After a short flight, a long wait in immigration and a temporary scare when I was told I was on the restricted list (it transpired it was another Jessica on the list and I was let in the country) we arrived in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. This was to be the start of our three week overland truck camping adventure!
Before that, there was time for a surprise, early Valentine's Day sunset cruise down the Zambezi river which provides a border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. We boarded a boat with a group of 4 and a group of 15 on a work outing (which provided entertainment for everyone) and headed to the top deck for gin & tonics (very refreshing in the strong African sun) and to wildlife spot. We saw hippos swimming in the river and a selection of birds. As we got further down the river we could see the mist rising from Victoria Falls - it looked like smoke from an enormous fire. After a beautiful sunset it gradually became darker and we moved downstairs for a delicious 4 course dinner. It was made all the more atmospheric by the electric storm as we watched fork lightening shoot through the sky (it was far enough away that Nick was not concerned about the chance of a lightening strike, I was a little concerned!).
preparing to cruise down the Zambezi
sunset and the storm clouds were starting to roll in
the mist and clouds created by the falls
We were up bright and early the next morning to meet our tour group, but we were disappointed to find that only half the group was there as the others had made their own arrangements for the day. The plan for the day was visit Victoria Falls by ourselves and then optional activities.
The trip to the falls was amazing! They were at their fullest with water thundering down everywhere! There was so much water it was pushing spray in the air (the smoke we had seen the night before) and then it fell down like rain. Some people brought their waterproofs and others hired ponchos, we decided it was only water and we would tough it out! After Nick had wrung his t-shirt out twice along the way and our cameras started to suffer we started to wonder whether we had made a wise choice! However, even those with protective clothing looked fairly wet so it didn't make much difference! Visitors walk along a path with a number of viewing points along the way each viewing point manages to provide a totally different view of the falls. The final viewing point overlooks the old bridge that goes into Zambia and provides free movement between the countries for the many monkeys running along the underside! It was also an opportunity to watch people bungee jump off the top. The worst part was watching people being slowly dragged up once they had completed the jump! We had lunch at a cafe overlooking the gorge further down from the falls with live entertainment in the form of people on a giant swing and a zip wire over the river. Someone had the job of going down a wire to retrieve each zip wire rider.
a shot from every angle!
an overview of the falls
the Victorian bridge to Zambia
our view from lunch
a shot from every angle!
After an unexpectedly relaxing evening at a local bar/restaurant with food and live music we were up early again the next day and the tour really did commence!
Our tour team for the next 19 days was Norman (group leader, Zimbabwean), Fadzai (driver, Zimbabwean), Riccardo (catering technician, South African) and Whitney (a large white van named after Whitney Houston). Whitney seated up to 26 people and came with a freezer and luggage lockers luggage at the back of the bus. Underneath the truck were more lockers which held tents, gas rings, cooking equipment and everything else we would need! It also had a strip light down the side and an awning to provide a food preparation shelter. The truck was run by Nomad the largest overland truck tour in Africa, they have over 45 trucks and we met several others along the way. The guides spend most of their time travelling through Africa with just a few days off at the end of each trip and those days didn't always fall when they were close to home.
Norman, Riccardo, Fadzai & Whitney - the dream team!
We also met the other 13 people in our tour group which was made up of a range of ages (20 to 62 years) and nationalities with representatives from Canada, Iceland, Australia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Japan. We were the only UK and US representatives and the only couple, but there were a couple of pairs of friends travelling together. Everyone had their own itineraries, for most people, like us, the trip was part of a longer journey. A couple of people had already been travelling on similar trucks (all named after deceased singers) for 40 days with their journey starting in Uganda.
We were assigned our lockers and fortunately we were given mid row lockers away from the stairwell which made for easier access (however we would soon learn that you had to time your locker access carefully to avoid blocking the whole truck) and we received three between the two of us as our bags are on the large side! We all had small padlocks to secure our lockers which rattles against the metal locker doors as the truck lurched along the African roads resulting in an irritating banging noise.
After some quick introductions we all found seats and we were off to Botswana!
Jess
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