Mother Nature at Work

The falls were fantastically amazing.  They definitely rank as one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen.  I first saw them in the morning as I wandered the 500 or so feet off the hotel grounds to the Zambian side of the falls.  I heard the falls before I could see them.  I was ridiculously stoked (for lack of a better word) when I saw them.  I went alone (the rest of the group slept in) and basically I was talking out loud to myself about how freaking cool it was there.  I walked down until the part of the falls where the water from the falls started to become rain and drench anyone who dared get close enough to them.  When I went the next day with friends we went even further and went as far as the “Knife and Fork” bridge, which is a bridge right next to the falls.  We thought of crossing it, but there was zero point to that as there was zero visibility and 100% drench factor. 

It’s hard to say which side is more impressive and I can now understand why people are divided over this issue (I read a ton about which side was “better” before I left the US).  I suppose if I had a gun to my head, I’d say the Zimbabwean side for its sheer mass, but the proximity that can be obtained from the Zambian side made me a bit more in awe. 

The People

I found the Zambian and Zimbabweans to be extremely friendly, beautiful, and helpful.  In a personality contest, the Zambians win hands down over their neighbours.  Perhaps that has more to do with the current political climate in Zimbabwe.  The tension at the border town was palpable and some of the Zim’s had a certain edge to them.  There was a level of sadness and abject poverty that permeated the town, but that was also juxtaposed against the government workers and Zim elite who were dropping dollars like they were hot.  For example, we went to this crap restaurant called the “Chicken Inn,” that our guide recommended to us.  He said it was the “best” restaurant in town and that “everyone is talking about it.”  Our meals were like $7 each, which is an expensive meal for them, but it was packed (yet kids were begging right outside of the Chicken Inn).   On a side note, it’s very possible that I might still end up with cholera from eating there.  We hated the place…there was a problem with nearly everyone’s bill and the cashier refused to give one of the guy’s his change, claiming she didn’t have it (she later relented).  I was owed 50 cents and she looked in the register and grabbed some random coin from Botswana, shrugged her shoulders, and handed it to me.  That’s going to come in handy!

I just loved the Zambians though.  I was invited by some local Zambian women to have breakfast with them.  Although after the breakfast at the hotel, it would’ve been impossible for me to scarf down any food, I did enjoy a chat with the ladies.  What did we talk about?  Men, of course!  My favourite lady of the group is in the process of getting a divorce.  I think she had watched one too many Knots Landings though because she had an impression that it was super easy to get divorced in the U.S.

On Currency

Almost all fees are paid in US dollars, however, not everyone had enough dollars so we had to go to the bank that was only open from 8-12 (how about them hours), it took over an hour to get the money.  At one point in an attempt to save time, one guy tried to use the ATM to get 600K in the local currency called Kwacha (the equivalent of about $100) and even though he pressed the 600K, the ATM dispensed only 400K.  When he went into the bank to complain, the teller was like “don’t worry man, the buttons don’t correspond to what you’re given.”  Right!

Oh and BTW, we did sort of turn their currency into a swear word as in “You’re being a real Kwacha.”  It works!

On traveling alone

While traveling on the bus by myself (save for a nice German couple), I was thinking how my dream is to travel the world and write about it.  However, as a solo traveller that means that I have now started the portion of my trip where I’m “married” for the next 4 days or until some “foxy” guy appears.  I’m calling it my “Vegas celebrity marriage,” in other words, I’m giving myself a divorce in 4 days.  What does this mean?  I’m wearing a fake wedding ring, something which I do on occasion when I travel alone so I don’t get hassled (don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m beating them away with a stick, but I’ve learned in some cultures it’s better to pretend to be married if you’re travelling as a single woman).

Wild on the Zambezi.

