Living on the edge in Victoria Falls

Allison got robbed by a baboon yesterday at Victoria Falls.

It seems like it’s almost a rite of passage for everyone who lives in Africa to get robbed at some point. Joseph was taken down quite violently in Johannesburg but nothing was taken from him. I barely noticed the guy that took two bucks from me. Allison was deprived of her chocolate bar by a baboon, who was, quite frankly, kind of a jerk.



We had been hiking all over the Zambia side of Victoria Falls, exploring the various trails and admiring the impressive views it had to offer at various different vantage points. Victoria Falls is not the largest waterfall in the world, nor is it the strongest, or anything like that. And yet it’s still world famous for being an awesome site. David Livingstone described it as consisting of “scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.” The locals call it Smoke That Thunders. I’ve been to Niagara Falls many times, so it was pretty exciting to discover a new world famous site.







We first hiked down to the Boiling Pot, which is a bend in the canyon with crazy rapids that Joseph had gone down in a white water raft the day before (he only fell out once). The sign to the trail claimed it was only a 650 metre trail, which we thought would be nothing, but then we realized it was all stairs.






Almost looks like a scene from Jurassic Park. I was waiting for an angry T Rex to jump out

Boiling Pot



Still, it was worth the cardio exercise. After we finished admiring the view, we headed back on the same trail only to be confronted by about a dozen baboons, hanging out on the steps.







What the.

After my last encounrter with baboons at Daan Viljoen, I have developed what some may refer to as an irrational fear of baboons. I don’t consider it to be irrational. Baboons are jerks. Sometimes, they are face-ripping jerks.




Dude, that’s a scary baboon.

Luckily, these ones were used to tourists so they weren’t feeling threatened enough to rip anyone’s face off. Instead, they kind of just looked at us. Eventually the babies lost interest and went back to hanging out with their mothers. However, one large male baboon, clearly the alpha male of the pack which the locals call Prince, strode up to Allison, gave her one more look, and then grabbed her bag.

Allison put up a noble fight and there was a brief tug-of-war that ensued, but eventually Prince the baboon won, and Allison was forced to sit back and watched as the mischievous thief went through her bag, tossing aside all of her clothes, flipping through her Lonely Planet guidebook, and then finding the goldmine – her chocolate bar.



What a jerk.

Allison patiently watched him rip off the wrapper and eat the chocolate bar, all while staring at her in the face, daring her to do something about it. When he finished, Allison politely asked him to go away so she could collect her bag again. He refused. Allison asked him again, because she is a polite Canadian.



Allison watches baboon

Eventually some Zambian men came by and said something sternly to the baboon. The baboon shrugged, put down the bag and wandered off. I think we need to learn how to speak baboon.

That was not the craziest thing that happened to me that day, however.

This was the craziest thing I did.
(WARNING NOTE TO MOM BEFORE SHE SCROLLS DOWN: DON’T WORRY. THIS LOOKS A LOT MORE DANGEROUS THAN IT ACTUALLY WAS. IT’S ACTUALLY ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR TOURIST ATTRACTIONS HERE.)






We had a guide take us on a walk to Livingstone Island. Walking to an island may sound totally benign and unremarkable, but this island is actually right on the edge of the waterfalls, and you’re walking through the rapids to get there.




I am not making this up.

I have a fear of heights and water so this was a great exercise in staring at my fears and saying “Poo to you.” I had the chance to do that with my fear of baboons that morning, but having completely failed at saving Allison, I decided to walk to Livingstone Island instead. The trick is to hold hands so that even if you slip, you aren’t swept away because your friends will pull you back up.






That was the most intense hand holding session of my life


We are standing on the edge

And then, if that wasn’t crazy enough, we swam in the Devil’s Pool. Again, swimming in a pool sounds not so dangerous but it’s a lot more hardcore when you realize it’s right at the edge of the waterfall.




The Devil’s Pool is a natural waterhole at the edge of the water fall. You can’t see it in the photos, but right at the edge there is a ridge under the water that stops you from going over the falls. I have no idea how anybody discovered this ridge. I can’t imagine someone going around jumping into random parts of the fall to find out which parts won’t send you over and kill you. But someone evidently did.














