My fourth African country in just over a week. Like they say, another day, another border crossing. The trip from where we are staying at Lokuthula Lodges to the Royal Livingstone Hotel in Zambia is around 20 kilometres but with the border crossing thrown in it takes around 1 1/2 hours, one hour of which is the paperwork and formalities to leave one country and enter the next. Africa seems pretty consistent that way, all the borders we've crossed this trip have taken around the hour mark. The day started with a walk through the grounds where we are staying to access the free wifi at reception and upload my recent blogs. The walk provided warthogs and babies and also banded mongooses (mongeese?), also with babies. Once that was done we headed off for the day's excitement across the border in Zambia. Across the border we headed into the Royal Livingstone Hotel for lunch, prior to our trip to Livingstone Island. The driveway to the hotel provided my first glimpse of zebra, which was an unexpected, but pleasant bonus to the day. The lunch was very good and the hotel seems likely to be highly recommended should one chose to stay the Zambian side of the falls. We were met from the hotel's sun deck and, after some miscommunication regarding our booking, we were finally allowed to get on board the small boat which was to take us across. The short trip to the island was fabulous. The Zambezi is beautiful at this point above the falls, and looks remarkably placid. It was where that I got my first glimpse of hippos although they were mostly submerged so it was more eyes, ears and noses. Once again they seemed to come with babies, as do most animals here at present. Stepping from the boat onto the island itself was, for me, a moment of awe and reflection. The thought that I was approaching the falls pretty much as David Livingstone first approached then some 158 years ago was pretty special and I tried to imagine the sense of wonder and excitement he must have felt as he moved across the island. Once ashore we were greeted with a local drink of some description made from mealies (corn) and banana. It had a slightly tangy taste but was not unpleasant. We then headed for the Devil's Pool and our afternoon swim in the Zambezi. I will point out at this point that there ARE crocodiles in this river. To get to the pool we had a swim of maybe 20 to 30 meters, first slightly upstream and then downstream to the small island from which it is accessible. The swim takes place maybe 20 meters from the edge of the falls but the current there is surprisingly light. From there a short walk across the rocks took us to the edge of the pool itself. Our guide informed us that it was forbidden to jump into the pool and that we must slide into the water at a certain point and then swim across the middle of the pool to the rock lip on the edge of the falls which is responsible for the pools existence. He then proceeded to give a countdown at the end of which he did a back flip into the pool. His assistant captured this perfectly on my camera and I will (as ever) post the pic as soon as I can. Sliding into the pool was relatively simple but as you struck across you could feel the strength of the current on either edge. Once there we had various photos taken (group and individual) by the assistant guide, Kelvin, as we sat on the rock kedge or peered over the edge of the lip and looked down to the bottom of the falls. A somewhat uncomfortable experience as I found I as constantly aware that the only thing standing between me and the 'plunge' was the grip the guide had on my legs, (Did I mention one our guides was called Alpha Omega?) I managed to peer over the ledge, Deb had a good look too but Amy went even further and got a really good look down. As for Travis, he practically had to be pulled back as he seemed intent on drawing down the falls, he went so far over! One other slightly scary feature of the pool is that it contains small fish which will nibble your feet if you leave them still. Not too unpleasant on it's own but a bit more scary if it surprised you and made you jump! (The edge of the falls is not really the place to be getting jumpy!) Getting out was also a bit of a challenge as you had to cross the current at the edge if the pool in order to grab the rocks and climb out of there. Thankfully we all managed this safely although Deb slightly misjudged her first attempt and got a feeling for the strength of the current at that point! After that we retired to the island camp for a delightful afternoon tea with wonderful food and cakes. The only downside, they had run out of gin for the G&T's! Luckily we were able to make do with vodka or Pimms so it wasn't a complete disaster. After tea we had another short and pleasant boat trip back to the hotel grounds where we were delighted by a very rare albino vervet monkey, named George, ultra cute! The final surprise of the day was, once again, on the drive of the Royal Livingstone. We rounded a bend to find a baby giraffe suckling from it's mother. They were there just long enough to snag a couple of pictures and a bit of video and I have to say I really feel I have been very lucky with all the sightings I've had so far on such a short timescale. I'm starting to wonder if my luck is going to change come Tuesday and Hwange Game Reserve is going to prove to be a game free area! Still, all in all I've not done too badly so far and there's a while to go yet. I'm off white water rafting for the morning tomorrow so it's now time for an early night as pickup is at 7am.