Forget Ibiza, forget Miami or even Rio, they’re so “been there, done that, got the body paint,” the next spring break hot spot is Zambia.  We took a sunset cruise on the “African Queen” on the “Mighty” Zambezi river (this is the Vic Fall’s River).  It was supposed to be a safari cruise, but it quickly became a booze cruise after only seeing some fickle hippos who refused to stick any part of their body out of the water for longer than 3.5 seconds and after our party of six took advantage of the open bar.  Our waiter was Alfred and every time I said his name, I wanted to say “to the bat mobile.”  (Don’t ask me why).  Alfred was amused by us after we started ordering 2 drinks at a time (Stop judging, service was slow).  He really started laughing when people starting ordering two doubles (the drinks were too weak for our group’s booze friendly palates).  One guy gave up on the doubles and just started ordering vodka on the rocks (a move that I predicted someone in the group would make).  There was a near international incident between the Americans and the Japanese tourists when we got back to the bus 4 minutes late.  After the cruise ended, we had stayed to finish our drinks and to have our picture taken with Alfred.  This Japanese lady wasn’t having any of our tardiness.  The irony was it wasn’t like she had any other place to be at 7 p.m.  It wasn’t like we were making her late for a broadway show.  There is no nightlife in Livingstone, Zambia (well aside from us).  The town is super small…the hotel is about a 15 minute drive from the hotel, you have to hire a car, and there’s no reason you’d have to go into town so our Japanese lady was basically going back to the hotel to grab some grub and watch bad tv. 

After the cruise we went to dinner at our hotel which offers an expensive buffet dinner (it wasn’t until our last night there that we discovered that there was a secret, less publicized inexpensive restaurant on the grounds).  Anyway, not all of us wanted a big dinner (after several happy time cocktails, I just wanted a “healthy” order of French fries).  Believe it or not we negotiated the price of dinner!  The guys paid full price because they wanted to pig out, while two of the ladies got the dinner for ¼ of the price.  When I tried to order the French fries, our waiter was like “Ok, $10,” which I then negotiated to $3.00 only to find out that the fry machine was broken.  It was a hysterical conversation though:

Me: Can I get just fries?

Him: Ok, $10.

Me: I wouldn’t even pay $10 at home.

Him: Ok, how much would you pay?

Me: At most $3.00.

Him: “Ok, $3.00.”

He later didn’t even charge the ladies for dinner.  However, when we were checking out we noticed a random gratuities charge of $300, needless to say that charge got 86’d.  I was thinking “um, you slip a $300 charge on our bill and you think we’re not going to notice?”  Um, it’s not like we’ve got The Donald’s bank account people!  However, all in all, I must say I loved the Zambians…they’re very lovely and very friendly!  They’re good people!

I remember once reading some chicken soup for the soul like book that advised doing something new every day. On the day I went to Zimbabwe I did 3 new things (and it wasn’t going to Zimbabwe).  But before I get to that, a few words about our trip.  We had to sit at the border while our driver did who knows what at the border.  While we were waiting, we saw this baboon nearly attack two African ladies dressed in the fruit dresses.  I wish I had a video camera at the time because it would’ve ended up on Africa’s funniest videos.  Our naughty baboon even tried walking into the immigration office (perhaps he was in the market for a visa), but after he had enough with the bureaucracy, he decided to do a little dumpster diving and opened up the trash can and jumped in.  Again I wish I had it on video, I could’ve been a youtube millionaire.

When we were in line to get our passports stamped, a line full of Africans blatantly cut in front of us.  Our driver had to reprimand them and they were like “oh we didn’t know they were in line.”  I laughed.  The boldfaced lying would become a common theme on the Zimbabwe side.  Anyway we crossed the border and rolled into Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and took a tour of the falls, which was amazing!  The sheer volume of noise that the falls generate during the wet season was at times nearly deafening.   There were times when we had to put on raincoats because the mist from the falls was so powerful that it felt like it was pouring outside.  It was an experience, I’ll never forget.

1) Riding the Elephants

Now onto the “new” experiences.  We took an elephant backed safari. Although I wasn’t scared, when I was sitting 15 feet off the ground on top of my elephant Miss Ellie, it was a little bit unnerving at first.  Oh and I should say that an hour before we were to ride the elephants, we were caught up in a torrential downpour, the likes of which must’ve rivaled Noah’s ark building days, and we tried to ask what would happen if the rain didn’t stop, everyone was like “it won’t rain.”  BTW, we rode the ellies in the rain in giant raincoat body suits.  I took to calling them “fat suits,” because they made us all look like we weighed 300lbs.  Despite the rain, it was a super cool experience and the landscape was stunning.  My girl adopted a little orphan who never left Miss Ellie’s side.  Basically, I rode the Angelina Jolie of elephants.  After we rode the ellies, we fed them and had some cocktails.  Two of the guys at the ranch were white Zimbabweans and I was dying to ask them what it was like to be white there (fyi-there’s a government supported program of seizing land owned by white farmers, a program that’s helped jettison the country into the hyperinflation that it’s in…they’ve pretty much abandoned their currency for the dollar after the gov’t printed 100 trillion dollar bills…yes you read that right).  Unfortunately, the situation never presented itself.

