Tuesday, July 1, 2025

We got up at 7 so we could both shower before breakfast. We ate at the hotel. We had coffee, yogurt and granola parfaits, juice, and then we got to order a main dish. I had a vegetable omelette with cheese. It was a little chilly at breakfast. Everyone was wearing a jacket except me. I was just in a t-shirt. The restaurant part of the lodge is outside near the pool. We are staying at the Ngoma Zanga Lodge, by the way. I feel like I should have been putting that info in my blog.

We had our driver from yesterday, Vincent, come pick us up at 9:30 to take us to the Zambia-Zimbabwe border. He couldn’t get super close, but he took us as far as he could. We went through immigration in Zambia and got our passports stamped. Then we had to show our passports to a border patrol officer to walk out the gate. We walked for a bit and then we had to go through Zimbabwe immigration. This line was a little longer but not too bad. After getting our passports stamped, we walked more and then showed them to another person. Finally we were done with our passports. We put them away and kept walking. We started getting wet from the waterfall spray. We stopped and put on our rain jackets. Tammy and I had bought poncho pants that we also put on. We walked across the Livingstone Bridge (built in 1905) to officially enter Zimbabwe. We got wetter on the bridge. We took a picture by the Welcome to Zimbabwe sign. We saw several striped mongooses running around.

We made it across the bridge and walked to the entrance of Victoria Falls National Park. It cost $20 US to enter the Zambia side but $50 US to enter the Zimbabwe side. We paid and went in.

We walked to the left and stopped at all the lookout points. We didn’t get very wet. The spray was fun to watch. At some places, the mist went straight up into the air. We saw a double rainbow near the Livingstone statue. There was a group of schoolchildren who had come on a field trip from over 300 miles away in Zimbabwe. They were so well-behaved. They were probably around fifth or sixth grade and all of them were standing in a group listening attentively to the teacher while the teacher talked for 20 minutes.

I think the most amazing thing about Victoria Falls is how wide it is. It just keeps going and going. I can’t imagine how David Livingstone felt when he discovered it. We walked all the way to Devil’s Cataract, which is the end of the falls. The amount of water pouring over is just incredible!

We then walked back to the middle of the park and started viewing the overlooks going toward the right. We chatted to several people about how the Zambian side was wetter. People who had already been to the end told us that the right end was super wet. They were right! At some lookouts, we couldn’t even see anything because the mist/spray made everything look white. At others, it felt like pouring rain… except that it was going up! Most of them had what felt like rain pouring down, but it was a sunny day. Everything that fell on us was all spray from the falls! 

The farther we went, the wetter it got. Even the path that was farther back from the lookouts had pouring spray. Our poncho pants were great! My rain jacket had held up to the spray on the Zambian side, but it was no match for the Zimbabwe side. My hood was where it all started going downhill. Water started pouring in on top of my head (through the hood) and then ran down my neck and back. 

We made it to the far right which offered a view of the Livingstone Bridge. When we got there, there was a huge rainbow in front of it. The rainbow was so large that it was more than 180 degrees. We could almost see a full circle. Thankfully it wasn’t very wet there so we could take our time taking pictures. We met Tammy’s dad as we were leaving and told him to hurry and see the rainbow.

We had to walk back through the wet part to get to a drier path. We hurried because it was so wet. We had to walk over a half mile to get back to the park entrance. We took off our rain jackets because we started getting hot. When we made it back to the entrance, we found Kelvin and Sandra. We took a picture in our rain gear and then looked for two people to give our poncho pants to. We found two women who had on long pants. Tammy offered them the poncho pants and they don’t want them. Their guide asked if he could have them. We said sure and handed them over. The ladies asked if they really keep you dry and we said they definitely did. They told their guide that they changed their minds and they did want them.

When Tammy’s dad returned, we left the park and walked across the street for a taxi. We were going to the Lookout Cafe and it wasn’t far away, but it was recommended to take a taxi because of wild animals. The ride was only 5 minutes. When we arrived, we were amazed at the size. The view overlooks the gorge and you could see the Livingstone Bridge. 

Our waiter was named Wellington and he had on a name tag that said “trainee.” He came over after maybe ten minutes and took our drink orders and then disappeared for another 5-10 before he took our food orders. We asked him if we could do separate checks. This was a bad idea in hindsight, but it seemed logical at the time. He wrote each check on a separate page. Ten minutes later, he came back to check that he had our orders correct. I think he wrote out our orders on the back of one of the order sheets he had used previously. We sat there for at least another 20-30 minutes before the food arrived. I had a vegan burger and it wasn’t very good. The salad and fries (“chips”) were, though. 

Wellington came back to ask if everything was okay and we went ahead and asked for the bills. He left and 20 minutes later came back to ask what we had had to eat. He then disappeared for another 10 minutes and then we could see him talking to a waitress at the computer. He finally got the credit card machine and started walking toward us but then turned and went to another table. Finally, he came over and of course the credit card machine wasn’t connecting for the first person who paid. We all paid except for Tammy and when she went to pay, the machine ran out of paper and Wellington apologized and said he would have to go get more paper. Tammy said there was no need for a receipt and we ran out of the restaurant! The restaurant had phoned our taxi driver, Pilot, and he took us to the historic Victoria Falls Hotel for tea. We took pictures and had tea and dessert. I had a brownie with vanilla ice cream and rooibos tea. 

Even we were done eating, it was time to leave. We went out and met Pilot at our agreed-upon time and he drove us as far as he could to the border. We walked on the road until we got to the Zimbabwe border control station. When we got done, we walked out the gate after the passport check and then crossed the Livingstone Bridge. 

Halfway across, we stopped to watch a couple bungee jump off the bridge. We continued across the bridge and made it to the Zambia border patrol station. There was a longer line than we had seen before. We felt bad because we were late to meet Vincent. When we got through, we did the passport check at a little shack and then Clifford met us. He said that Vincent had to do something else. We rode back to the Ngoma Zanga Lodge and on the way, we saw 5-7 elephants by the side of the road and two young male elephants were play fighting. They were making rumbling sounds. We stopped and watched for awhile, but no one got a picture/video.

We got back around 5. My feet were black from walking on the tarred road where the big trucks drive. I washed my feet and then I washed some clothes in the sink.

We went to dinner at the restaurant in our hotel at 6. Tammy and I weren’t super hungry so we split a salad with chicken on it. Dinner took a long time. We got back shortly before 8. I got ready for bed and then worked on my blog. Tammy showered and then we packed our stuff for our day trip to Botswana in the morning. We decided to post our Victoria Falls pictures on Facebook. When we got done, it was after ten and we went to sleep.