My friend, Sarah, and I decided to visit Zimbabwe for the day, if anything to get our passports stamped so we could each scratch one more country of our lists. Sarah’s been to something like 35 countries – yours truly 27.

We got a ride to the Zambian border, processed through Immigration and then crossed the Victoria Falls Bridge into Zimbabwe.

These signs are at the midway point on the bridge.

There is a significant amount of territory between the Immigration offices and the actual river, partly because trucks and cars must queue for customs before they can enter the respective counties. These lines of trucks also extend for over a mile before the customs checkpoints in the exiting counties as well. Some of these trucks can wait up to a week before they finally get across the border (especially at the ferry crossing, which is especially slow partly because of the limited capacity of the ferries).

While at Immigration in Zimbabwe, Sarah and I ran into Patrick, another Jollyboys alum who was heading south in his own SUV – one that he had driven from England. If only that truck could talk….

Patrick gave us a short lift into Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, the border town that is Livingstone’s counterpart. We stopped and had coffee at a very good tapas restaurant, run by a woman named Lola, who is a Spanish expat. When she arrived to start the day, we called out, “Hola, Lola!” We all had a good laugh.

Sarah and I said goodbye to Patrick and then walked to the Victoria Falls Hotel, a beautiful resort that harkened back to the glory days of British safari travel in the late 1920s. We ate a wonderful lunch overlooking the Victoria Falls Bridge.

We also had an unexpected visitor join us.

After lunch, we walked to the Overlook Cafe, a restaurant built on stilts over the Batoka Gorge, which is the gorge that the Zambezi River has cut just to the east of the Victoria Falls Bridge. It was a spectacular view of the river and the bridge.

I left Sarah to visit the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls (she had already paid the $30 park fee on a previous visit and didn’t want to pay it again). While the Zam side of the falls provides spectacular vistas, the Zim side is much longer and has its own claim to brilliant views. I chewed up a lot of camera memory taking so many pictures.

 

It’s hard NOT to get wet when one is around Vic Falls. The mist is everywhere and provides a much welcomed cooling off during the hot days around the area.

After waking the length of the park at the Falls, I returned to the Overlook where I collected Sarah and we set off for Zambia just as the sun was setting.