| Page Views: 2,151 Last Visit to Victoria Falls: May, 2002 | "The Smoke that Thunders" by grets - last update: Aug 5, 2004 |
Victoria Falls | View of the falls from the helicopter |
We spent a wonderful week in Victoria Falls taking side trips by car, mini bus, truck, jet boat, canoe, river cruiser, helicopter and on foot.
The following - as well as most of the tips - is an extract from my diary written at the time:
Immigration in Zimbabwe is very slow. David goes straight throuhg, but as a Norwegian passport holder I need a visa, so I have to queue with all the other aliens. The Americans in front of me are very confused about the price of the visa, it's $30 for a single entry or $45 for double entry, but the captain announced the airport tax on the flight as $20, which has totally mixed up the Americans. They try to argue the price, and then claim they don't have the money. Sad, but true. I have to translate for the Germans behind me as they are confused too. It takes forever. The cases have arrived and poor David is just standing there waiting for me to come tthough. There are no proper queues or little boxes with bars in front for the immigration officials to sit in, just one big room with a couple of desks and the luggage carousel.
Jojo meets us with a little mini-van. There are only us two for the transfer to town, which takes 20 minutes.
Our first task is to change some money. The official exchange rate is ZIM$51 to the US$, but we get 'highjacked' by some touts and taken to a Bureau de Change which gives us ZIM$250. I carefull check each note as I have been warned that you could end up with a roll of newspaper. It all seems OK.
We also find the Internet Cafe but there is a queue so we go off and have a beer in the Hunters Bar. We are the only white people in the bar, having said that, we haven't actually seen that many tourists (whites) in the town at all. Just a couple. The beer costs us 20p and we get chatting to a couple of the locals. They all seem genuinly friendly and we feel very much at ease. |
|  | The falls are ever so noisy in the night, I am awake for a while considering the reason why the locals call the falls Mosi Oa Tunya - the Smoke that Thunders. It sounds like a cross between thunder and a train in the still of the night.
While having breakfast one day we think we can hear an elephant trumpeting, but we can't see anything. Just as we are leaving the hotel, the receptionist points it out to us - three elephants just the other side of the road. What a wild place!
Another day, on the walk back to the hotel from town, one of the locals says something to us as we pass. I'm not quite sure what he says, it sounds something like 'elephant'. Sure enough, right there by the side of the road is a large, wild, African elephant. I thought those warnings about wild elephants in town at night was an exaggeration. Obviously not.%c* |
| Wildlife on the guided walk |
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| Pros: | "Plenty of activities on hand, excellent prices, great wildlife" | | Cons: | "Elephants" | | In A Nutshell: | "One of our favourite destinations" |
grets' Victoria Falls Travel Tips
 Comments for grets about Victoria Falls | | | | |
magor65 Thu Jun 25, 2009 20:30 UTC
Great page and great adventure. I hope to see Victoria Falls next year. | nora_south_africa Sat May 3, 2008 06:52 UTC
thanx for the tips | SLLiew Mon Nov 27, 2006 14:22 UTC
Incredible page on Victoria Falls and adjacent parks of wild animals. Can hear the water and the elephants. Cheers, SL | kyoub Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:26 UTC
Excellent page, Grete. Who was that lady having dinner with your husband?LOL |
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