last report--from victoria falls

patsenojexpedition
patrick and susan jones
Wed 24 Oct 2007 07:41
short report today.  we arrived at the town of victoria falls (vic falls in local parlance) and stayed at the victoria falls hotel last night.  and are off to the vic falls  airport for the long trip back home----vic falls, j'berg, frankfurt, sfo, carmel---will beback around noon on the 25th oct.
 
the victoria falls hotel is a really  nice old british colonial hotel----lots of brits here as well, and a 10 minute walk to the victoria falls . the hotel is really charming, like the raffles hotel in singapore, and quite spacious with lots of open spaces with ceiling fans, afternoon tea, and lots of old photos and animal heads on the walls (the animals are stuffed).  the train from j'berg stops nearby--this was a hotel made a long time go for the people of the region to come visit the falls.
 
the falls themselves are quite spectatular---very very wide and cover the whole horizon.  lots of mist.  maybe looks a little like niagra (spelling) falls.  we went in the early afternoon, so was very hot---and the mist made it quite humid---in fact the area is a microclimate of a tropical setting with palms and ferns etc. took lots of pictures from a number of spots, and is really a highly recommended spot if you are into "best sights" kinds of things>
 
everything here demands hard currency,  the park fee at the matetsi lodge required 30 dollars,  the entry into victoria falls, required 20 dollas per person, the visa to enter zimbabwe was 30 dollars a person, the internet lounge in the
hotel requires 20 dollars an hour etc.  credit cards are discouraged, because the government needs the foreign currency.
 
at dinner last night we were surprised there was no bottled water ("the supplies ran out".  we inquired about this and in fact in zimbabwe there are shortages of everything---bread, vegetables, bottled water, even there are rolling blackouts to preserve electricity.  food was pretty good nevertheless, but we did have soda water and lemonade instead of water......but eventually found a sympathetic room service person who gave us 3 pirated bottles of water.
 
we are now dashing off to the airport---great trip overall.
 
that's all folks!


Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail!