We flew to Zimbabwe, Africa and sailed the mighty Zambezi river on a sunset cruise before visiting the Victoria Falls and the quaint little town named after the falls.

Here is a map of our route.

People have been living around the mighty Zambezi river and Victoria Falls in temperate zones of southern African tropical belt from Palaeolithic age (early stone age) over three million years ago.

The ancient hunter-gatherer folks living in huts, hunting and foraging with stone weapons and tools,  were eventually pushed out by click-language speaking Khoisan people (i.e. the Khoi-Khoi and the San people) who had more advanced iron tools and weapons at their disposal. The San are nomadic hunter-gatherers now concentrated in and around the Kalahari desert while the Khoi-Khoi are competent herders also leading nomadic lifestyles driven by search for grazing pastures for their animals. Sometimes the Khoi-Khoi encroached upon lands of the San who would then fall back into the Kalahari desert and the mountains. Remnants of remarkable ancient Khoisan rock art and paintings (mostly by the San) have been found and preserved in modern times. Their sophisticated traditional music and dances are still performed today.

Later on, the Tokaleya (i.e. the Batoka and the Baleya) people displaced the Khoisan. These people speak dialects of Chitonga, also known as Zambezi or Tonga, which is one of the hundreds of Bantu languages spoken across 24 countries in central, southeastern and southern Africa.

"Mosi oa Tunya" which translates to "the smoke that thunders" is the Sotho language name for Victoria Falls. Sotho, also belonging to the greater Bantu language group, is spoken mostly in the independent Kingdom of Lesotho which nestles in the Maloti Mountains - the highest mountains of Africa. The tiny landlocked country of 2 million citizens is completely surrounded on all sides by South Africa, making it one of the only two sovereign enclaves in the world, the other being Stato della Citta del Vaticano (Vatican City) surrounded by the city of Rome, Italy. Sotho is also one of the official languages of Zimbabwe.

In 1855, Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone was famously the first recorded European to have reached the Mosi-oa-Tunya which he named after his queen. "No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight", he wrote in his diary.

Livingstone is popular in these parts despite his controversial call for "commerce, Christianity and civilisation" in Africa that triggered subsequent colonization and resulting plunder of the continent by numerous European countries. On the under hand, he was vehement in his opposition of slave trade. The entire town on the Zambia side of Victoria Falls is named after him although its airport has been recently renamed to "Harry Mwanga Nkumbula International Airport".

Victoria Falls from the Air, Our Pretty Lodging and Sunset Cruise on Zambezi River

July 2, 2023

We see river Zambezi and the falls down below as our airplane commences final approach to Victoria Falls International Airport (VFA). It already looks far bigger than any waterfall we have experienced so far including Goðafoss, Dettifoss and Niagara falls.

VFA is a small charming international airport with a old-school feel. 

Little artificial fountains at Victoria Falls International Airport arrival lounge

Immigration and customs formalities are quick and smooth. We collect our luggage, pay the visa-on-arrival fees ($30 for single entry for Americans) and get full-page visa stickers in our passports. Two blank passport pages are a requirement for entry and exit from Zimbabwe (and Zambia and South Africa). The requirement for Yellow Fever Vaccine to enter Zimbabwe is apparently not enforced, though we had our yellow fever vaccination certificates from Peru with us just in case.

There is little use of local currency in Zimbabwe. After prior failed attempts at a national currency that resulted in epic 100 Trillion Zimbabwean Dollar bank notes worth US 40 cents in 2015, the latest attempt called the "Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) Zimbabwean dollar" was started June of 2019 but the USD was made legal tender again in March of 2020. The US$ is currently the currency used in Zimbabwe although the RTGS, currently valued at around 4,500 per US$, remains legal tender as well.

The weather is crisp and pleasant outside. We are at an elevation of 3,500 feet in a southern hemisphere latitude of 18°south. It is peak winter in July in the southern tropical temperate climate zone. It will be chilly in the night.

We indulge ourselves to a welcome dance with some Zulu guys in traditional battle outfits outside the doors of the airport. The Zulu people are also part of the greater Bantu ethnolinguistic group and live mostly in South Africa but there are many Zulus living in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Tanzania as well.

These enterprising young men with spears and shields hang around the doors of the airport and entertain arriving tourists with big smiles, a song and a dance (and make a few dollars from voluntary donations). After long flights to Zimbabwe, they did elevate our moods to super-excited for our Africa trip right there and we did not feel tired anymore!

The AVAC (African Visual and Contemporary Arts) Art and Crafts Gallery is right next to the doors of the airport.

We had prearranged airport pickup ($13 per person one way) to our lodging at Victoria Falls Backpackers Lodge where we had booked an "Ensuite Room" (the Hornbill) with a private attached bathroom.

Avoiding branded hotel chains whenever possible, we selected this place because of its traditional accommodation and rustic ambience. Semi-permanent huts with adobe walls and thatched roofs are scattered around a luscious carefully maintained garden.

The swimming pool and fireplace form the centrepiece providing a delightful setting.

There are parking spaces for camper vehicles to the right of the entrance. All the spaces are taken by various tough-looking off-road equipped campers.

