Victoria Falls - Part1: Getting there

Deb and Thom would first like to apologize for the horrible delay in a new post. Recently, both of our computers crashed within 24 hours due to completely unrelated things and it has taken us a while to recover.

As we resume our blogging we would like to start the story of Thom's Victoria Falls adventures...

Half the adventure of the excursions you can take in Africa is the journey itself. Nothing is ever easy or direct. For example, before Deb arrived in Botswana, Thom and Deb's friend Keith was in town and Thom and Keith decided they wanted to meet our friends Carmen and Jason Villar who now live in Zambia. After much debate it was agreed that we would all meet in Livingstone, Zambia to see Victoria Falls. Because Carmen and Jason live so close (about a 4 hour drive) they end up going there a lot with visitors.

Anyhow, to get to Victoria Falls from Gaborone is not a 4 hour car drive but rather a little bit more complicated and reminiscent of the Steve Martin movie, "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". So we left work at about 10:00 AM to catch an 11:00 flight to Kasane in the north part of Botswana. Note that we made it to the airport with about 25 minutes before departure and we were some of the first there for that flight. While waiting in the departure lounge, Thom ran into 2 people he knew from Gaborone. It's a small town. The plane took off on time and we landed in Kasane a little after noon.

So Keith and Thom went outside the airport and realized they really had no idea what company was picking them up to provide transportation. Apparently this is quite common because there were a lot of confused people standing there and a lot of confused drivers coming up to different groups asking, "are you the So and So's" or "are you staying at the umpty squanch lodge?" In all this confusion one gentleman asked Keith, "Are you the Villas?" and Keith replied, "No we aren't staying at the Villas, we're going to the Tongabezzi Lodge." Thom jumped in and said "do you mean the Villars?" because Carmen had made the booking. The driver, whose name by the way was Sparks, said "Yes, the Villas." After he showed Thom and Keith the booking and it was determined that yes indeed it was the Villars we were on our way.

So we got in the truck (pictured to the left). Thom was a little concerned that they were going to ride for an hour in this vehicle. It turned out that really wasn't an issue but it was windy as they drove along in the back of this truck. The truck drove through Kasane as it headed to the Zambezzi river and had to slow down to almost a complete stop. The reason for the slow down was a mess of live stock in the road (Ok it wasn't a mess but it would have been if we didn't slow down). Pictured on the right were some cows that would not get out of the way. This is not unusual for driving in Botswana.

After leaving Kasane we headed towards the river and the border crossing. About a mile before the border we encountered a line of trucks. Sadly Thom didn't realize at the time what this meant and didn't get a picture. You see, the line of trucks were waiting to cross the border. They line up and wait, and wait, and wait. Our driver told us that the truck at the end of the line will probably be there for 3 to 4 days before he crosses the river. Mostly the backup is due to only 1 truck getting on the ferry at a time and cars get priority on the ferry. If both ferries are working there are 4 crossings an hour. Most of the time only 1 ferry is operational. Above on the left is a picture of a truck crossing on the ferry heading to Botswana from Zambia.

Thom was worried that waiting for the ferry was going to take for ever. It turns out those fears were unfounded because once we went through immigration in Botswana we were taken down to the river where a private boat was waiting for us. Keith and Thom quickly grabbed their bags and jumped onto the boat. The driver even rode across the river with us to make sure we were passed off to the next vehicle on the other side. The whole boat ride took about 10 minutes.

When we got to the Zambia side we were met by another transport company who had brought 20 tourists to the border earlier that morning. So we got to ride toward Livingstone in the luxury bus that they had traveled in. It was a little bit more comfortable than the truck that had picked us up at the airport. The expediter took Keith and Thom through Customd and Immigration which was amusing because the woman processing Thom's diplomatic passport thought it was a big deal. Thom being the fool that he is tried to down play it which made her think that there was something suspicious about Thom. Editor's note: Thom learned his lesson about too much modesty and will not repeat that again. 2nd Editor's note: there usually is something suspicious about Thom.

From there the drive to the Tongabezzi lodge took about 30 minutes.

In next week's exciting blog we will continue the adventure at Victoria Falls.