Livingstone, Zambia (Victoria Falls)

We arrived in Livingstone, Zambia with the intent of visiting Victoria Falls, the Seventh Natural Wonder of the World as well as being a Unesco World Heritage Site. This has been a dream of mine for MANY years, ever since I saw a video of the falls on my friend Tina’s camera! This is our little bungalow at Green Tree Lodge…a property running with bunnies and Guinea Fowl and owned by a Scotsman. Seriously.

Our first night we decided to have cocktails at sunset on the deck of the Royal Livingstone hotel. The hotel is stunning. It shares property with the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park…so on the drive in we passed a herd of Zebra. The mist in the picture above is the edge of the falls.

As the sun set we watched hippo’s play in the Zambezi river. One of their favorite things to do is open wide and yawn! They also make the most unbelievable sounds…very distinctive. They provided entertainment every time a boat went by, as the big male would lunge at it!

The next day we headed to Chobe National Park in Botswana. We decided to do a day safari; boat safari in the morning and land safari in the afternoon. This is the border crossing…the ferry boat can only carry ONE truck at a time. The line of trucks was unreal….some sit there for a week at a time! They are planning to build a bridge…someday.

The boat safari was amazing…we saw birds, warthogs, buffalo, elephants, crocodiles, antelopes (all kinds), hippo’s….One of the most exciting moments was when this herd of Cape Buffalo decided to stampede. They ran along the shore and then into the water…where crocodiles attacked…they then ran back onto shore and got stuck in a huge mud pit. One did not make it out.

We viewed many hippos in the water…and were lucky enough to watch these guys get on shore. They normally only graze at night as their skin is actually very sun sensitive. They do secrete a “sunscreen” from their skin….it looked like big beads of sweat.

We saw herds of elephants..bulls, females and babies. The day before was the first rain of the season, so apparently many of the elephants had left the river with the idea that their waterholes would soon be filled again.

Our land safari was not nearly as interesting…but we did get to drive by the river…it is amazing to see all the different animals living together. In this picture alone there are warthogs, baboons, hippos, antelope and birds.

Victoria Falls! Not what I expected…as it is currently dry season. In the wet season this is all flowing water, however, the spray is so great you can barely see! We were lucky enough to take a tour out to Livingstone Island. This island can only be accessed 6 months out of the year.

We walked out to the very edge of the falls….they lose one person every year over this very edge. Yikes. Our guide kept close watch! One million liters of water fall per second, down a 108 meter drop.

We were lucky enough to be able to swim in the Devils Pool. I had NO IDEA that we would be swimming on the edge of the falls. In order to take this picture, our guide stood on the lip of the falls. You can see the river at the bottom of the gorge. It made my heart pound just watching him!

And then we joined him. You could jump straight into this pool…and swim right up to the edge of the falls. There is a shelf of rock that keeps you from going over….but to the right of us…no shelf. This ranks among the top ten of crazy things we have done this year. Can you imagine anyone letting you do this in the United States? Ha ha! Now on to Tanzania for our 10 day safari!