Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Written by Charles January 3, 2013

We flew in from Johannesburg to Victoria Falls, and while we were on approach for landing, we saw that there were no man-made objects until the fence that surrounded the runway.  Victoria Falls is a town in Zimbabwe; it is also a massive set of waterfalls that dumps 2 times the amount of water than in Niagara Falls and is twice as high.  On the ride to the hotel, we saw baboons and warthogs wandering around the streets and in front of people’s houses.  We thought that it was strange to see all the African animals in front of us, and people weren’t giving them a second thought.  We got to the hotel, and the hotel staff told us not to leave our windows open, or else the baboons would take our stuff!

The rest of the afternoon we went on a water cruise of the Zambezi River, and we saw hippos, but they only looked like logs in the water.  We also kept our eyes out for other animals, but we only saw other humans.  In the morning we first took a helicopter ride over the falls.  The spray from the waterfalls came up so high it went past our helicopter, which was1,000 feet above the top of the canyon.  My brother and my dad saw elephants, but I only saw humans.  From up there I saw that the river flowed right into a huge cut in the ground and then flowed in a zigzag shape away into the distance.  It sort of looked like the Grand Canyon, only less orange. 

After the helicopter ride, we drove to a tribal village.  There were lots of families of tribes people that live in roughly the same area.  Most of the people were at church, but the tribe leader was there to greet us. There were 3 kids aged 3, 5, and 7 who also greeted us.  The tribe’s leader talked to us for 30 minutes before we started to walk around their homestead.  Everyone there was wearing modern clothes, but they were ripped and dirty.  They didn’t wear shoes, but they had the thatched roof- circular clay/mud houses that you think of when you think African Village.  We let the small kids play with our cameras, and they went photo crazy.  After that we gave them muffins, and we had to leave. 

We next went to an orphanage and saw more African kids.  They went crazy with us and went photo crazy again.  They sang and danced for us in their small house.  There were 70 kids in a house with a leaky roof and bad electricity.  The house had 3 bedrooms with 10 kids staying there full time, but the 60 others came only for the days.  After the orphanage, we did school for the afternoon. 

That evening we went to the boma.  The boma is a place where you have dinner, and then you play drums and dance.  While we were playing the drums, our hands felt like nothing and my dad’s had bruises on them.  After that everyone danced, except for William, who suddenly disappeared. 

In the next morning we walked along the path overlooking the falls.  It was very misty, and it was hard to take pictures.  We saw more monkeys who looked like they wanted our ponchos.  At one point there was so much mist from the waterfalls, it started to rain.  We also saw a road block tree.  It was a tree leaning sideways over the path. 

After getting misted to death at the waterfalls, we went diving with crocodiles.  It was in a swimming pool with a cage that goes up and down.  It was cold, but not as cold as shark diving.  The crocodiles would climb and swim all over the cage, and the guide in the cage would put food outside the cage for the crocs to munch on.  He even put his flip flop out and brought half of it back in.

After that we jumped off a cliff.  No, seriously we did jump off a cliff.  We did a canyon swing.  It basically was a bungee jump only, sideways.  You jump, and you free fall until you run out of rope and the tension catches.  Then you would swing for 30 seconds before they started to winch you back up.  I was the most excited and did it first by myself, then again with my mom.  Mom was terrified and said some words that she shouldn’t have.  William also did it twice.

After that we went for an elephant ride.  We saw lots of animals that looked like antelope, and we even saw a cheetah.  The cheetah was trained, but it did run off and chase an antelope looking thing.   We also saw an alligator next to a dead baboon.  The elephants were tall, and I was afraid to fall off.  They also found some snacks along the way and took most of the leaves on the trees for themselves!  William’s elephant (the tallest one, of course) took most of the trees.  There were also some baby elephants that came along, and they had trainers on their backs.  The next morning we left for the safari in Botswana.