The Trip of a Lifetime: Part 1 – Victoria Falls

     Our 2 weeks visiting Victoria Falls and then Botswana was one of the great events of our lives: wonderful sights; fascinating people; some hardships we were able to handle; splendid birds and animals. The following description goes on a little long, I know; sorry, we saw and experienced a lot in 2 weeks. I broke this into 4 separate postings for the 4 stops of our trip. I think breaking it up makes it easier to deal with, but I don't really know – this is the only blog I've ever done. There will not be a quiz.

    We crashed our first night in Swaziland's commercial town, staying with a 3^rd year volunteer who had been working nights with commercial sex workers, going around with a driver and a nurse; he finished his service the next week. Buying pizza we joined a volunteer who is extending for a 3^rd year and her well-spoken low-key Swazi fiancé who is construction project manager for an NGO building a health clinic. Very interesting conversations.

     Staying in town enabled us to take the 1^st khumbi out of Manzini to JoBurg, which left at 7 a.m. It was fun to see dawn come to the city and the bus rank wake up, and to start our adventure. We got to JoBurg in time to take a bus tour of the downtown area, which is now probably the least important part of the city, but all we had time for – the action in Jozie seems to emanate from the townships and the wealthy surrounding suburbs, where businesses moved.

     Quick impression – JoBurg is a lot like Denver. A sprawling, high, dry city established about 35 years after Denver (Jozie – 1886) because of mineral discoveries, where treatment of the indigenous population was (and still is for JoBurg) an issue, and vast income disparities are manifest. JoBurg's downtown looks like Denver's in the late '80s after the oil crash, but without even the 16^th Street Mall. But JoBurg has a terrific fast, clean, safe, frequent comfortable train system. In the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, JoBurg is a “rainbow” city.

TIA (“This Is Africa”) Moment: WHO Yellow Fever proof

Checking in at the JoBurg airport to fly to Zambia the airline agent stared fixedly at my yellow World Health Organization card, shook her head and said she had to review it with her supervisor. She came back smiling – the all-important date of yellow fever vaccination was not included in the stamp she had been scrutinizing, but on the line of the card containing the stamp and also lots of additional (superfluous – but you never know who might want more) information.

OK, exhale.

     Upon arrival at our hotel in Zambia we walked 15 minutes to the Zambia side of Victoria Falls, the east side. Impressions:

• The paths were full of Africans, far outnumbering the whites, exactly the opposite of our experience in Swazi game parks.
• The Africans were generally dressy, as for a special outing. Many ladies from church groups were in their full church dress, identical for all from the same church, each uniform sparkling clean and ironed; many others were in Sunday best outfits. Only the white people wore what I would call “sensible shoes.”
• We were silent upon first viewing the falls. In discussions later we agree each of us was a little underwhelmed. More on this below.
• We walked down to the river below the falls, then back up. Many school groups. A boy passed me and urged on his girlfriend: “If this old man can do it . . . .” Missed what he said next. To whom could he have been referring? He had to say that in English?
• Up at the top of the east side of the falls again, we walked along the shore of the Zambezi in the golden fading life of dusk, seeing therRiver flow peacefully through the many islands, and then disappear over the lip like a giant's infinity pool, sending up the “smoke that thunders” that gives the falls their local name.

• People come to Vic Falls from all over the world. At the table beside us at dinner that night were some loud heavy-set men with younger hard-looking women all, ordering repeated refills of their wine glasses and other drinks; I'm convinced from the sound of their speech and appearance the men were Russian oligarchs.
• The next day we took a 15 minute helicopter ride, then walked across the bridge to Zimbabwe and walked the west side of the river, and from these two we came to appreciate the scope and magnificence of the falls. They are more than a mile wide, and about 110 yards high. But the falls were created, not by erosion, but by a rift in the earth opening from the shift of tectonic plates, and the area in front of the falls to the other side of the chasm, where we walked, is astonishingly small – sometimes I think about 125 yards away. This makes it easy to see the details, but you have to step back, and see each separate vista, to appreciate the scale. Or swing around in a helicopter, which we did. Also, the Zambia side, where we stayed and from which we first saw the falls, is slightly higher, and so in the drier season when we visited the flow is decidedly less than on the Zimbabwe side. My beloved art history professor referred to buildings and art works you can “see” in an instant (the Parthenon, Washington Monument; US Capital) and ones that you have to walk around, take some time and study a while to figure out (the Hamilton building at the Denver Art Museum; one's not better than the other - they are just different). Vic Falls is like that; it cannot be comprehended from any one view, even the helicopter.

• Each day we watched bungee-jumpers from the bridge. Both nights I woke up, shaking off what could have been a Meflaquin dream (and I haven't take that devil's brew for 8 months!), envisioning myself poised on the lip of the step in the middle of the bridge, then stepping out and down, down . . . , and of course waking up! We visited on the bridge with a pleasant Brit who was cheerfully watching his wife “take the plunge.” I thought of asking her as she strapped in if she knew whether he had bought a lot of insurance on her life recently, but refrained.
• This was our 40^th wedding anniversary. Many times we thought of those days 40 years ago, and of where we are now. Memories evoking “such sweet sadness.”