Travel Tuesday for 2.17.15: Victoria Falls, Zambia
Traveled: January 2015 with Alex
For the first time ever, I am getting caught up on travel photos in a reasonable amount of time after the trip! Therefore I figured I’d bring back Travel Tuesday in 2015 with the first destination of our Africa trip, Victoria Falls.
After landing in Zambia, we spent one night in the capital of Lusaka and then grabbed a bus south to Livingstone. The bus ride was thankfully uneventful, and we arrived in Livingstone just in time to hustle through a sudden downpour to our hostel. Livingstone is quite touristy with lots of activities set up to appease the adventure seeking backpacker and most everything centered around the mighty Zambezi River. We spent our first morning careening down white water rapids in what was the most exciting rafting tour I’ve ever completed. We completely capsized twice and were nearly thrown out on several other occasions. Pretty much my favorite type of adventure ever. 🙂
Afterwards, we had lunch on the banks of the river and then had a much quieter evening just enjoying the falls themselves. Because we were there before the wet months started, the falls were much smaller then normal, creating lots of mini waterfalls down the cliff face rather then the monstrous wall of water that thunders in the rainy season. This also allowed us to get fairly close without getting completely drenched by the mist, which my camera lens appreciated. After we had our fill, we headed to one of the fancy lodges above the falls to enjoy the sunset cocktail in hand.
In case you’re curious, we stayed at Fawlty Towers in Livingstone. I highly recommend it, our room was great and very affordable, it was quiet with beautiful grounds, and the breakfasts were delicious. They also arranged our white water rafting tour, which was awesome. The rapids were crazy yes, but I never felt unsafe. Our guides were excellent and we were well equipped with all the proper safety gear.
We watched the sunset from The Royal Livingstone. This place was over the top ridiculous fancy with zebra and giraffe roaming the lawn, and a flutist playing in the background and high tea served in the finest style. However the back patio for sunsets and cocktails was quite casual. While the whole place felt a little weird to us it IS a nice place to relax in the evening and the sundowners are second to none.
