Zimbabwe with G Adventures

After spending a week overlanding through Botswana with G Adventures, it was time for us to make our way to Zimbabwe. We would be spending a short amount of time exploring Victoria Falls and learning a bit about Zimbabwean culture.

A Local Lunch and a Sunset Cruise

We spent the morning on a safari dive in Botswana and then headed to Zimbabwe for our second border crossing of the trip. We arrived at our campsite around lunchtime and then had a traditional meal prepared by the Lusumpuko Ladies, a group of women who provide meals to tourists in Victoria Falls as well as the local community. These women taught us some Zimbabwean customs and served us some delicious local cuisine for lunch. I enjoyed everything except the sadza, which is a polenta-like porridge that many Zimbabweans eat every day. I even tried a huge caterpillar that tasted surprisingly sausage-like.

Our delicious lunch (can you spot the caterpillar?)

After lunch we exchanged our Botswana currency for US dollars (Zimbabwe now uses USD after the extreme hyperinflation of its own currency). We also left our laundry with the Lusumpuko Ladies which was much-needed after a week of camping. Then we joined a sunset river cruise which was a really fun time. We had dinner back at the campsite and stayed up until 10:30 PM, the latest night of the trip so far, since we could finally sleep in for once. It was our last night as a full group – most members would be leaving and new ones would be joining the next day. We had a lot of laughs and reminisced over all the “TIA” (this is Africa) moments that we’d had along the trip that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else in the world.

Victoria Falls

I had a much-needed lazy morning and then headed to the famous Victoria Falls with some group members. We paid the expensive $50 USD entrance fee and then made our way through the 16 different viewpoints. We saw people buying ponchos, but the first 6 viewpoints were only sprinkled with a light mist so we thought they were overreacting. Viewpoints 7-14 had a heavier mist and we started getting more wet, but I had my rain jacket so I wasn’t too worried. Then we arrived at viewpoint 15 and it started downpouring! We were all soaked in seconds. Now we understood why the ponchos might have been a good idea. From there we made our way to viewpoint 16 which took us to the bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Thankfully it was warm and sunny so we dried off quickly.

Victoria Falls

A different view of the Falls

Don’t forget a poncho!

The Falls were really amazing, and it was cool to see them from so many different angles. I would, however, recommend a helicopter ride to see them from afar if you can afford it. Some of our group members showed us pictures from the air and it looks much more impressive; you can truly see the scale of the Falls from above. I was still grateful for the opportunity to see them in person, however. After we had dried off we walked to the Lookout Cafe where I had an amazing burger – just what I had been craving.

After lunchtime I decided to go ziplining across the Zambezi River gorge with two other group members. We had to cross into Zambia for this, but it was a really informal “border crossing” – the Zimbabwe officials give you a piece of paper with the number of people in your group and then you simply walk across – no passport required! We enjoyed watched people bungee jumping from the bridge during our walk.

I was worried about the safety of the ziplining, but it turned out to be perfectly fine. I also purchased a GoPro video of the ride which was a nice touch. At the end, they give you hooks to hook and unhook yourself as you make your way off the bridge. This was a definite TIA moment – no way you would do that unsupervised back home!

Ziplining across the Zambezi River gorge

Once that adventure was over, it was time to head back to the campsite where we said our final goodbyes to the group. I was nervous to meet my new group members who I would be spending the next 20 days with, but everyone turned out to be really nice. I also met our two new guides, Masivu and Tony. We had a late dinner and the food took forever to arrive, but at least it gave us some time to get to know each other. We had an early night in preparation for our next leg of the journey. One week down, three to go!