Zimbabwe and Zambia

My stays in Zimbabwe and Zambia were both fairly brief but great, and today marks one month since I have last seen a cloud in the sky!  Though it took quite awhile to clear the Zimbabwean border post, the wait was well worth it thanks to the elephants who strolled on by while we were waiting for our visas.  Victoria Falls wasn't far from the border, and we were happy to check into a backpacker's after another full week of camping, and then quickly headed off to see the falls!  

Mosi-oa-Tunya, or "the smoke that thunders" certainly lived up to its name.  It was a gorgeous day, but it looked like there was total cloud cover over the the falls, and as we approached we got drenched as if we were in the middle of a monsoon!  Zimbabwe is just coming off rainy season, so the falls were at their highest of the years, and we were bitterly disappointed to find that we weren't able to go white water rafting on the Zambezi because of this.  On the other hand, I was grateful I didn't have to make the decision of whether or not to go in "Devil's Pool" (the pocket of water on the edge of the falls that you can swim in), as it is only possible when the water is very low.  The next day I was to walk over to Zambia, so I packed up my things and a couple of us stopped on the bridge to jump off ... with a bungee cord of course!  In fact, we chose the economical option and got a package deal to do a zip-line across the ranging Zambezi, followed by the bungee jump, followed by the gorge swing (a second free fall off the bridge, only to swing out away from the bridge and just hang above the river for the longest 3 minutes of your life as they pull you back up!).  It was exhilarating to the max, but I think I've ticked that box for now and won't need to do that again anytime soon!

Livingstone, Zambia, is about 12k from the border, so luckily I found a fellow backpacker at the bridge who was traveling Africa on his motorcycle, so I got a free lift back to town- an unexpected treat, although it must have been quite the sight with my bags!  I spent the next couple days hanging out in Livingstone before catching a bus up to Lusaka for a night.  I bought a bus ticket for 6 am the next morning to Malawi, turned up at 5:30, and promptly waited 11 hours on the very hot, smelly bus for it to fill up, at which point we departed on the 14 hour journey-- I suppose I shouldn't have been worried about getting into Malawi in the dark, since it was light again by the time we arrived.  Busses in Africa don't leave until every seat is full, so regardless of the scheduled departure time, they will sit in the bus station and rev their engines all day long until enough people board- not sure that's saving any gas, but hey!  Fortunately and unfortunately, I passed the time by shooing off the constant stream of vendors who boarded the bus selling everything from food and drinks to watches, underwear and clothing, radios, cell phone chargers, newspapers, and pretty much everything else under the sun.