Along with our stay at Chobe Game Lodge, we took the opportunity to make a day trip into Zimbabwe to see Victoria Falls. We'd been warned that it was late in dry season, so the falls would be running low, but they were still very impressive. However, first we had to deal with the two-hour transit.
This is partly because it took 20 minutes to get out of Chobe national park, then a pass through Kasane (kind of a cute little town) to pay the tour company at their office before we could even go to the border. It only took like 15-20 minutes to get our exit stamp from Botswana and our entry stamp from Zimbabwe. Both of these feel halfway like the honor system -- first, our Botswanan driver took us to the building where Botswana would handle our exit, which involved filling in a paper slip since their computer was down. Then, he drove us to the Zimbabwe building, and went off to find our Zimbabwean tour guide while we were going through the entry immigration.
It turns out we were lumped in with a dutch family of 4 for the tour, which we hadn't expected, but they were nice. The drive from the border was another hour or so, and then we got to the park itself.
Our guide lazily told them all of us were Dutch, which was funny, but it didn't really matter. Vic Falls has 16 viewpoints on the Zim side, and he had us do them in reverse order, mostly because of the temperature. It was still morning, but it was already blazing hot in the sun (probably over 35 C), and the higher-numbered viewpoints are very exposed. Additionally, the falls down there are honestly less exciting then the main falls by the lower-numbered viewpoints, so it builds up to a better climax to count down rather than count up.
This also gave us a good view of the bridge to Zambia (which we would also see later from lunch). But as we worked our way down to the main falls, we started to get "rained" on by the powerful mist generated by the falls.
Finally, as we got to the lowest-numbered viewpoints, you could get a nice view up-river and views down the length of the chasm.
After that, we got a bit of backstory about the british dude who named it in english, David Livingstone. An aside, the falls obviously already had names in local languages, and my favorite translates to "the smoke that thunders".
David Livingstone
British dude who “discovered” the falls by asking some locals about it.
He was a missionary and "explorer" who got locals to help him map out the Zambezi river and its tributaries. He was particularly excited by the falls (who wouldn't be) and literally pitched a camp on the Zambian side overlooking everything. He also helped push the British crown to fight to end the slave trade in southeastern Africa, so that's a positive. He later died from his 17th bout of malaria. I didn't even know you could get malaria that many times.
Our guide took us to a tourist restaurant for lunch that I'm pretty sure is owned by the tour company (the staff had shirts with the same company's name on it). Despite being touristy, it was pretty good, and had a great view.
Our guide took us to a big, old baobab tree, which was neat, though it was a bit barren of foliage. Though the real reason he took us there was to coerce us to shop from the trinket vendors there. They were very aggressive at trying to get us to buy things, and assured us they had hand-made each item. Actually, there was one person who was honest about which items he had made versus ones that were manufactured, so credit where credit's due.
Finally, the guide took us through a nearby township and explained a lot about how the average Zimbabwean lives. It's tough to get a home and tough to get a job, but the government does try to help. They have a standard house, though it sounds like applying for a house for your family can have a waitlist many years long. We walked through a local market, where you can buy fresh produce as well as dry beans and lentils.
We had to go through the same border shuffle in reverse to get back into Botswana, with the added fun of having to step in antiseptic bath to ensure we didn't track in any foot-and-mouth disease.
Since we're on the topic of crossing country borders, it's worth mentioning our transit to Cape Town via Zambia. There's an airport right next to Chobe, Kasane, but it has very limited flight options, meaning it didn't have a flight to CT on the day we were leaving. So we took a flight from Livingstone, Zambia, which is right across the border from Vic Falls. This meant the same 2 hour trek, but this time it was a little different.
We crossed the Kazungula bridge, which crosses the four corner "Bonazazi" point where Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe (do you get it? bo-na-za-zi?) all meet, and where the Chobe river flows into the Zambezi.
The checkpoint here was a bit more advanced than the one into Zim, with Botswana and Zambia having booths across the floor from each other in the same building. Again, it feels vaguely "honor system" that you have to stop in a building and do the paperwork, but I'm sure the cameras at the car gates would catch anyone who skips that step.
Our driver took us through Livingstone itself, telling us that it used to the be capital of Zambia, and it's full of preserved buildings from the colonial era. It's an attractive town, but obviously mostly a tourist hub because of the falls nearby.
Going into Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula International Airport, which is the new official name for Livingstone airport, they have crazy car security before you can be dropped off. We had to step out of the car with our bags, while it was searched inside and out (and underneath), before getting back in for the final 500m drive to the terminal. A porter took our bags and started wheeling them without even asking, but thankfully we had some tip money prepared. I don't know what other people do, but we tipped each driver (in each of Botswana and Zambia) $20 usd, and tipped the porter $2. They use USD as much as possible, so even if you're not american, I strongly recommend bringing a stash of small and medium-sized bills ($1, $5, $20) for this.
Zambian airport security was fascinating. They didn't like my 3-4 charging cables, so I had to unpack my backpack quite a bit. Then, I guess because of the wire situation or something, I got the pleasure of a full pat-down. But, as always, just stay cooperative and polite and it all resolved smoothly.
The airport has a lounge that takes priority pass. It was open, but we were the only people there. She only had refrigerated drinks, no coffee, but the lone staff member went downstairs and brought us each a full plate of food. A chicken curry sandwich with salad on the side. It was honestly pretty good, and very much unexpected (we didn't order it, even; she just brought it).
At the lone gate, they wandered person-to-person to do "boarding", meaning checking your boarding pass against your passport by hand and then collecting the coupon end of it. Paper boarding passes are the only way here! Once they opened the door to the apron, we just walked up to the plane and climbed the stairs, since everyone had already been processed.
