bus, boat, bus
26/02/2017
Cityhopping in Zambia
02/03/2017
It was quite easy to get from Botswana to Zimbabwe- we simply took a taxi to the border, walked across (friendliest border guards so far :D ) and took a taxi on the other side for 10 USD per person, which drove us directly to the shoestrings backpackers in Victoria Falls.
We had decided to book a double room for a change, because our backs (or Nici’s back) desperately wanted to rest on a real mattress and the Lonely Planet says that double rooms in the Shoestrings are 35 USD.
They were 45 though, like most places which are mentioned in the Lonely Planet, they’d made higher prices.
Our brains didn’t function well enough after too little sleep, so we took the double room anyway, even though there would’ve been dorms.
BUT- afterwards we were glad, because shortly after us, an american christian missionary-group of 40 people arrived at the hostel and filled the dorms…
…and we definitely prefer a different kind of company…
They were loud and partied late into the night- which really surprised us. There even seemed to be a fight on Saturday night (while we were already in bed, as always), which was pretty surprising, we thought christian teenagers aren’t allowed to drink and get into barfights?
Well, we definitely learn a lot on our travel…
Anyway, the Shoestrings is an awesome place! We fell in love with it and stayed three nights.
On the first day, we went for a walk to visit the Big Tree and buy some souvenirs, then we went on the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia, where we watched people do the bungee-jump.
René was quite tempted to do it, too, but the high prices made him decide against it.
We also learned about the Victoria Falls ‘Seahorse’, bought one of the bracelets and got another one for free… because René has Dreadlocks.
We had decided to book a double room for a change, because our backs (or Nici’s back) desperately wanted to rest on a real mattress and the Lonely Planet says that double rooms in the Shoestrings are 35 USD.
They were 45 though, like most places which are mentioned in the Lonely Planet, they’d made higher prices.
Our brains didn’t function well enough after too little sleep, so we took the double room anyway, even though there would’ve been dorms.
BUT- afterwards we were glad, because shortly after us, an american christian missionary-group of 40 people arrived at the hostel and filled the dorms…
…and we definitely prefer a different kind of company…
They were loud and partied late into the night- which really surprised us. There even seemed to be a fight on Saturday night (while we were already in bed, as always), which was pretty surprising, we thought christian teenagers aren’t allowed to drink and get into barfights?
Well, we definitely learn a lot on our travel…
Anyway, the Shoestrings is an awesome place! We fell in love with it and stayed three nights.
On the first day, we went for a walk to visit the Big Tree and buy some souvenirs, then we went on the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia, where we watched people do the bungee-jump.
René was quite tempted to do it, too, but the high prices made him decide against it.
We also learned about the Victoria Falls ‘Seahorse’, bought one of the bracelets and got another one for free… because René has Dreadlocks.
That evening, we met a couple in the backpackers, whom we’d already met three months ago, in our fist lodge in Johannesburg! The world really is small…
We visited the Victoria Falls together, on our second day in the country.
Luck was with us (at first), because there were some sunrays and we were able to get some nice shots of the falls.
Since it’s the rainy season, the falls have an incredible amount of water and it was really stunning to watch them go down a hundred meters into the ground.
The locals call the falls “the smoke that thunders”, because there’s so much fog from the falls, you can barely see anything.
Oh, and it also makes you wet…
We (as in René and Nici), decided to take a Zambezi Shower and went close to the edge… and yep, we got soaked completely.
Our friends kept their distance to stay dry, but ironically enough, on our way back through the National Park, we were surprised by an unbelievable thunder storm, the pavement got flooded in some places and the four of us were equally wet in the end…
On our third day in Victoria Falls, René got a short flu and had to stay in bed the whole day long.
Nici went to the bar to get a wifi-connection, but got drunk instead.
A local guy and his cousin from California invited her for a drink, then there were suddenly lots of tequila and whiskey shots involved and beer to flush it down… and it was only 2pm.
The guys left again and Nici ended up feeling more sick than René…
The good thing about drinking in the afternoon, though: you can get sober again and get drunk twice in one day ;-)
(Which Nici didn’t though, she’s too old for that)
That same night however, was the barfight and we regretted not having gone back, it would have been an interesting thing to witness…
On our last day, we decided to become billionaires and bought some old Zimbabwe money for 15USD. Worth it? Don’t think so, but we’ll have something cool to hang on our wall in the future… (if we ever have our own walls again)
Zimbabwe was a great experience, even if we didn’t see so much of the country… (there’s a financial crisis going on, plus high crime rates, plus we’re on a tight schedule).
Victoria Falls is definitely a place we would never visit, if it weren’t for the Victoria Falls… There’s way too many tourists (obviously, since the town was mainly built for them) and we prefer places, where we’re (almost) the only ones…
The locals however are really nice and outgoing, and the whole atmosphere was just right…
After South Africa and Namibia- both countries changed extremely by colonialism, it just really feels like the “real” Africa now- and we love it!
We visited the Victoria Falls together, on our second day in the country.
Luck was with us (at first), because there were some sunrays and we were able to get some nice shots of the falls.
Since it’s the rainy season, the falls have an incredible amount of water and it was really stunning to watch them go down a hundred meters into the ground.
The locals call the falls “the smoke that thunders”, because there’s so much fog from the falls, you can barely see anything.
Oh, and it also makes you wet…
We (as in René and Nici), decided to take a Zambezi Shower and went close to the edge… and yep, we got soaked completely.
Our friends kept their distance to stay dry, but ironically enough, on our way back through the National Park, we were surprised by an unbelievable thunder storm, the pavement got flooded in some places and the four of us were equally wet in the end…
On our third day in Victoria Falls, René got a short flu and had to stay in bed the whole day long.
Nici went to the bar to get a wifi-connection, but got drunk instead.
A local guy and his cousin from California invited her for a drink, then there were suddenly lots of tequila and whiskey shots involved and beer to flush it down… and it was only 2pm.
The guys left again and Nici ended up feeling more sick than René…
The good thing about drinking in the afternoon, though: you can get sober again and get drunk twice in one day ;-)
(Which Nici didn’t though, she’s too old for that)
That same night however, was the barfight and we regretted not having gone back, it would have been an interesting thing to witness…
On our last day, we decided to become billionaires and bought some old Zimbabwe money for 15USD. Worth it? Don’t think so, but we’ll have something cool to hang on our wall in the future… (if we ever have our own walls again)
Zimbabwe was a great experience, even if we didn’t see so much of the country… (there’s a financial crisis going on, plus high crime rates, plus we’re on a tight schedule).
Victoria Falls is definitely a place we would never visit, if it weren’t for the Victoria Falls… There’s way too many tourists (obviously, since the town was mainly built for them) and we prefer places, where we’re (almost) the only ones…
The locals however are really nice and outgoing, and the whole atmosphere was just right…
After South Africa and Namibia- both countries changed extremely by colonialism, it just really feels like the “real” Africa now- and we love it!