2) Croc’s Are More than Just Ugly shoes

I’m on a mission to taste every rando type of food (except bugs) that I can while I’m here so when crocodile was offered at our hotel’s buffet, I thought “what the hell Dundee, let’s roll.”  What’s it taste like?  If you said chicken, you’d be wrong.  It tastes more like a tough pork chop.  I don’t recommend it.

3) Someone call INS, there’s a rogue American on the loose

So, it’s very possible a crime was committed while crossing back into Zambia as one of the people in our group was improperly documented, which is to say he only paid for a single entry visa rather than a double entry (basically the visa guy at the airport refused to sell him a double entry visa) so he had to be smuggled back into the country.  Who knew the trip would involve smuggling an American into Zambia?   

Where to Hang Our Hat Disney Style

Our Zambezi Sun Greeters.

Initially, I was going to travel to Victoria Falls by myself, but luckily I met up with 5 old and new friends and my “romantic” honeymoon morphed into a Spring Break of sorts.  We had debated on which side of the falls to stay on-Zimbabwe or Zambia.  It’s possible to be closer to the falls on the Zambian side, but Zimbabwe has a better view of the falls and is a tourist’s bargain, but most people, ourselves included, opted to stay in Zambia because of the whole Mugabe/political instability.  We stayed at the Zambezi Sun, which is the closest hotel to the falls and is situated inside the Vic Falls park.  We joked that we were staying at the Disney World of Zambia because as soon as we entered the compound, we were greeted by two giraffes.  It was as if someone backstage was like “ok the Americans are here, cue the giraffes.”  I was going loca for them because I most wanted to see giraffes and zebras.  After we snapped some pictures we continued onto the reception area where we were welcomed by tribal dancers, thereby solidifying our belief that we were at Disney World.

Monkey Business

Hunts or Heinz 57?

After checking in, we enjoyed cocktails by the hotel’s pool and watched vervet monkey’s (think Marcel the monkey from Friend’s) act like criminals on the loose after a prison break.  They would jump up on tables and steal food (this would be a common theme at all meals).  These “cheeky monkeys” were brazen little sugar junkies.  The waiters had to keep sugar packets in drawers because otherwise the monkeys would swoop down and grab a handful of sugar and eat them.  Explains why they were so hyper…we had monkeys hopped up on sugar roaming the grounds.  Como se dice early onset of monkey diabetes?  If they weren’t stealing sucre, they were licking salad dressing and ketchup from bowls (one guy grabbed a bowl full of ketchup, licked it bone dry and then tossed it on the floor like a petulant child thereby breaking the bowl! They were such a problem that they had guards armed with slingshots to swat the monkeys away.

Crack-a-lakin Cool

My ultimate favorite animal sighting on the property were the Zebras that occasionally roamed the hotel grounds.  I thought they would be there 24/7, after interrogating nearly every staff member about the Zebras, we later found out that they only show up at breakfast time (again begging the question if someone is letting the Zebras out of the barn on cue).  One morning when I was getting dressed a friend knocked on our door to let us know the Zebras had arrived.  I practically ran out of our hotel half naked to catch a glimpse of these guys. My roommate opened our balcony curtains and they were RIGHT outside our door.  When I went outside, I was like 2 feet away from them.  It was awesome!  They’re just so cool…they’re light the cool leather jacket wearing kids in the 50s..kinda like Fonzie…they look vaguely bored all the time and have that “I know I’m’ a bad ass you don’t have to tell me, I will allow you to worship me” look.

A thousand apologies for the lapse in time from my last post.  Sorting out my travel plans to what I’m terming my solo honeymoon has been more difficult than I initially anticipated, not the least of which involved the USPS nearly losing my passport en route to the Zambian embassy in DC and my near homicidal like rage over this (trust me my response wasn’t limited to a simple frustrated Seinfeldian “Newman”).  So, needless to say I was left with little time and inspiration to put pen to paper or in this case fingers to keyboard.  But on this Valentine’s Day, having furthered the cliché of what “white people” like (see http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/23/19-travelling/ ) I feel inspired.

