Africa - Day 4
Our day began with another delicious breakfast in the hotel restaurant...in fact I would have to say that the croissant I had was the best I have ever tasted.
A short shuttle ride took us back to the airport where we went to check in for our flight. At first look the check-in area seemed rather chaotic, but it actually didn't take us long to check-in at all. We had great fun reading the departures board and seeing it full of names of African cities we had never heard of before.
We took a ridiculously long bus ride to get to our plane. It ended up leaving an hour late so we had nothing to do but to sit there and watch them load our bags onto the plane. The flight wasn't even half full....I could of loaded them faster myself! The flight was less than 2 hours long and before we knew it we were almost at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. We hit a lot of turbulence on our way in and a tour group full of middle-aged French tourists had us in giggles when they started screaming like they were on a roller coaster. Victoria Falls airport is tiny and our plane pulled up right outside. The arrivals hall was a room consisting of 2 counters - one for visitors who need visas, and one for locals who don't. Everyone was in the visa line and it took us quite some time to get to the front, even after the guy in the non-visa line started serving people too. It's not cheap to get into Zimbabwe, costing us US$45 each for double-entry visas. Even after all that waiting only one of our bags was ready to be collected. They were just as slow unloading the bags as they were loading them and they were basically putting them on the back of a tractor and then slowing unloading them onto the floor of a room. Customs was a case of either walking under a red sign or a green sign, and there in arrivals we immediately spotted our shuttle driver, Godfrey.
We could tell straight away that Zimbabwe is experiencing an economic crisis. Their money is virtually worthless and our driver paid for parking with a $200,000 note! On coming into land we hadn't been able to see anything from the plane in the form of people or buildings and it seemed like the airport was in the middle of nowhere. That turned out to be the case, as leaving from the airport we saw nothing but dusty countryside and the occasional car or person. After driving into the small town of Victoria Falls to pick up a person who wasn't actually there, we headed for Botswana. Crossing the border involved getting in and out of the van 3 times in a short space of time; once for Zimbabwe immigration, once for Botswana immigration, & once to stand on a bit of old sponge at the Foot & Mouth control point. We were very grateful we weren't on a big tour-bus, otherwise it would of been quite a rigmarole!
It took us an hour to drive to our home for the next 5 nights, Chobe Safari Lodge. We were greeted at reception by a nice cool glass of guava juice, which was much appreciated as the temperature was in the mid 30s. A friendly porter took us to our rondavel on the banks of the Chobe River.
Our first port of call after was the Activities office, where we had both the pleasure and misfortune of being served by a friendly little man named Julius. Our original plan was to book all our activities for the stay in one go, but after spending a good half hour booking just two activities we left with the hope of finding someone else to serve us at a later point. Julius was lovely and friendly, but the slowest person ever. We complicated matters by paying in rand (South African currency), so he had great difficulty working with the exchange rate on the calculator. I almost had to sit on my hands to keep from grabbing it off him.
We went and swapped some rand for some pula (Botswana currency) and headed off to the small town of Kasane which is literally right next door to the lodge. We walked across the sandy, dusty lot to find ourselves inside a very large modern supermarket where we rushed to grab cold drinks and some food for dinner.
We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the deck of our rondavel admiring the view. There were interesting birds in the trees, large colourful insects, and lizards crawling on the outside of the rondavels. Finally, we felt we were in Africa. We enjoyed our first, spectacular, African sunset, and just as the light was disappearing a couple of vervet monkeys settled into the trees next to us.
The heat made us lethargic, and we went to sleep early in anticipation of early morning game drive tomorrow.
A short shuttle ride took us back to the airport where we went to check in for our flight. At first look the check-in area seemed rather chaotic, but it actually didn't take us long to check-in at all. We had great fun reading the departures board and seeing it full of names of African cities we had never heard of before.
We took a ridiculously long bus ride to get to our plane. It ended up leaving an hour late so we had nothing to do but to sit there and watch them load our bags onto the plane. The flight wasn't even half full....I could of loaded them faster myself! The flight was less than 2 hours long and before we knew it we were almost at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. We hit a lot of turbulence on our way in and a tour group full of middle-aged French tourists had us in giggles when they started screaming like they were on a roller coaster. Victoria Falls airport is tiny and our plane pulled up right outside. The arrivals hall was a room consisting of 2 counters - one for visitors who need visas, and one for locals who don't. Everyone was in the visa line and it took us quite some time to get to the front, even after the guy in the non-visa line started serving people too. It's not cheap to get into Zimbabwe, costing us US$45 each for double-entry visas. Even after all that waiting only one of our bags was ready to be collected. They were just as slow unloading the bags as they were loading them and they were basically putting them on the back of a tractor and then slowing unloading them onto the floor of a room. Customs was a case of either walking under a red sign or a green sign, and there in arrivals we immediately spotted our shuttle driver, Godfrey.
We could tell straight away that Zimbabwe is experiencing an economic crisis. Their money is virtually worthless and our driver paid for parking with a $200,000 note! On coming into land we hadn't been able to see anything from the plane in the form of people or buildings and it seemed like the airport was in the middle of nowhere. That turned out to be the case, as leaving from the airport we saw nothing but dusty countryside and the occasional car or person. After driving into the small town of Victoria Falls to pick up a person who wasn't actually there, we headed for Botswana. Crossing the border involved getting in and out of the van 3 times in a short space of time; once for Zimbabwe immigration, once for Botswana immigration, & once to stand on a bit of old sponge at the Foot & Mouth control point. We were very grateful we weren't on a big tour-bus, otherwise it would of been quite a rigmarole!
It took us an hour to drive to our home for the next 5 nights, Chobe Safari Lodge. We were greeted at reception by a nice cool glass of guava juice, which was much appreciated as the temperature was in the mid 30s. A friendly porter took us to our rondavel on the banks of the Chobe River.
Our first port of call after was the Activities office, where we had both the pleasure and misfortune of being served by a friendly little man named Julius. Our original plan was to book all our activities for the stay in one go, but after spending a good half hour booking just two activities we left with the hope of finding someone else to serve us at a later point. Julius was lovely and friendly, but the slowest person ever. We complicated matters by paying in rand (South African currency), so he had great difficulty working with the exchange rate on the calculator. I almost had to sit on my hands to keep from grabbing it off him.
We went and swapped some rand for some pula (Botswana currency) and headed off to the small town of Kasane which is literally right next door to the lodge. We walked across the sandy, dusty lot to find ourselves inside a very large modern supermarket where we rushed to grab cold drinks and some food for dinner.
We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the deck of our rondavel admiring the view. There were interesting birds in the trees, large colourful insects, and lizards crawling on the outside of the rondavels. Finally, we felt we were in Africa. We enjoyed our first, spectacular, African sunset, and just as the light was disappearing a couple of vervet monkeys settled into the trees next to us.
The heat made us lethargic, and we went to sleep early in anticipation of early morning game drive tomorrow.
posted by Rachel & Shanon @ 11:59 PM
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