Travel challenge No.1 happened at Cape Town Airport. We weren't able to fully check-in online, so we figured we'd just sort it out at the airport. That proved a little trickier than expected. The South African Airways booking system wouldn't allow us to check-in for the 2nd flight because it was demanding VISA information, despite the fact that as a British Citizen we didn't need a visa prior to entry into Zimbabwe. After much confusion and discussions between the airline staff, one person who was more knowledgeable said that we wouldn't be able to complete the booking without being able to evidence when we were leaving Zimbabwe; we needed evidence of a flight out, even though our plans weren't certain and we were planning to travel by road into Zambia. The system needed to have details to evidence when we were leaving Zimbabwe.
This was really frustrating at the time, but we couldn't proceed without it. So using the free airport WiFi we quickly booked a flight with free cancellation and were finally then able to complete check-in for our flight.
Arriving in Victoria Falls airport in Zimbabwe we hit a wall of heat as we stepped off the plane. The temperature difference was huge; we went from 23'C in Cape Town to 37'C in just a short flight.
The queues at immigration were happily very short, so it didn't take long to get seen. It was fairly straight forward, but non-european borders can be a little intense because in spite of all the research you do, the border guards often have final discretion in how you are processed. Entering Zimbabwe was no different.
To be honest, if someone arrives on a pre-booked package holiday or pre-arranged multi-day tour, the questions of which VISA they need and how to obtain it will be very clear, but if, like us, they arrive without specific plans for where they're going and what they will be doing, getting the most appropriate VISA is less clear. We were encouraged to get a double entry visa which would allow us to leave Zimbabwe and re-enter the country, but we pushed for a KAZA UniVISA that would allow us the flexibility to travel between Zambia and Botswana and Zimbabwe for 30 days. The guard seemed reluctant to give us the KAZA VISA, probably because it was half the cost, but he did issue it and we crossed into Zimbabwe.
The airport is aboout 20-25 mins from the town of Victoria Falls, so to avoid over-paying a local taxi, we arranged a transfer via our accommodation. We always pre-arrange a transfer when we fly into a new country, because we always just want to get where we're going without hassle or delay or needing small denominations of a new currency, which is always a challenge. Our transfer driver met us at Arrivals and very quickly we were pulling up to the gate of Victoria Falls Backpackers, our home for the week.
Victoria Falls Backpackers is in a residential area about a 25 minute walk from the main street where there are banks, supermarkets, restaurants and a lot of tourist activity centres and hawkers selling helicopter flights, and bungee jumping and white water rafting trips. Staying further out has its perks - it's quiet, the streets are wide and clean with vibrant tree blossoms, there are no street sellers either! But it also has its downsides with no real local amenities outside of town and that 25 minute walk each way can be tough in the intense heat.
We were staying in a hut made of concrete walls and traditional grass thatched roof, which was nestled in a green oasis of a garden, full of trees and shrubs. It was a rustic hut, with an open roofline to the outside so we relied heavily on our mosquito net which usually did a great job of keeping them away from us at night, though we did
have one evening of drama when about 10 of the f*ckers had managed to find a way inside and had to die before I could even try to get some sleep. I was of course victorious and eventually slept soundly! Mossies weren't the only creature to make it's way in to the hut though, Gaz freaked to find a frog sat on my shampoo bar when cleaning his teeth one evening, which made me laugh a lot. And there was a whole scene of us catching it and evicting it from the premises.
We mostly ate at the backpackers, partly to keep costs down, but also because we didn't want to walk into town and back every day for dinner. Most people were booking taxis, but they are so expensive in Zimbabwe compared to South Africa that I couldn't bring myself to do it; US$7 each way adds up. In general, if it's walkable and
safe to do so, we walk, so that's what we did. And by walking I believe you get to see more about the place you're staying. The first time we walked to find a supermarket in Victoria Falls, only a few metres in front of us, we saw a pack of babboons moving out of the brush on our left across the road and into the brushland on the other side. Babboons are reportedly a nuisance in the town and are known to grab bags and take things out of your pocket, but they can also be quite viscious so we kept our distance. In another street a couple of days later, we saw a fight break out between what appeared to be two packs of babboons and they were moving fast up and down the road chasing and attacking and making a real rackit. It was quite unnerving but at the same time fascinating to see. I'm sure it must happen all the time, because a couple of guys soon appeared and used catapults to scare the babboons away.
