Day 4 … goodbye Victoria Falls

September 22, 2024 

Time to say goodbye to Victoria Falls as we bring this first chapter of our adventure to a close. We had an airport transfer arranged for 11.00 from our hotel ... so in typical I and J style we filled it with a 2 1/4 hour walk around town! 

The first stop on our “self guided walk of Vic Falls” was to visit the Lookout Cafe. This has spectacular views over the gorge but in order to view them you needed to access the Cafe! Fine by us ... a ginger ale for me and a sprite for Ian served over a tumbler of ice ... all for the grand total of $7.50. 

And the views were worth every single cent that we paid. We were able to see the other side of the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia, the massive rift in the land that forms the gorge and the river and rapids below. 

The Cafe is lovely, the grounds beautiful and the toilets had stunning photographs and the funniest sign I’ve read in a while in a toilet. 

Leaving the Cafe we headed off along the dirt road back to the main street into town, negotiating the many curio sellers along the way.  

Our next stop was to see how close we could get to the Victoria Falls Hotel. This grand hotel was built in 1904 by the National Railways of Zimbabwe to provide accommodation for those arriving from Cape Town to visit the Falls. 

Ian had read various websites that indicated that as a gated hotel visitors were not allowed to enter but he hoped we may have had a chance to spy it from afar. However  ... the wonderful gate guard (Zachariah) walked towards us (we thought to tell us to move off) and asked if we would like to come in. We explained we were not guests but he welcomed us in and told us to take our photos. 

Once beyond the gates I was happily snapping pics of the hotel frontage and we wondered what the chances were for us to actually peek inside the hotel lobby. Another guard (James) waved us in ... and said we were welcome. So ... in we went to the lobby, and then the courtyard, through the lounges, outside to the verandah, and all the way to the end of the garden where we had views of the bridge again and the plumes of spray coming from the Falls. What an amazing experience to wander the luxurious space ... imagining the people arriving by train and staying at the hotel. At $870 USD per night for the cheapest room today we figured it won’t be us! 

Saying goodbye (and massive thank you’s to Zachariah and James) we wandered along the road to visit the Victoria Falls Railway Station. Again it was built in the early 1900s. It is lovely ... and is still used today as the final destination for Rovos Rail (which by coincidence pulled into the platform after we had just left the station and scurried across the tracks).

When you wander the streets of a local town, whether it be in your own country or overseas, you always see amazing things. Today was no exception. Today it was warthogs in the grounds of the police station!

On to the final stop of our walking tour ... a visit to the Pick and Pay … the local supermarket. Whenever we travel we try to check out how the local communities live … by avoiding the tourist locations. So no curio shops for us but instead the local shops. And what a supermarket … the cleanest supermarket I have ever been in with the widest aisles and the most meticulous displays ever! The food is similar but the way it is displayed shows such incredible pride in the work they do. We had a lovely time wandering the aisles looking at the fresh produce, the cakes in the bakery, the juices in the fridge and the massive bars of soap you could buy that were not packaged and in massive slabs!

And then it was time to head back to our hotel for one last time to collect our luggage and wait for our airport transfer to arrive. There were lots of people coming and going from the hotel … to the airport, to or from the helicopter flights, bus tours and taxis. Our driver (Armstrong) arrived promptly and we jumped into the mini bus where we had a lovely drive to the airport with a couple from New York. We had a great chat about our days, about travelling to New York and a whole lot of other chatter. We also had the most incredible insect hitching a ride.

And so to the airport …  check in, security, passport control and then waiting for our flight. I bumped into the two couples we had stood in line with at immigration 3 days earlier and we had a chat about our days in Vic Falls. A chat with our boys at home whilst we waited to board and then we boarded for our flight back to Johannesburg. 

We were blessed with a row to ourselves … thanks to our super wonderful check in agent who cleverly placed us in an aisle and a middle. This meant we ended up with no one in the window seat so when they closed the doors I was quick to jump over to that seat! A “sumptuous” meal was to be served (according to the head air steward) which was indeed lovely. I had a beef casserole and Ian had a fish casserole. We had a slight delay over Johannesburg (what a surprise … air traffic congestion!) but after a few spins in the air we landed safely and negotiated the normal procedures of an airport arrival. 

We had the BEST disembarkation of a plane we have ever experienced in all of our travels, both domestic and international. The flight crew told everyone on the plane to remain seated and that they would be disembarking everyone 6 rows at a time. They invited the pointy end of the plane to disembark … urging everyone else to remain seated (which surprisingly everyone did) … then rows 11 to 15, then rows 16 to 20 … and so on. Overhead lockers remained closed until the rows were called. It was brilliant … I hope more airlines take note. It was smoother, less frantic, more polite and actually quicker!

We had one slight delay … which in hindsight was actually quite fine … when we were asked to assist the passport control in their trialling of the new biometric passport process. It was a little slower but it was fine and the officer was incredibly grateful that we were willing to take the extra time for them to work out how best to explain to travellers how to get their fingerprints and faces scanned.

Bags collected we then headed to the airport shuttle transfer to our hotel (right next to the airport). We were quickly checked in, in our room and settled in for the night. Dinner was in the restaurant on site …and was a buffet and at only $25 each it was a bargain!

A final side note … in a previous blog post I mentioned the BBQ that Ian fondly remembered from Vic Falls. Here is a follow up from Ian …

Note from Ian: For anyone confused by the reference on Day 2 of this blog to Ian, Vic Falls and a BBQ, here is a photo of where I spent my first night in Africa when I travelled here many years ago. Backpack in the hollow, sleeping bag on 10mm foam roll mat, and mosquito net to protect me from wild creatures. Admittedly, I was 25, and like all young men completely indestructible (a point proved to be so very wrong two months later on the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro - but that’s another story).