Walking across the border just to get moist...

Where to start...so yesterday we left the stunningly beautiful Lion sands Tinga lodge, and drove to the airport closest to Kruger.  Leaving was hard, but we were on our way to see Victoria falls.  I should have known when I had to get visas for Zambia as well as Zimbabwe, that it would be interesting.

The boarding was normal, even the flight was good.  There were some super idiotic Germans infront of us who kept moving around when landing to try and get a good view of the falls, the flight attendant looked defeated by them.  All you could see was the mist...no good views or anything. Once we landed and walked across the Tarmac, we were greeted by a massive lineup waiting to go through customs.  We waited probably 15 minutes, and the 4 lines were not moving at all. People were standing there just getting frustrated.  So Audrey walks up to ask, because we already had our visas, and he doesn't say a word and just stamps her visa and does the same for mine. Much to the annoyance of the crazy lines of people.  

Turns out that they are ridiculously slow at processing payments, and not overly motivated.  Glad we got the visa before hand or we would have been there for some time. We then got to our ride which we had to drive to the border and cross to Zimbabwe in.  I am totally used to our land borders that are all  stay in car style.  These you have to stop, get out go into a building for exiting the country, drive across the border, and do the same thing again.  

In the middle however you go across a bridge that people can bungee off of. There were tons of crazy there.  Once we got to the Zimbabwe border checkpoint, we get the passports stamped and get greeted by our second driver.  Apparently the one company doesn't go into the country.  Thus Thompsons our tour company was waiting and we had to walk across the border him pulling our luggage through the soft sand...one of the strangest things I have ever had to do in my travels to just enter a country.. as it was outside and disorganized. 

There is not much else to say, we went to a traditional place for dinner and had some fun stuff.  So far we have had ostrich, warthog, kudu, springboch, crocodile, impala, and of course beef and chicken. Most have not been bad I even had warthog again tonight.

Today however the fun began.  We set out early with a few others to our falls tour.  The falls is definitely huge and much like Niagara, Canada cersus the US, views, Zimbabwe has the superior views to Zambia.  So if you are thinking of going Zimbabwe is the better choice.  The only thing that requires the Zambian side was if you wanted to go swimming in the Devils pool.  

So our first views were cool:

As you can see it was super misty, it is the high season for water...so much was not able to be clearly seen all the time.

The path has many viewing points which show the full length of the falls. Here are some pics:

Now we weren't told that this is not like Niagara or even Iguassu, where sure you may get misty or damp if you say do the maid of the mist boat ride..but other than this you are fine.  This one there is almost a certainty that you will not get a bit misted, but completely soaked with little notice.  Like I am talking we could have got into a pool fully clothed and still been less wet than we got...lol

Lucky Audrey was quick acting and got the good camera away with little issue.  My own point and shoot I have been using is a tough Olympus cam, and that thing needs a lot more than water to bereaved it.

We did have ponchos, but because we were struck so suddenly, it was sorta like, meh, I'm already wet why be super hot and sticky wearing plastic too.

We also saw some People wearing maid of the mist ponchos actually...hit close to home.  :) suffice to say we went back to the hotel and changed.  If you are doing this wear quick dry stuff or a bathing suit,  don't bring expensive cams if not waterproof, and wear sandals that you don't mind getting wet.  

After this we went to lunch and the open markets. The bartering gets a bit much though.  The people have halarious English names though, we met a peanut, a label, a surprise and many other random names, or even just words.  

We then relaxed for a bit before a sunset cruise.  Quite nice African sunset with drinks

Overall awesome day.  We even saw the elephants come to the hotel watering hole:

Tomorrow we leave to Botswana to Chobe where they have tons of elephants as well as after that to the delta a swampy area.  Only 6 days left.  The time has definitely flown by!

-Jonathan