At night we could hear elephants wandering in the streets and brushland outside the garden walls, and walking around the following day you could see the damage they had done, pushing and breaking trees to get to the mangos etc... other animals also come into town at night, so it's not generally recommended to walk around after dark. We didn't know how big of a deal this was, so one evening we decided to go to a cultural night of food, music and drumming that was about 1km further out of town, and we decided to walk there and back. We felt safe walking the streets given the low levels of crime in the area, and didn't think that there would be any issue walking back at 10pm. But as we walked the dark streets with only our little torch to light the way, a local security guard warned us that he had just seen a family of elephants crossing the road up ahead and we should be careful. Elephants are not always the docile friendly creatures they appear; they can be territorial, aggressive if cornered or if they are protecting the herd and generally should be given a wide berth. That said, we continued walking and I didn't have any anxiety until a car pulled up on the quiet empty street and the driver wanted to warn us that it wasn't safe to walk as there were elephants about. We thanked him and said we'd be careful. I immediately started to think we may have made a mistake and with an added level of stress made Gaz scan the edges of the road with the torch repeatedly for the remainder of our journey. We made it back without incident and whilst I was relieved, we laughed that there was a tinge of disappointment that we hadn't seen anything after all. The following day we were talking to some English lads who had been walking back from a night out and come across a herd of Cape Buffalo, which are known to be very dangerous and prone to attack. They had to climb trees to get out of the way, until a car saw them and gave them a lift to safety. So maybe we were very lucky, because I can't see my butt getting up a tree very easily!
We were told in South Africa by many Zimbabwean taxi drivers that we would love Zimbabwe because the people are so warm and friendly, and that proved to be very true not only in the helpful warnings given to us about the elephants but when simply walking the quiet residential streets during the day, local people would smile and say hello as they passed, wanting nothing from us but a smile and a wave. This was a welcome change from South Africa.
There is a lot of money about in Victoria Falls; it's a town that people visit en masse throughout the year to see the largest waterfall in the world and they bring a lot of money with them, so the town has big businesses tailored to serving those wealthy tourists, but alongside this there is a community of people trying to carve out a modest living and we try to support the smaller businesses wherever we go. I had read about a place further out of town where you could get a good cup of coffee from a little caravan, so one Sunday afternoon we went exploring. Sure enough we came across Loretta's Coffee and Smoothie Caravan, a pretty little mobile caravan with a service hatch set in her attractive front yard with plenty of seating. And the menu was impressive, I had an iced caramel latte and Gaz had a cappucino that we enjoyed sitting under one of the trees while Loretta's delightful young children occasionally ran past in the middle of some game. It felt good to support a small business that genuinely is a decent place that I'd recommend to anyone visiting the town.
Despite us seeking out familiar creature comforts like a good coffee, we do like to sample local foods wherever we go (me more than Gaz in fairness), and while in the area we did get a chance to sample a few local dishes including one called Mopani Worms. They're actually a type of catepillar that they chargrill and often serve in a tomato and onion sauce. This sounds pretty grim, and it is pretty much what it sounds like but it appears as standard on most restaurant menus and is not considered unusual to locals. So, given the chance to try it I had to say yes. Did I love it? No. Was it awful? No, well not if you like strong fish but I couldn't eat a whole plate of them. It genuinely had the taste and texture of dried fish. Gaz couldn't let me be the only one to try it so he also stepped up and gave it a go. He later described it as tasting like the Devil's a**hole and that he could still taste it several days later. I don't think he'd have it again.
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