Howlands' African Adventures: Victoria Falls, Zambia

We had a great day today at the Zambizi Sun hotel right next to Victoria Falls in Zambia. On the other side of the falls is Zimbabwe. Ziplining tomorrow will require us to purchase visas to Zimbabwe as it starts on the other side of the Falls. After acquiring heavy duty rain coats from the hotel we braved it across the bridge. We were drenched. There was a nice walk around an island. The water is at the highest it will be all year which means the spray from the falls can be seen for many miles. The breakfast buffet was delicious but interesting because we were entertained by the guards outside the hotel restaurant trying to keep the monkeys out of the restaurant. We saw two of them be successful in their mission to get in, grab some fruit and get out. Right outside the Falls entrance was a market with the locals trying to sell their goods. We barely made it out of there alive. They descended upon the girls and I and completely harrassed us - that is until I told them to get out of my face as directly as possible. You cannot be nice to these people. I am not exaggerating when I mention I had to be that direct with over 30 men. They were everywhere wanting to get you to buy their stuff. In the end I did want to buy a couple of things so I stated loudly that I would buy something from the person that was not going to harrass me. That helped but only a little. I was glad to get out of there... There were also a lot of baboons wandering everywhere. A huge one came up to Brad and wanted his diet coke. One of the locals told him to just give it to him or else he wouldn't leave him alone. I also saw a mother baboon that had JUST given birth and was holding the still unclean baby at her breast.

We then made our way to a small airstrip where we were taking a short helicopter ride over the falls and the gorge. That was really cool, especially with the water level of the river so high. The rest of the day was hanging out by the pool, switching rooms because the lock on the girls room didn't work and having a low key dinner at a cafe around the corner from the hotel. We've got an early morning tomorrow when we head to a lion encounter.