A Sunset Cruise on the Zambezi River

We had booked a sunset cruise on Zambezi river. The cruise operator picked us up in a bus from our lodge in the evening. A short drive to the dock, and we are on the Batoka Safaris cruise boat.

At the bar on board, there is the usual choice of popular American and European beers, but I of course ask for a Zimbabwean beer. "Zimbabwe's Own Lager" Zambezi lager bitter turned out to be pretty awesome!

The mighty Zambezi is the fourth longest river in Africa and the longest that flows east, draining an area almost half of that of the Nile. It is the largest of African rivers that drain into the Indian Ocean. Originating in the peculiarly African miombo woodlands of dambo marshes at north-west corner of Zambia close to the DRC border, the Zambezi flows 1,600 miles through Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe (marking the Zambia-Zimbabwe border) and Mozambique before draining into the Indian ocean.

We get our first sightings of African wildlife when we spot hippos and enormous crocodiles in the water that the Zambezi is famous for.

Crocodiles are rampant in the Zambezi. We catch a couple sunbathing out of water as well.

We soon spot an elephant. There is a car coming up the road the elephant is walking. The car stops completely, but then has to back out to let the elephant pass.

Zimbabwe has the second largest number of elephants in the world, after Botswana. As of last year, a 100,000 elephants live in Zimbabwe, with another 130,000 in Botswana making the two countries home to half the elephants in Africa. On top of that, elephant population in Zimbabwe is actually growing by 5,000 a year.

We see some storks and pelicans too above the hippos and crocs.

With the last rays of a setting African sun and a rising moon, the mighty Zambezi becomes magical.

Dinner at Victoria Falls Town

Disembarking our cruise boat, we ride the bus back to the small town of Victoria Falls. There are Chicken Inn and Pizza Inn looking like knockoffs of KFC and Pizza Hut next to each other at Soper's Arcade on Park Way just off Livingstone Highway that passes through downtown. We picked up a 3-piece chicken meal with "chips" (as fries are called in the British commonwealth) and coleslaw , a "chilli chicken burger" and a can of coke, all for just $10. They are also a rare place to accept Mastercard and Visa. With our dinner in hand (we ordered for "take away"), we hail a cab and head back to our lodge for the night.

Taxi fares are fixed and no haggling with cab drivers required at Victoria Falls. On our way to the lodge, we request the cabbie to come pick us up the next morning to take us to Victoria Falls. We kept a business card for his taxi company and still have no idea what "Bupenyu unshizho" means.

Mosi-oa-Tunya  (Victoria Falls)

July 3, 2023

Watch: Mosi-oa-Tunya - the Thundering Smoke (Victoria Falls)

The temperature dropped into low 40s fahrenheit in the night and there is chill in the morning air. Our cab driver shows up exactly at the appointed time of 10 AM. We head to Victoria Falls National Park two miles away by road from our lodge. He drops us off right across the park entrance on the other side of Livingstone Way where there is a parking lot with numerous souvenir vendors. We decide to meet our cabbie back here at 12:30 PM, giving us over two hours to walk the trail along the waterfall.

Fully expecting to get thoroughly drenched, we rented ponchos here for $3 each. We then crossed the highway to the entrance of the national park.

At $50 per person, entry to the Victoria Falls National Park is on the expensive side for foreigners (it used to be $30 pp).

The main waterfall trail runs the opposite side of the waterfall across the canyon. Starting from left, the first attraction is a statue of Livingstone next to Devil's Cataract.

Viewpoint #2 overlooks Devil's Cataract with a view of an endless sheet of water disappearing into mist into the distance.

We traverse viewpoints one by one across one-and-a-quarter miles of this continuous thunderous sheet of water dropping 132 million gallons per minute deep into the canyon below from a height double that of Niagara's horseshoe. At many of the viewpoints, the dense mist coming up from unimaginable violence deep below obscures our view of the rim across the canyon. But sometimes we can see through with mixed emotions including awe of Pachamama's incomprehensibly powerful forces.

We also get progressively drenched and have to put our rented rain coats on about a quarter mile into the trail.

We finally reach Viewpoint #15 (Danger Point) which is the last fall overlook on the Zimbabwe side.

The Victoria Falls bridge to Zambia can be seen up close from Viewpoint #16. The bridge is a global favorite for bungee jumpers.

Those with a KAZA UNIVISA covering both Zambia and Zimbabwe can cross the international bridge and visit Viewpoint #17 (Knife Edge) on the Zambia side.

Dripping from head to toe, we head back and order multiple rounds of very welcome cappuccino and hot chocolate at the Rainforest Cafe.

The town of Victoria Falls

Our cabbie was waiting for us at the appointed time of 12:30 PM at the parking lot. We return our rented ponchos and head for the town of Victoria Falls. I wanted to pick up a couple of flip-flops from the Bata store at Victoria Falls (the last Bata we had visited was in Cusco, Peru in December of 2022).

Back at the lodge, we check out and take a ride to the airport to board the first of three airplanes to Arusha, Tanzania - a journey which will take us a whole day. Airline connections are strange in Africa. Two Kenya Airways airplanes will take us to Nairobi, and then to Dar Es Salaam. Precision Airways will then take us to Kilimanjaro via Zanzibar.