Victoria Falls -- Zimbabwe

Yesterday, after dragging ourselves out of bed (some earlier than others) after a night of booze cruising on the Zambezi, we walked back over the bridge we jumped off of 2 days earlier and into Zimbabwe. But before we crossed, we made sure to watch Eric as he jumped. It was so funny to watch someone else do it, having done it yourself, knowing how FREAKED they are. And just laughing. Ha. But finally, we wandered over the rest of the bridge, and into the Zimbabwean side. This is the actual town of Victoria Falls, made for tourists. There's nice shops and a few restaurants. People make it out to seem like a real touristy place, but it still has that African town feel too.

Today we took in the Falls from this side. AMAZING! We were a little disappointed with the Zambian side. They haven't gotten a lot of rain this year and it is dry season anyway, so the falls were almost dry from that side.... Not so from this side! About 1/2 of the falls are in Zambia and 1/2 in Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwean side is lower so the water there is generally at a constant level all year while the Zambian side dries up this time of year. So today we were treated with the full effects of the falls - meaning we got SOAKED! But it's so hot, you were dry in a few minutes once you got out from they spray of the Falls. We sat and watched as people went into "Devil's Pool" at the top of the Falls in Zambia and were SO THANKFUL that we didn't do it!! I would rather have bungee jumped again. Devil's Pool is RIGHT at the top of the falls and I almost peed my pants watching other people do it, I couldn't imagine swimming to the edge of the falls!! I'm a pretty clumsy person on dry land, I would definitely be one of the 5 people a year that falls off the Falls.

But anyway, it's been a good trip to Victoria Falls. It makes me really want to get over to Niagara Falls. I mean if I've been to this one, how have I not been to that one. I'm even itching to get to Angel Falls in South America now so I can hit the big three. It's interesting that in terms of height, these three waterfalls wouldn't even crack the top 800 waterfalls in the world. Niagara is actually not high at all - 51 meters if I'm not mistaken. But they are all SO wide and so full (especially Niagara with a huge volume of water going over it) that they're considered the biggest in the world.

We're headed to Bulawayo tomorrow night on an overnight train from like 1910. After bungee jumping off a bridge built in 1905, I'm not too worried. Ha. We're off to "The Great Zimbabwe National Monument." If you haven't heard of it, Google it. If you're too lazy to do that, I'll post some info on it in my next update.


Until then... Cheers!

Victoria Falls - - Zambia

Well I'm feeling pretty good at the moment. It's a sort of "I just cheated death" sort of feeling. This morning, Anna Mae and I successfully bungee jumped off the Victoria Falls bridge!! It was insane! So scary, so awesome!!

We've been talking about this jump for, well, years. Literally. But it's always been so far away. "yeah i'm gonna jump... whenever i get to zambia.." Well we're here, AND WE DID IT! Neither of us slept well last night, and one of us had to slug a few beers in order to get any sleep at all. This morning we boarded the shuttle around 10am and we both sat in silence the whole time, occasionally bursting into fits of hysterical laughter, because that was the only thing we could do. We got off the shuttle and walked along the road towards the Zambia/Zimbabwe boarder (the bridge is in between the two countries). We both remarked how this is what it must feel like to be walking towards your death: the heat, the empty road, the numbness and acceptance that there's nothing you can do about it anymore. It took about 5 minutes to walk to the boarder, and 5 minutes at reception before we walked out onto the bridge. As soon as we walked out there, the guy held out a harness for me and I stepped onto the platform. No time to think about it; just how I like it. Within a minute I was looking over edge and saying the typical American line of "HOLY SHIT!" No sooner had I said it that the man put out my arms and said "5..4..3..2..1..BUNGEE!!" I jumped. Not as far as I thought, but at least it wasn't like the girl after Anna Mae who had to be thrown off. It was a weird feeling. The first 3 seconds you get that stomach in your throat feeling. The next few seconds your like "shit, i'm STILL FALLING!!" then you twist around a bit as the bungee kicks in and all of a sudden you're coming back up. The WORST part of the whole thing was not the jumping, not the falling, but the bouncing. The weightless feeling you got at the top of your bungee, just before you fell again, with no control of it this time. It happened at least 6 times and my legs and arms visibly shook each time. Finally, I stopped bouncing and was reeled up to the bridge safely to watch Anna Mae repeat everything I had just done.


It was an awesome experience I will probably never do again. Ha.


We then wandered around the Falls for a while, trying not to be a little disappointed in the lack of water rushing down the Falls. Apparently there's been way less rain than usual (and it's technically the dry season anyway) so the Falls were still cool, but not as epic as they can be. Thank you Global Warming for that.


Tomorrow we're heading out for a sunset booze cruise on the Zambezi before we head out to the Zimbabwe side of the Falls on Tuesday. Should be awesome! : )

I'm trying to upload bungee pictures now, but hold tight for more, the Internet sucks...

Swakopmund

With just a little battery power, a little airtime left, and a weekend ahead with no Internet, I just wanted to put up a quick update. Namibia was fabulous. We were shown around the townships of Windhoek by the owner of Camelthorn Brewery. It was a fun time, wandering into shebeens and chatting with random people. We spent the next four days on the coast in Swakopmund - a town known for being "more German than Germany." We had a fabulous time climbing up and sandboarding down various sand dunes. But we mostly enjoyed renting movies and catching up on sleep in the sleepy little town. We're on our way out of Namibia at the moment and on to Livingstone, Zambia... or as most people know it - Victoria Falls! We are very excited, and absolutely terrified as we'll be bungee jumping from the Victoria Falls bridge. Think of us on Sunday when we'll hopefully be jumping! :/ Victoria Falls is on the boarder of Zambia and Zimbabwe, so we'll spend a few days on the Zambian side (at the top) before heading over to the Zimbabwean side (the bottom) for a few days as well. Should be an awesome time! I've been posting pictures on Facebook as we get free Internet, so keep checking there for some sweet pics. ;)

Windhoek

After a 22 hour bus ride through God-only-knows-where-Africa, we made it to Windhoek, Namibia a few days ago. We didn't have a lot we wanted to accomplish here, but one thing rang true with all of us... beer.

