Off to the Falls

Last time I checked in, I was still in northern Tanzania. Since then, several days and many kilometers have passed. All for a special goal - the Victoria Falls on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe!
My journey from Tanzania to Zambia was not easy and above all very time-consuming. Since a flight would have cost a whopping 450€, I decided to travel by bus. That saved me about 350€. However, the bus journey also cost me 5 days and a lot of nerves.
It started last Monday from Moshi to Dar es Salaam, the largest city in East Africa. The journey was supposed to take 10 hours, but after about 4 hours the bus stopped and we stood still for a while. Why that was, was not communicated to the passengers. It wasn't until I got off to stretch my legs that I knew why we had stopped. The bus had broken down and the drivers were trying to fix it. The whole action took almost 2 hours and so my arrival in Dar es Salaam was delayed to a total travel time of 13 hours. I spent the night there. My original plan was to take the train from Dar es Salaam to Zambia. Unfortunately, it was completely booked and so I continued with other buses. A 17 hour journey took me to Mbeya, a place near the border. I spent a night here as well. Since there were not many hotels here, the passengers slept in the bus, which was not really comfortable and restful. But well, the main thing is not to wait outside. Because at night it can get very cold. In general, I wear long clothes more often than summer clothes here in Africa, but that's just a side note.
On the third day of the crossing, we finally reached the border and then Zambia. Here I happened to meet Mpinga. A 34 year old local who works in healthcare and has nothing to do with tourism. Why do I mention this explicitly? Because I have NOT met any African locals in the tourism industry who were friendly or just nice to me. Everyone here, and I repeat it again, everyone who has something to do with tourism here tries to rip me off. As soon as the guys see a tourist (especially white people), you can see dollar signs in their eyes. It's extremely annoying and it's not fun to talk to them because they just want to sell me something and they are also very pushy and persistent. A clear 'no' on my part is skillfully ignored and they try to convince me to buy something through the pity route. One man followed me for over an hour. My attempts to tell him to leave me alone failed until I met the aforementioned Mpinga. I asked him to help me and inform my pursuers that I definitely would not buy anything and that they should leave me alone. That helped and I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. I got into a conversation with Mpinga and it turned out that he - just like me - wanted to travel to Lusaka. He offered to give me a ride in his car the next day, which he had bought in Tanzania and still had to register at the border. I gladly accepted the offer. After 2.5 days of uncomfortable buses and people, this was a nice change. So we drove towards Lusaka the next day. The journey was very pleasant and Mpinga told me a lot about Zambia, its economy, politics, and healthcare, which was very interesting for me. Unfortunately, we didn't quite make it to Lusaka, as there is a law in Zambia that prohibits driving after 21 o'clock. That's why we had to spend the night in a rest stop on the way in the car and were only allowed to continue driving the next day around 5 o'clock in the morning. We arrived in the village of Kapiri at around 11 o'clock, where Mpinga and I made a short detour to his sister's place. That was very nice because neither she nor her husband have anything to do with tourism and they welcomed me kindly into their house.
Finally, around 10 o'clock, we finally reached Lusaka. This is where our paths diverged. We had spent a total of 48 hours together by now, and it was the first encounter with an African that wasn't based on me having to buy something. That was very refreshing and a great experience. At around 11 o'clock, I boarded the last bus of my journey, which took me directly to Livingstone. Here, exhausted, I arrived at my hostel at 18 o'clock. 5 days on the bus or in the car, 2 of 4 nights in the car, and only 3 meals in 5 days. What a journey. And all this just so that I could spend a day at the Victoria Falls.

But I'll get ahead of myself: It was worth it!

So on Saturday we went to the Victoria Falls. Since it's currently the dry season, I already knew that the waterfalls wouldn't look as spectacular as they do in the rainy season. However, when me and a few other travelers from my hostel arrived, we were shocked to find that it was so dry that the falls were almost completely gone. It was really fascinating to see how such a mass of water can simply disappear into thin air just because it hasn't rained for a few days.
The advantage of the dry season, however, is that you can jump in the Devils Pool during this time. It's a natural pool located right on the edge of the main waterfall. In the dry season, you don't get swept over the edge because the water levels are so drastically reduced. Taking a dip in this pool would definitely be deadly in the rainy season. I took the long journey for this adventure. So I joined a guided tour and went swimming at the edge of the Victoria Falls. And it was amazing. The view was breathtaking, the feeling indescribable.
Yesterday I flew from Zambia to Cape Town, where I now have 3 weeks to travel from here to Johannesburg across South Africa before finally meeting up with Merle in mid-October in New Zealand :)

Fabian