kids were playing netball and soccer and there was also a challenge football match between SHARe tourist company partners and town players. Colin was exhausted, but I figured it was better for him to be kept busy rather than hanging in a hotel room, falling asleep.


Photo: Kids lined up for their chicken lunch
When we got to the village, they had started feeding the kids. SHARe had planned to feed 2,000 children with chicken from Zambezi Nkuku, a partner that provides chickens to the tourist industry. SHARe staff had brought in 2 extra police just to help create order as nutritious meals were handed out for free. They had clearly done their job as there was a line of children probably 450 kids long, snaking around, patiently waiting. Zambezi Nkuku is very focused on hygiene, not just among their staff working in chicken raising, but encouraging staff to bring what they learn home. On Sunday each child had to wash his or her hands with soap and water and receive a stamp to show their hands were washed and they’d been fed.

After all the community activities, we moved from the hotel where all the SHARe staff were staying in the town of Livingstone, out to the swanky hotel next to Victoria Falls, the Zambezi Sun. You can walk through the grounds of the Sun to the falls, so as soon as we checked in, we walked over there. It was 5:30 and the gate was closing at 6pm, so we didn’t have much time.

There are typically guys renting raincoats as you go in, but they’d already packed up for the night. We quickly found out why one wants a raincoat — as we made our way down the damp stairs, stopping at some of the overlooks to take photos as the sun kept moving lower and lower on the horizon, the spray increased until it was a downpour. By the time we got to the bridge that spans a deep ravine, we realized that there was no crossing it without getting soaked. We put our heads down and walked quickly across anyway. By the time we got to the other side, we were drenched and the sun was setting, so we decided not to persevere but turned back to cross the bridge again. This time, the wind must have picked up, because it was wetter than ever! We ran back, just missing photos of the sun going behind the gorge, but did get some nice shots of the sunset.


Colin getting a shower on the bridge opposite the falls

The Sun is a modern, funky orange-painted hotel with cute patterns and designs in the rooms and the grounds. It’s known to be expensive and the dinner was, without being overly delicious (but for the desserts, which were!).

After a good night’s sleep — Colin slept for 10 hours — we had to set an alarm to get up for a visit to Livingstone Island. The island had been strongly recommended by Judi, the American owner of Zambezi Nkuku, as the one thing we MUST do if we could only do one thing while in Livingstone.

The boat to take us to the island left from the other hotel at the falls, an incredibly swanky and stuffy place called the Royal Livingstone. Apparently the rates start at $900/night, so it was a bit beyond our means on this trip! The boat ride to the island only took about 5 minutes, heading from the hotel directly to the island at the top of the Falls. Once we got there, we were welcomed with a local drink of sweet cornmeal (after one sip, I dumped mine in the bush... Colin says he just chugged his to get through it!), and our guide, Alpha-omega, took us around the island. It’s small and after we were suited up with raincoats, we quickly found ourselves next to the edge of the falls. Alpha-omega then encouraged us to get closer, and holding our hands let us look over the side of the 108 meter gorge as just 5 feet away the water rushed over the edge of the falls. You couldn’t see much because the spray is so thick, but when the winds caught the mist we'd get a glimpse of how far down the water cascades.

Colin at the edge of the falls

When the water is lower, later in the summer, there is a place one can jump rocks and swim out to — the Devil’s Hole - and sit in water immediately above the falls, but there was too much water out there for such a dip on Monday!

Once we’d completed the brief tour of the island, we were treated to a lovely breakfast of eggs Benedict under a tent overlooking the falls. Very nice — though both Colin and I are a bit uncomfortable with people doing everything for us... as he said, “I CAN put a napkin on my lap by myself!”

After brunch (or, our “Breezer,” as they called it), we were ferried back to the Royal Livingston and took the shuttle back to the Zambezi Sun. We had enough time to go back to the Falls, this time wearing our raincoats, to really explore the paths and views of Victoria Falls from the other side of the gorge from where we’d just had breakfast. It all looked quite different from the night before, given the sun overhead.

Colin had toyed with the idea of bungee jumping off the bridge that spans the gorge between Zambia and Zimbabwe. From the falls walk, we got an excellent view of what that entailed — suffice to say, Colin reconsidered jumping!

At noon on Monday we checked out of the Zambezi Sun and awaited our ride to Tongabezi, the most amazing lodge on the Zambezi river.