Day 6

Today is Saturday. The schedule called for recreation instead of work. There were two items on the agenda, visit Victoria Falls and go for a horseback ride in an area near the falls where we might see African wildlife. Both events are near Livingstone. Getting there involved the long ride over and around the pothole marred highway from Zimba to Livingstone. Since there are eight of us, it takes two vehicles and two drivers – a total of ten. The company offering the horseback rides could handle only five riders at a time so we divided up into two groups. One went to Victoria Falls while the other went for the two hour horseback ride. After lunch, we switched.

The rides were pleasant (a little tough on some parts of our anatomy) and both groups saw giraffes, impala, and monkeys. One group saw zebra and a sleeping hippo as well.

There was an unusually large rainfall during the rainy season (November-February) this year so there was a lot of water in the Zambezi River coming over the falls. We walked along the path on the ridge in front of the falls. So much water was coming over the falls producing updrafts and spray that it would be like walking in a downpour of a rainstorm in one stretch of the path and be virtually dry in another. It would be impossible to walk the path without becoming completely soaked if not for a poncho. The mist was so heavy in many places that you actually couldn’t see the falls. This mist rises hundreds of feet in the air above the falls and we could see it in the distance when we were still about five miles on the other side of Livingstone.

Later in the afternoon, the two groups met in Livingstone to have dinner together at an outdoor restaurant serving traditional African meals. It was a very pleasant, relaxing day.

On the way home over the same bad road, away from the lights of Livingstone and Zimba, you could look at an unfamiliar sky (southern hemisphere) in which the milky way is so prominent as to appear almost like clouds while hundreds of brighter, closer stars jump out at you against a black backdrop. Pretty awesome.