Contiki Cape to Delta: Victoria Falls

Our few days in Victoria Falls were legendary and something I'll always remember. We started our journey early in the morning to catch a flight from Johannesburg to Zimbabwe. It was less than two hours, so nice and short! We arrived into Zimbabwe, paid for our visa, went through customs, grabbed our bags and hopped on a bus. I'm not counting Zimbabwe in my country count because we were there for less than an hour.

Essentially, we flew into Victoria Falls airport, which is in Zimbabwe, to drive to the border, grab our bags off the bus, go through customs, put our bags back on the bus, get our Zambian visa, take our bags back off the bus, go through customs, and put our bags on a different bus. It was quite a lot of effort to go through customs, but we eventually made it into Zambia!

After a few minutes of driving, we saw the mist of Victoria Falls ahead of us. We continued to drive and, as we were about to go over a bridge, we all looked left to get our first glimpse of Victoria Falls. Wow, she was massive and beautiful. As soon as we crossed the bridge, we hopped out of the bus and went to our first stop - an adventure park for people to swing off of the bridge and go zip lining over the gorge at the bottom of Victoria Falls. I had been zip lining once before in Peru, so I wasn't going to let the opportunity to do it at Victoria Falls pass me by. I did not, however, do the gorge swing. A few people in my group did and some people did both!

Zip lining itself was quite nerve wracking, I am not afraid of heights and know that they test those cables all the time, but just knowing that all that is keeping you 120 meters above the Zambezi River is one cable is an interesting thought. They got us all set up in a proper harness, and it felt like it was so much more durable than the harness I used in Peru, which made me feel more comfortable. We then walked down a pathway to an area with a gigantic cable attached to a base cemented into the ground. It was then that my nerves really started to hit me and, because they needed to bring my crutches to the other side of the zip line, I had the pleasure of going first! They attached me to the cable with a very heavy duty slider, gave me a GoPro, let me swing there for a few seconds, and off I went. The first few seconds were exhilarating and I was looking all over the place - up, down, left, right - spinning in various directions. It was an amazing experience. Eventually, though, my arm got tired from holding the GoPro (I didn't realize how long it would take to go 425 meters), so I stopped holding the GoPro out and just enjoyed the scenery. In some ways, I wish I didn't have the GoPro or it was mounted to a helmet, so I could just take in the moment. Eventually, I came to a stop and someone from the other side came out to retrieve me as you don't zip all the way to the end.

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That was when I had a whole other experience - getting over a rail while harnessed to a zip line when you don't have the strength to move your legs is an interesting feeling. With the help of the staff and some leverage, I made it over the rail and the harness was disconnected from the cable. Then, I had to walk along the bottom of the bridge with only one handle bar which my harness was attached to. This meant that if my crutch slipped out of my hand for whatever reason, it was going down 425 meters into the river. I took my steps carefully and death gripped my crutches until we eventually made it to land, where I climbed up a few stairs, made it to the road level and walked across the bridge.

I know people do zip lining every day, but that was an incredible experience and I am thrilled that I pushed myself out of my comfort zone. It is something I will remember for a long time. I made it back to the reception area to see (and hear) some of my friends that were doing the gorge swing.

Once everyone got their adrenaline fix, it was time to get up close and personal with Victoria Falls. We got dropped off at the entrance to the path to the viewing area and every step we took, the more in awe we were and drenched we got. We had the option to buy a poncho or rent a raincoat, but when else will you have the opportunity to get soaked by droplets from the largest waterfall in the world? You had to force yourself to keep moving instead of taking pictures because the view got better and better, and because pictures just don't do it justice.

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With the sun about to set and fully drenched, we all walked back to the bus which brought us through Livingstone to our hotel right off the Zambezi River to check in and go to dinner. I felt a bit more under the weather as the day went on, so I ate a few bites and headed back to my room. I decided to take a Z-Pack for the first time ever to try to keep myself from getting sicker (spoiler alert, it worked). The majority of the group went white water rafting down the Zambezi River in the morning, but it required a significant hike / climbing from the river to the bus, so I sat it out. A group of us was supposed to go to a village to learn about the local culture while the others were rafting, but I decided to change my time to the following day when the rafters were going. This gave me a bit of extra time to catch up on sleep and relax. The self care worked wonders and, by early afternoon, I was feeling exponentially better and ready for the next adventure - a helicopter ride over Victoria Falls!

I've done a helicopter ride once before when I was at the Great Barrier Reef and had an amazing time, I couldn't wait to do it over one of the Seven Wonders of the World! A van picked us up and brought us to the helicopter pad where we had to sign the typical boilerplate liability documents before walking to the helicopter for our 15 minute ride. It was incredible - the sound of the water rushing below you, the rainbows that were every which direction, the fact that the helicopter descended into the gorge I zip lined over the previous day - all of it was incredible.

Back on land, we headed back to our hotel to relax a bit. The hotel grounds were beautiful.

After a relaxing afternoon, it was time to meet up with the rest of the group for dinner and sunset cruise along the Zambezi River. It wasn't a private boat for our group, but we definitely had the most fun. We slowly floated along the river, checking out both sides of the river bank while enjoying the company of each other.

After the boat ride, we hung out in the hotel restaurant for a few hours before hitting the sack. We had a very early start the following morning for a walking safari in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. After about a half hour drive into the park, we stopped for a few minutes to have some pastries and coffee that the safari company provided before piling back into our safari vehicles to meet up with the guides for our walking safari. We were paired with a guide and a soldier with a gun because we were walking in the middle of a national park. The reason Contiki picked this national park for a walking safari is because there are rhinos at the park which are guarded 24/7 by soldiers to protect them against poachers. Given this, they have their horns whereas the ones we saw at the rest stop a few days earlier had their horns removed.

As we walked, we learned about the bush, what the different animal droppings look like, and even saw some bones. It was a really fun experience, even the very difficult walk across a very, very uneven field which had random holes in it every 2-3 feet. We had to cross it, but I was able to do it by swinging from flat area to flat area and carefully picking my path.

We eventually made it to an area where the rhinos were and were able to just stand there and watch a crash of rhinos (herd) graze and relax. The rhinos almost looked like vacuums when they ate, they never pulled their heads off the ground to chew but just kept it down the entire time. We even were able to see a few baby rhinos. It was a very cool experience.

After our walking safari, we headed back to our hotel for a few minutes before we got into a different bus for our village tour. We were taken around by a local guide who showed us how the families in a local, traditional village live. Families have a mini-compound within a broader village, where there are more than one structure inside of a fenced area - some of which had a garden or chickens. We saw how they collect water - essentially they reserve a place in line by putting their bowl in a queue, so they don't need to wait for the water to be made available. We then continued to watch some of the locals make wooden carvings which were absolutely stunning.

Eventually, we wound up in a market area where we could buy some of the wooden carvings and a few other trinkets. I was really impressed by the carvings and wound up buying two 8" tall totem pole like carvings with different animal's heads on it. They were small enough that I figured I could put them in my extra sneakers to protect them for the travel back home. They initially started at one carving for $30, I got it down to 2 for a total of $20.

We made it back to the lodge in time for lunch and to check out, because it was time to head to Chobe National Park!