Day 22

Although the stretchers in our tents seemed a luxurious addition to our camping routine, the night was not so good. The stretcher was not offering any support of the kind that my spine needed and in addition it was storming that night, blowing the tent fabric literally in my face. Moreover, it was incredibly noisy. At times it sounded like there was heavy industrial activity right night to our tent, but the next day I realized that this was probably the steam train that is still running right through the city and stands still with a blasting steam engine for long periods of times. From 6 am onwards there was the continuous sound of helicopters, that would not stop till 6 in the evening. We heard that there are apparently 10 helicopters and 6 of them are allowed to be in the air at any one time. These helicopter tours were sold per 11 minutes for an insane amount of amount of money and since Willem and I figured it would be just as beautiful from up close, we did not book a helicopter flight. I had strongly considered the rafting trip, but as it took a full day (again for a lot of money), I skipped that as well. While we were at the falls and saw the rafts in the gorge below I did have some regrets, which disappeared when I heard from our group members, that during this level 4 or 5 rafting tour, they would fall out the raft regularly while the crocodiles were watching them.
Willem and I walked to the NP of the Victoria Waterfall, passing numerous street vendors that again did not seem to be particularly interested in us. We were 3 dollars short for paying in cash, so we figured that we would pay by card, however when we got there the lady at the cash registered told is that the machine had not been working that morning, so we could try, but…. And indeed the thing did not work, we pointed out that we did not have enough cash and asked her what she proposed we do to solve this issue and her solution was as straightforward as it was simple: “wait for the machine to work”. We had noticed however that on the signs at the entrance, as well as on every bill that we had paid in Zimbabwe, prices are provided in about 7 or 8 currencies, neither of which includes anything Zimbabwean. It never became entirely clear to me, but I think they did have some kind of national currency, but as it was incredibly unstable, this was not in use much, not even by locals. By combining different currencies, Willem and I made it into the park.
Signs in the park provided us with background information. I had been wondering about the origin of these falls. It is not that the land is all of a sudden dropping (as the ground is about as high before and after the falls, with the exception of a gorge in between that is 100 meters deep, but only a few meters wide (clearly erosion had not been causing the falls to move backwards over time). The information signs however cleared up at least this one mystery for me. Apparently, the falls are created in a big plaque of basalt that is cracking when cooling down, it has been cracking in different directions, causing the falls to move back indeed, but not by erosion, but by the creation of new cracks that then form the path of the river downstream. New cracks and the trajectory of new falls have already been hypothesized.
The signs also compared various features of the Victoria falls to other falls in the world. The sign indicated that they are by far not the highest, only the second or third widest and also not the waterfall processing the largest volme of water, but using a unique ranking system based on these three combined, you would be a fool not to see that these are the best falls in the world. The signs even mentioned that the falls are on a modern list of 7 natural wonders in the world, but we saw a similar sign three weeks earlier at the Table Mountain, that mentioned a list of 7 natural wonders with very limited overlap compared to the wonders on this sign.
Since October marks the end of the dry season, the volume of the waterfall was at a low point, which was still very impressive. At a number of places the spray of water was taken up by air currents and raining down on us, which made us glad it was dry season as apparently sometimes during the wet season the spray is completely obscuring the view of the gorge below. Another interesting fact about this spray is that it creates the smallest stretch of rain forest in Southern Africa. Vic Falls are 1.7 km long and the spray is creating rainforest conditions very locally for a stretch of about 100 meters inland, resulting in about 200 m^2 of rain forest. Indeed the footpath along the falls would have the appearance of a rainforest on one side and the dry brownish look that we had seen so much of already on the other side. It did make me think that it is bizarre how much water we have seen during this trip and how dry our surroundings still had been.
After we walked the full length of the waterfall, we had a drink and since we still had some time to kill, we walked it again after that. We had been looking for pumbas during our trip but only saw a few in the far distance in Chobe NP, but here they were roaming the grounds freely.
I had booked a massage for the afternoon. When we went to the tent (it was literally a tent next to the pool) with the ladies that were offering all kinds of beauty treatments the day before to book my massage, the lady asked Willem if he also wanted to book a treatment. I guess he was waiting a split second too long before answering, so the lady was hoping that he could be persuaded into something. When Willem kindly declined she looked down at his feet and asked “pedicure maybe?” (LOL), I figure she had gotten enough money out of me already to mention my feet. For my massage I was advised to undress and cover myself with the towel she gave me that had the size of a stamp. After I had done as I was told and had decided what particular part to cover, the lady came back in and started my massage, with the not-so-soothing chatter of group members in the background (they were literally sitting only a few meters away near or in the pool). I had opted for the ‘firmer’ massage with deep tissue stimulation and I have to say that my deep tissue surely got thoroughly stimulated. I could tell by looking at the feet of my masseuse that she was bracing herself every time and at times it felt as though that train was driving over me instead of past me.