Windhoek brews our favorite South African beer, originally named "Windhoek." We have probably been planning a brewery tour for 2 years. Unfortunately, it wasn't until we came that we learned they're under renovation and aren't giving tours at the moment. : ( Fortunately for us, we had been to the Old Biscuit Mill in Cape Town and sampled a great craft beer called "Camelthorn." After chatting with the guy for a while, we learned it was a Namibian beer based in Windhoek! Score! So today, we're off to check out the Camelthorn brewery and taste some of their delicious beer. We've also learned that "Hansa" beer is brewed here too (though I'm still not convinced it's not South African) and we'll see how much there is to do in our next town and if some more free beer is in order...

We've spent the last few days wandering around the city of Windhoek, enjoying German Schnitzels and beers. In case you didn't know, Namibia was colonized by the Germans, however long ago. It's interesting because there are technically three colonial languages spoken here: Afrikaans, German, and English. Then there are at least 7 different tribes, each with their own language, or at least dialect.

Namibia is a fasinating country (what we've seen so far anyway). It is a huge country with only 2 million people, making it the least densely populated country in the world. When we drove in, I saw a sign saying we were 20 km from Windhoek. As the capital of Namibia, you would think there would be smaller towns, townships, something leading up to the biggest city in the country. Nope. It wasn't until we were 2-3km from city center that any sort of life appeared. Namibia is apparently just towns seperated by rolling desert hills. Beautiful, but weird.

We met a Peace Corps Namibia volunteer at the backpackers we're staying at, and he graciously invited us to come out with him and his fellow volunteers that night. We were quick to agree and we soon found ourselves in a big mall, eating pizza, drinking "Jam Jars" and surrounded by 10 volunteers familiarly all talking at once. We were in heaven. It's not like we haven't been with Peace Corps volunteers the whole way so far, but we're a small group traveling. There's something about a big group of American Volunteers getting together that makes me all warm inside... everyone talking over each other, complaining about life in their communities (though everyone actually loves it), dishing out the latest gossip in the PCV and expat community. We all agreed we'd missed it. Peace Corps Volunteers are in general, pretty awesome people, so we had a blast and made sure to hang out with them again last night, after a delicious dinner of springbok, kudu, ostrich, crocodile, and zebra. Mmmmm.

Tomorrow, we're headed to the coastal town of Swakopmund. Everyone we've talked to, every guidebook we've read, has said it's like Germany in Africa. Considering I've never been to Germany, I'll probably have to take their word for it, but it should be an interesting sight, a German town in the middle of the sand dunes of the Namibian desert. On the coast of Namibia are the infamous dunes that you see in the typical pictures of African desert, set up right against the ocean. Namibia was the first country in Africa that we saw as we flew to Johannesburg oh so many years ago... Our first glimpses of the continent were of this desert set up right next to the ocean. I'm very excited to see it from the ground. I'm also excited to hopefully do some sandboarding on the dunes. Should be fun!

We'll be in Namibia until Friday when we head north towards Angola and then east through the Caprivi strip and into Zambia to Victoria Falls. People keep talking about the bungee jump and I keep covering my ears. In my mind, it's still WEEKS away and I don't have to think about it, no one remind me it's only days away...

Goodbye SA

I'm having a hard time saying goodbye to this country, I've realized. South Africa has been a sort of "home" for us these past two years... An escape from the rural African life. Not to say parts of South Africa aren't exactly the same as Swaziland, but the feeling of crossing a boarder and going to a city with skyscrapers and malls and consistently hot showers was as close to going home as we could get. South Africa has always been our shining beacon of hope when life in Swaziland became too much. "If I can just make it one more month, I'll be in Joburg/Durban/Cape Town for two weeks." It's hard for me to imagine never coming back here. I hope that's not true. I hope I come back many many times. If this trip across the coast has taught me anything, it's that South Africa has so much to offer. We've seen cities and beach towns, townships and suburbs, McDonalds and Chicken Licken, black people and white people, and 11 different languages. It is so extremely diverse in everyway, and that is something I have come to appreciate, having lived in a place where 99% of the population is the same race and ethnicity. I love this country.

It's been such an interesting trip across the coast. It is such a great route to backpack, but not a well tapped one. Everyone goes to Europe. Not many people think of backpacking the coast of South Africa. Because of this, and because everyone does one of two routes (CT to Durban or Durban to CT), you run into the same people in each town. There's only about 50 people backpacking the whole thing, and 50% are going the same way you are, so you all get to know each other pretty well. By the time we reached Cape Town, we didn't go anywhere without running into people we knew... The Old Biscuit Mill Market in Woodstock, the reggae concert at the random backpackers, the bar down the street. It was fun. But now we're leaving our group of surf loving, coast travelers. Will it be the same going up? I've heard so, but I guess we'll see.

Anyway, this past weekend in Cape Town has been fun for sure. But we're ready to move on to places we haven't seen; uncharted territory... for us anyway.

Ready. Set. Climb!

Hiking the coast of Mossel Bay, SA.