Livingstone to Cape Town

Devil's Cauldron (Victoria falls from Zimbabwe)

Our travels started by crossing the river into Zimbabwe. We spent 1 1/2 hours touring the falls from this side. You can see about 2/3rds of the falls from here, even though only 1/3 of the falls is officially in Zimbabwe. We had a lot of mist obscuring the falls in the sun, but we didn't get as soaked as the Zambian side.


On the way to the airport, we stopped where we had left our bags 15 days earlier. It was also a chance for Chamu to stash his cash some of the food staples. he had bought in Zambia. It was a 'mock' election day in Zimbabwe. Because of extreme violence, the opposition candidate against Mugabe had withdrawn from the race. There have been a lot of killings and violence from the police.


Now that we've left the country, I feel I can write some of the stories we've heard. Our trip leader is from Zimbabwe, he completed college and became a game warden here. A lot of his job involved tracking poachers which is very dangerous since the wardens are unarmed. He became a game guide before becoming a tour leader, which is an upper middle class job here. But there are few food staples in the stores and meat is scare. That's why Chamu tired to buy food in Zambia and Botswana. Inflation is ridiculous here - the Zimbabwe dollar went from 3.5 billion to $1 US to 10.5 billion to $1 US in the 15 days we've been traveling. Our guide is fearful for his children, they probably won't get the education he has and their future is very uncertain. His wife and brother were threatened with arrest several months back. They had saved $2000 US for an electric generator. His wife called his brother to exchange US$ to Zimbabwe$ to buy the generator. The conversation was overheard and the police grabbed both of them, but for $2000 US the problem disappeared.


We flew from Victoria Falls to Johannesburg and then on to Cape Town arriving at our hotel at about 9 PM. A long day- we're ready for bed.