Victoria Falls: Zimbabwe Edition

Today, we crossed over to the other side. Of Victoria Falls, that is. After seeing it from Zambia yesterday, we saw the falls from Zimbabwe today. We had been told to go early to see rainbows* so AT indulged me and got up at a cool 6am** to hit the streets. 

She pretended to feel like this:

But I know she felt like this:

WARNING: If you STILL don't like pictures of waterfalls,*** close this window now and go reevaluate your entire existence.

Because of our (arguably too) early arrival time, we had the park to ourselves for a good 20-30 minutes and we got to see the sun rise over the falls. As someone who likes to sleep in, I hate to admit that it was magical. But it was magical.

Of course, Dr. Livingstone was there again.

One of the biggest differences on the Zimbabwean side was that the canyon the falls are going into is much narrower than on the Zambian side. This meant that there were entire sections with spray so thick you could barely see anything through it.**** The name for Victoria Falls in Zambian literally translates to "The Smoke that Thunders." At some point we wondered if there were still waterfalls at all!

The clearest point to see the waterfalls came at the very end, across the canyon from the Zambian side. Overall, we decided that we did prefer the views on the other side,****** but these weren't exactly awful.

I now give to you an entirely new category of photo: "Waterfall gazing" 

Oh! And there were rainbows. Beautiful, beautiful rainbows.

It wasn't all waterfalls and rainbows. There were also giant trees and vines.

 In case you really did come here for the waterfall pictures:

 In non-waterfall news, AT had the best cappuccino of her life!******

 And tried on a hat!*******

And in our continuing coverage of "Seeing Animals Without Even Trying," we had guinea fowl, more monkeys, and a warthog!

 When he was a young warthog . . .********

Whew! That might be all of the waterfall pictures for a hot minute. I promise I did narrow them down, though,********* so if you are in desperate need of more, let me know.

Until the next wonder of the world!
-KT

*Thank you, Vicki!
**That's "oh-dark-thirty" in Terry time.
***WHY DID YOU EVEN COME HERE???
****The ultimate smoke and mirrors.
*****The waterfall is always bluer on the other side?
******This is not "that" Rainforest Cafe
*******My favorite past time. #neverforget https://teachersummer.blogspot.com/2015/09/happy-labor-day-or-at-in-hats-part-ii.html
********(When I was a young warthoooooooooog!)
*********There was a lot of "next to the bench, in front of the bench, next to the bench, in front of the bench."

Victoria Falls: Zambia Edition

Apologies to TLC* because today we chased waterfalls full time. We chased them by land and by air and tomorrow we're going to do the same. We are at Victoria Falls which is on the Zambezi River and borders Zimbabwe and Zambia. Although we are staying on the Zimbabwe side, we crossed to Zambia today to get AT her 150th country point** and see the "lesser view" side of the falls.*** Tomorrow we are going to see the Zimbabwe side and based on the number of photos I took today, I decided this was a must-double-blog situation.

WARNING: If you do not like pictures of waterfalls****, close this window now and save yourself. You have two pictures before you will see SO MANY PICTURES OF WATERFALLS.

First up, we had to get to Zambia! It was all of a ten minute car ride with a trip to the border customs police on either side of the bridge. The bridge is a no-mans-land known as Zim-Zam, so that's fun!

AT is excited about crossing into Zambia!

Once in Zambia, we headed to the Victoria Falls park entrance and were greeted by David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer that saw the falls in 1855 and decided to bring the Western world here.*****

From there it was just game on with waterfalls and pictures and disbelief and awe. Victoria Falls is not the widest or the tallest waterfall in the world but it is the largest.****** At some point, the need to quantify the majestic power seems unnecessary and you just have to take it all in.

The top of the river before it drops. How peaceful!

The drops.

Somewhere around here was a map showing us that we were only actually seeing a third to a half of the entire waterfall system.*******

We took about 300 photos of the falls and us looking glamorous in front of the falls. We also have a lot of these. I figured that since the glamorous ones of us will end up framed on pianos in our homes********, I'd put some of these other ones here.

Most of the time, I looked something like this:

*********

But sometimes, I promise, we did look nice:

There is also the lovely bridge! It is a feat of 1905 engineering********** and you can walk it, drive it, ride a train across it, or bungee jump*********** off of it!

 One more as we walk away . . .

Since that wasn't enough, we took a helicopter ride to see the whole scope of the falls. They weren't lying, we were only seeing a tiny portion. IT IS CRAZYTOWN.

 Regardless, we're still doofs.

Fortunately, our pilot kept it together.

 One more as we fly away . . .

In other news, if you were worried that we didn't see any animals today, we saw TWO giant herds of elephants from the helicopter and many baboons on the streets, some of whom were taken for a ride.

Tomorrow, we're seeing the "good" side of the falls. Thank goodness. What a dump it was today.
-KT

*They did know I was going to have it my way or nothing at all, so at least they were prepared. Am I moving too fast? Only time will tell.
**You know the drill: https://travelerscenturyclub.org/ AT gets a pin for 150!
***A large portion of today was spent being like, "wait, THIS is the worse side?!?!?! How can there be a better side?!?!"
****What the f#@k is wrong with you, though?
*****Colonialism, man. I have a lot of thoughts and none of them are going to go into this blog of waterfall pictures. Cash me outside.
******We have extensively googled waterfall lists now. Largest is defined as height times width. Volume is a whole other category.
*******I had mostly curse words to say about that.
********God, we're divas.
*********Get the angle right, AT!
**********Oh, you're super into bridges now? Google it, already.
***********And maybe I'm going to the day after tomorrow?!??!