Our Africa Adventure travel blog

Trucks were lined up in mile long row waiting for the ferry...

Crossing the Zambezi River to Zambia from Botswana.

To Victoria Falls

The edge of the falls

The spray was just a fine mist here

.

The railroad bridge across the chasm

Here is where the water fell on us from barrels

The last picture before Tom's camera got wet.

Dr. Livingstone

Our room at the Royal Livingstone Hotel

View from our room

Walking to the main building

Zebra by the pool

Dinner

Uploading for this journal

An inside enclosure in the dining room

Our butler - the costume is a bit over the top!


Livingstone, Zambia, Sunday, May 2, 2010

Today was our last morning in Botswana. We decided to sleep in and not go on another game drive. Anyway, we already have nearly 30 gig of pictures! Our travel arrangements to our next African country had us departing from Chobe at 10AM with a short drive to the boat that would take us across the Zambezi River at the Kazungula crossing - trucks were lined up for about a half-mile at on the Botswana side at to get on the single-truck ferry. Our connections were flawless and the motorboat ride was under 5 minutes! After a quick customs clearing at the border, another van awaited us and we then we headed to Livingstone Town - a trip that took about an hour and a half.

Our Classic Journeys guide (Pam Carr) for the next 11 days greeted us in the lobby of the Royal Livingstone Hotel. This is right on the banks of the rapidly flowing Zambezi and a 15 minute walk to Victoria Falls. The sound of the falls is like a freight train and a plume of mist extends high up in the sky.

After lunch we headed off to the falls with hotel raincoats and plastic bags for our cameras. At first, the spray was just a gentle mist, but as we began across the footbridge which was closer to the cataract, it felt like barrels of water were being dumped on us! We were drenched from head to our soggy shoes. Tom must be having bad camera karma because his camera while secured in a bag got damp and refused to operate.

We returned to the hotel and dried out on the way in the hot African Sun. By 10 PM, the camera began to show signs of life and in the morning it was behaving OK, but still with some problems of shutting down. Tom isolated the problem to an interlock on the battery compartment and the door interlock on the CF card. He gave these spots a blast with the hotel-room hairdryer and now the camera is back to normal, thankfully.

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