WEATHER: Ball freezing first thing and then hot as an oven arriving into Vic Falls 29C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: The sun warming up the day
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Subzero temperatures on the morning game drive
BUYS OF THE DAY: Beers at the camp site = 2USD
WORD OF THE DAY: HOA – High on Africa
ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Lilac breasted roller, alligators, giraffes, steinbocks, elephants, waterbucks
CAMP SITE RANKING: AWESOME – center of town, cheap Wi-Fi, hot hot showers, flushing toilets and the largest mozzies I have seen – but we can’t have it all can we - 6 out of 5 stars
Up at 5.45am for a 6.30am departure. You can never see too many animals, especially when you are in Africa! So we hit the safari game drive again for the third time in 24 hours. No complaints as we are in animal territory. So 6 hours after coming off our night drive, we piled back into the jeeps, all rugged up again, in our 10 layers plus plus plus to try and keep ourselves warm for the 3 hours we were going to be out in the park. I had on all the warmest clothes I had, my sleeping bag, my woolen blanket and my Masai – go on wind chill, hit me with your best shot. Well flip it was FREEZING the wind chill hit us big time, but we were warm enough, just. It was the face and the hands that were getting the caning, but we survived. I can’t say it was the most successful game drive, we didn’t see a hell of a lot of animals, but the highlight was seeing a family of 4 elephants, all different ages, and it made for some great photo shots. We got back to camp at 10am for an already prepared brunch, which it looked like Simon had tried to use the last of the food, as there was quite a combination of plates to choose from.
Back on the road at 11am for our 2.5 hour drive to Victoria Falls and the last stop for this component of the trip. Once we arrived into Vic Falls we were taken directly to the Adventure place, to see what was on offer and to start making bookings for the next few days. I am only going to do the helicopter ride this time round. A lot of the group is doing the white water rafting, the bungee and the gorge swing. So there will be a lot of busy people in the next few days. I have some housekeeping duties to do, so I am happy to have a few chill days and get some stuff done.
After setting up camp, group of us got a lift down to the falls. No trip to Zimbabwe is complete without a trip to the infamous falls. Last time I was here, the falls were not as spectacular as this visit with not much water, but today was AMAZING. We started at no.1 and then made our way through all the view points to the main view of the falls and then down to the end to have a rest on the rocks right on the edge of the falls before they turn and head back into a valley. Around no.14-17, was where we got the wettest, with a fine mist, depending on which way the wind blew, which would cover you. There was a rainbow that was there the whole time, so we were quite lucky the sun was in the sky and it was a beautiful day. The falls are truly spectacular and I would have to rate them right up there with Niagara Falls. I am looking forward to seeing them tomorrow from the sky.
So we walked back to the camp site, which was around 20 minutes, showered and made ourselves a little pretty for our final dinner as we have our last night together as a group. We are eating at the camps restaurant tonight, so with laptop in hand, I bought some Wi-Fi from the bar, bought a cold Castle beer, and uploaded the past weeks blogs before dinner. This is a pretty awesome camp site and I am looking forward to spending the next 3 days here.
Dinner was off the menu and the most popular choice seemed to be the warthog snitzel (which is what I got) and the ostrich burger. The night wore on as well as the drinks and after watching some locals perform and sing, we headed to a backpackers that had a bar called Shoestring. So we drank and danced some more till the place shut at midnight. This was a blessing in disguise, as none of us were ready to stop, but more than half of the guys were white water rafting in the morning and getting picked up at 7.30am, so we headed back to camp, fluffed around with the last goodbyes and in the tent at 12.45am. I am glad that I have no commitments in the morning as we were all pretty pissed. Good-luck guys, I am going to have a sleep in and enjoy my day off.
Welcome to Vic Falls - Zimbabwe
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