Day 1 – 11.03.2018
After a 10 hour flight, hardly any sleep, with a very lovely South African companion who made me aware that I wasnt quite prepared for what was to come – „well you know that it is high risk malaria time at the moment right?“ – I got to Johannesburg Airport.
I had two hours to kill so I hunted down a pharmacy and bought some overpriced malaria tablets – but hey, at least I wont die of malaria... Then I stopped at a cafe for a second breakfast.
After a bit of a confusion as to which gate I would need to take, I finally boarded the flight to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. IN the photo below you can see how long some oft he roads are that cross all through Africa, or that might just be roads around peoples properties.
What I originally believed to have been –some sort of bushfire in the back, turned out to actually be the Victoria Fallls in the background!
I arrived at the airport and thought that I would get through customs quickly, but no – I thought wrong. After 1 hour waiting in queue, there was a big confusion as to which visa I needed. So the Kaza visa is one with which you can also enter into Zimbabwe and Zambia. This costs 50 dollars. There is also another visa, which is just a single entry, which is only 30 dollars, but you are not really sure which one is the one you really need.
It is also really nice to be greeted by this installation when you come out of the airport!
After I got through the customs, I quickly found a taxi service to get me to the campsite. There was a group of men singing and dancing in traditional costumes, but i was keen to get to camp and get changed and brush my teeth.
I found the place were we were going to set our tents up and met our tour guide. We quickly got settled and set the tents up and then I went for a stroll through town – just to explore the first bits until the rest of the group were to arrive. I went to book some activities for the next day – a helicopter flight and a sundowner cruise. I then went for a bite and had a quick „lunch“ at 16:00 at a local tapas place called „Lolas cafe“. I had gazpacho but was absolutely impressed by the menu and decided I would want to go back in the evening for dinner.
Since they served all kinds of game I was pretty eager to try that meat. (Giraffes ribs was unfortunately not available today... :) )
I carried on walking towards the Falls, just enjoying the view and I was joined by a local along the way, declaring that he wanted to be my boyfriend all along the 20 minutes we walked together. After telling him several times that I just wanted to be alone, he eventually let me be and by that time I had already turned back around to get to the campsite in time for the meet up.
At 18:00 I got back to the campsite to meet the others of my trip. It is quite a small group, I was joined by a brother and sister pair who are originally from South Africa but who now live in Australia. We had our chat, went to book more excursions for my fellow trip members and then headed to Lolas which is combined with a restaurant called Carnivore where we got ourselves a mixed game platter and some crocodile snacks.
The mixed game platter had some buffalo stew, some zebra steak and some kudu steak, which was just absolutely amazing! I can only recommend. The buffalo stew was quite tough, but still delicious.
We had a couple of cocktails too and really enjoyed getting to know each other better. We returned to camp and called it a night. I was so ready to fall into bed, especially after my long journey to get to Zimbabwe.
