Mosi-oa-Tunya

Livingstone (Zambia) --> Victoria Falls --> (via Bulawayo to) Johannesburg (South Africa)

You may have heard of Mosi-oa-Tunya: it's a brand of Zambian beer. It's also local speak for 'smoke that thunders', the name of a big ol' waterfall scribbled onto European maps by some Scottish guy who wandered past here. Victoria Falls is the name of the town too. It's small, tiny even, yet has a quaint relaxed style. It's ideally located a few hundred metres from the waterfall.

The first thing that happens when you get to Victoria Falls is a local kid will approach you and ask if you want to buy some Zimbabwe Dollars. Not to exchange, rather to buy as souvenirs. Before the Zim Dollar tanked the government of the day had gone as far as to print 100 trillion dollar bank notes - that's a 1 with 14 zeroes afterwards. After getting some terrible offers I arranged to meet a banknote seller later if he could rustle up some of these 100 trillion dollar notes ("Oooh, very rare, hard to find," is the common response from the sellers as they try and bump the price up). Except I meet Thomas, tourist policeman. Selling Zim Dollars is illegal according to Thomas as he leads me to his home across the road where he has a shoebox full of Zim Dollar banknotes that he wants to sell. I spend a while picking through them, ranging from 1 Zim Dollar all the way up to 10 trillion, as I pick out what I want to add to my burgening money collection. I grab a huge range in the end for a decent price - Thomas isn't fussy. He also helps me get some 100 trillion notes too: his friend has a purse full of them.

And so, what to do? Yes, there is only one thing to do and on the morrow I walk back to the border, formed by the Zambezi River and, skipping past the raincoats for hire (I brought mine with me), head straight for the ticket booth. $30 for Victoria Falls? I can handle that.

I won't bother rambling about the falls themselves - just look at the pictures, much better. The one point worth making is that the falls are at the highest they've been for a couple of decades thanks to record rainfall in the parts of the Congo which feed the Zambezi River. That's great, in that the constant roar and the mind-boggling volume of water pouring across the falls. The downside, as alluded to, is the spray generated by the falls means that often you are getting water dumped on you. Sometimes it's like drizzle then the wind will change and a heavy shower gets dumped on you. And, if you're as stupid as I was, and walk along the exposed path to the uninvitingly named 'Danger Point', then it's like being in a monsoon. Bottom line, you can spend a long time waiting for the wind to change in order to get that much needed snap. But, let's not look a gift horse in the mouth: during dry season (circa September to November) it's possible to walk across large parts of dry Zambezi riverbed from the Zambia side, on the top of the falls. I can't imagine that Victoria Falls would be quite so breath-taking.

With Victoria Falls dutifully seen and recorded on camera I left with haste to Johannesburg in order to do some shopping. All I had to do was jump on a bus to Bulawayo at 3am and then connect to Johannesburg.