You may remember that when I last left you, I was in love with “Kenneth,” my sweet talkin South African travel agent based in New York.  I am sad to report that Kenneth is dead to me now.  Word of advice guys, if you say you’re going to call a girl and you have a “special plan” that she’ll “really like” and you never call, you risk banishment, or in this case loss of a great commission. No girl likes to sit by the phone, willing it to ring Kenneth, you cheeky git!  Kenneth lost out on mucho dinero by not calling me back, a fact which became painfully obvious as I signed off on the final total with a different travel agent (who yes I did facebook stalk) before ever stepping foot en Afrique.   However, I am able to justify my expenditure by realizing that while some people choose to have offspring, I travel.  And at the same time South Africa has been my dream destination for my honeymoon.  And not to go too negativo on the fat arrow carrying baby’s holiday, but who knows when that will ever happen, sooooo I’m taking myself on my own honeymoon.  Yes, you heard me!  Hear me now and believe me later, solo honeymoons will become the new black!

I’ll be traveling solo in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and on a safari in Kruger before hanging with a friend in Cape Town.  On my solo honeymoon portion of the trip, I’m hoping I’ll meet my future husband.  See here’s how the scenario plays out in my head, I’ll be enjoying an African sunset and a cocktail at the hotel bar in Joburg as Toto’s Africa song is playing softly in the background and I’ll happen to turn my head and I’ll notice him saunter in.  He’ll, of course, be tan and have that well manicured rugged look going on, the kind that can only be manufactured in that Out of Africa movie kinda way.  He’ll saddle up next to me at the bar and order some manly drink like an 18 year old single malt Scotch neat and strike up a conversation.  We’ll realize that we’re both going on the same safari the next day.  He’ll be in the ballpark of say 34-37, his name will be something like Jackson or Forrester or Vaughn and at some point in his life, like me, he will have been educated in Europe.   He’ll be ex-peace corps a/k/a a trustifarian (I have a theory that only affluent kids can afford to spend two years post-university kicking around third world countries) and after a brief stint in the corporate world he decided to return to doing international development work and has spent the last 10 years saving Gorillas in Uganda (a little Gorillas in the Mist anyone), digging wells in Rwanda (cuz it ain’t the Hotel California, it’s Hotel Rwanda), helping refugees in Darfur (Lost Boys of the Sudan, peut-être, I think my heart just skipped a beat), and teaching people how to cultivate their own maize in the Congo (come on shake your body, baby do that Conga).  He will have managed to do this while not turning into a dirty hippie. And maybe he’ll be a widow whose photojournalist wife died English Patient style while on assignment in Sierra Leone.  The widow thing adds a tragic element to his generally privileged life and shows that he’s not a commitment phobe, thereby preempting the question that my father asks me when I tell him about a guy, which goes something like, “well, if he’s so perfect, why isn’t he married by now?”  That’s Dad’s standard question as he’s uber suspicious of any man over 30 who is still single.  When I point out that I’m still single, he tells me that’s different because I was focused on higher education until I was 27.  Gotta love dad!  To his credit dad’s instincts have been spot on!  Anyway, Peace Corps boy and I will realize that we’re in love as we’re sitting around the boma after a solid day of game drives and we will quite literally drive off into the sunset.  Don’t you just hate me at how perfect my love affair with my future husband is going to be?

And now that I’m planning my solo honeymoon, I think it’s only fair that I register for it a la Carrie Bradshaw, don’t you?  I’m not above doing it, especially at this age!  After all in light of the amount I’ve had to dole out for engagement parties, bridal showers, weddings, and baby showers, I think it’s only right.  Oh, and here’s a news bulletin for those of you single and baby free, there is now something called “push presents,” which a new mother gets just for having the baby.  What kinda scam are you married and parental people running?  By my count that’s three presents for getting married and two for having kids and you’re going to begrudge this charmingly adorable well traveled single lady a gift for her solo honeymoon.  Communists!

So, be on the look out for my registry announcement. It’s coming to a mail box near vous!