And then we went home in a speed boat. Once I got back to the hostel, I had a hot bowl of eland stew and a cold bottle of local Mosi lager. I think that was possibly the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

arriving in zambia

This is the view that I have right now as I type on my computer
We’ve arrived in Zambia! After a long long long twenty four hour bus ride. We took the Intercape bus line, which is like the Greyhound of Southern Africa, except it’s a Christian company so they pray before each ride, and show really bad religious films on board. Sometimes I think I can’t deal with overnight bus rides anymore, where the seats don’t recline enough to get a proper night’s sleep (not when the person behind you is kicking you). Backpackers take the philosophy that the journey there is part of the adventure but these days I’m feeling I’d be perfectly happy to skip the sore back by flying straight to my destination and having more time to spend there.

At Oshiverongo, we had a pit stop. I went into the Puma gas station, which was advertising a contest where you could win a whole live sheep, where I bought some guava flavoured Oshikandela. Then we were informed that the bus was experiencing mechanical problems so we would have to wait while they tried to fix it. We sat on the curb in the parking lot, drinking beers and popping malaria pills out of boredom, feeling like a cliché from a Diableros song, wondering if we were going to have to camp out here all night. Then the bus roared back to life. Yay! The bus was fixed!



It turned out the bus wasn’t fixed. The oil was still leaking into the diesel. The driver had just decided to see how far the bus would go anyway. Sigh. I kept repeating the mantra “the journey there is part of the adventure” and tried to make myself believe it.

When I woke up the next morning, the bus was still running and we were in the thick of the bush, honking to scare animals off the road. I was fascinated to see rows and rows of traditional dwelling huts at the side of the road. I had never been up north before.

[north house]


A barber shop in the Caprivi Strip

A shop in the Caprivi Strip
The Zambian border was kind of an African stereotype. People lined up before a guard standing by a broken fence with a bucket of water. We were supposed to use that to wash our hands from food and mouth disease. I preferred my hand sanitizer. After that, we had to find out way to the border control building, navigating through a hectic maze of sad stray dogs, roadside snack stands, and guys waving wads of dollar bills offering “ForEx” (foreign exchange). Once we actually found the unmarked building, there was a mess of people inside pushing and shoving their way up to the desk, with nothing even resembling a line. This distressed British Dean, because it was very not British. We signed our information in the paper book, had our passports stamped, and miraculously found our way back on to the bus.


The Zambian border control building

Snack stands at border control

Once we crossed the border, we still had another three hours to Livingstone. Zambia was very cloudy and green, compared to Namibia. We drove through the Zambian countryside, which was filled with flooded greenspaces, cows, giraffes, huts, the occasional beautiful white orchid, and Coca Cola billboards. We arrived in Zambia only five hours later than scheduled, which was actually pretty good apparently.


Livingstone, Zambia
At the Livingstone hostel, we found a note from my friend Joseph saying he had gone white water rafting. He suggested we go on a sunset cruise while we waited for him to come back. We asked the front desk about what was available. She told us that there were two, one for $45 and one for $55.

“What’s the difference?” we asked her.
“About ten dollars,” she answered.
“Um, is the more expensive one at lot better?” we tried again.
“Not really,” she said. So we went for the cheaper one.

Once we arrived at the “harbour”, which was a dock at the end of a noisy beach bar, we saw why it was cheaper. It was basically a big covered barge with a bar in the middle, the kind of barge Rob’s friends built themselves and float down the Clyde River on every summer in Lanark. The other more expensive cruise was a fancy white double decker ship. But we didn’t mind. The other ship was full of quiet older tourists. Ours was full of partying friendly Zambians and a braai cooking sausages and chicken. And an open bar, of course.



Our boat


The other boat


The boat bar.

The boat braai.
On board, we quickly met up with some local Zambians, including Lucy and Levi. Lucy gave us each our own Zambian names. She named me Chilashan, which she explained meant “kind hearted” but I wasn’t so sure, seeing how it suspiciously had the word “Asian” in it.


Drinking with Zambians




Maddie and I reenacting a scene from the movie Titanic at the bow of the “ship”.
There was not only a sunset, but also hippos and crocodiles and elephants!








You looking at me?




A bigger crocodile. Delicious.
It was my first time ever seeing hippos.

When we got back, Joseph had left a note in our room saying he had gone to Zambezi restaurant and we should join him there. Having enjoyed his last piece of advice, we found our way there, where I ate more mapone worms (caterpillars), which I now seem to like munching on as snacks. I also ate crocodile meat, which was pretty delicious.

Afterwards we hit up a club that the locals had recommended to Dean. Dean told us it was called Pheromones. “Really?” I said. They named a night club pheromones? That’s certainly trying to sell something. When we got there though, we realized it was actually called Fairmont, and it was empty, which just goes to show you can’t believe anything Dean says.