The time has come! We have spent the last few days selling / flogging / trashing and storing all our possessions, fit whatever was left into 4 impossibly small bags, re-packing said bags, weighing, repacking again, chucking more stuff, drinking heavily, forgetting that you actually give a shit and go!
So off we went, all dressed up and ready to safari the bejeezus outta this trip! We were quite fortunate to have one of our friends take us to Heathrow’s shiny new Terminal 5 for our flight (thanks Dan!!). I gotta admit, it’s the only way to get to the airport. Rock up at the drop-and-go, head into the building, and in retrospect I should have known that something was about to go horribly wrong when we couldn’t print our boarding passes...
In the queue we go, only to find that our flight has been delayed by 2.5 hours... What’s more is that we would probably also miss our connecting flight to Victoria Falls. Which shouldn’t normally be a big deal, but they only fly there 3 times a week! In the end, we took a gamble and checked our baggage all the way to Vic Falls, in the hope that the pilot steps on the gas a bit so we can make up lost time. This adventure is starting early.
To the bar (well, restaurant... but we got pissed anyway) , got some dollars at the forex counter (dollar is king in Africa) and onto the plane.
Arrive in JHB pretty much on the original flight schedule (we-hey!!). Off the plane 1st, onto a shuttle, to the terminal, off the shuttle, do the hokey-pokey and we turn around, onto the shuttle and back onto another plane! At this stage, I was quite impressed with the efficiency of it all, quite unusual for South Africa. But we arrive at Zimbabwe relatively refreshed and well rested. Go through customs aaaaaand (drum roll, please)... our luggage isn’t here.
Fuck
We go through the rigmarole of reporting our missing bags, feeling pretty grotty as you do after long haul. This Le Grott is amplified by the realisation that we’re gonna be STUCK in these clothes for the foreseeable future. And... it’s hot. Like, really hot, adding some more flava. Swell...
Quite liberating actually.
Stranded, in Zim, without our clothes, without comms to our tour group and a sinking feeling of dread that every person in the building is out to get me. Plan B for this situation was to haul ass to the border and trek to the Zambezi Sun. The taxi driver was very helpful and gave us all sorts of info during the 27km ride to the Zim /Zambia border. Quite a quick affair, just a stamp here, stamp there and stroll over the bridge.
Breathtaking. After all the BS, the sight we met on the bridge was breathtaking. We could already feel the fine spray and mist clinging to our skin as we approached the vantage point. Victoria Falls, in all her 1.7 km wide, 93m high, 6000 cubic meters of water per second glory! How can you NOT forget about everything else??
We lingered a bit; batting all the vendors trying to sell us all manner of merch, and headed in the general direction (we were told) the Zambezi Sun hotel should be, crossing in Zambia (where the staff was playing a mean LAN game of Need For Speed 2 on government Pc’s nogal!). Stopped at a shop, bought a Sim card and got online! Managed to fire off a flare to the parental units and our tour group and a rendezvous was arranged. Rocked up at the Hotel and was greeted by nothing but smiles. Paradise!! Finally, something is going right! Truly an oasis in this desolate place. Even spotted a dude rocking on a Sedgeway! My kinda place.
Here we met up with our tour group, and immediately ferried to a boat cruise on the Zambezi! “Don’t worry man, you don’t need luggage, let’s go drink!”. Lekker.
We boarded the River Queen and cast off. Open bar, good food off the grill and more breathtaking views (I saw a hippo)! Drank our first Zambian Beer, called Mosi, and it tasted sweeeeet. Enjoyed our first epic African Sunset and tried our best to just relax. To be fair, it STILL didn’t feel like we left London, even with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I kept thinking that we should get going, I’m working earlies tomorrow (that’s a 07:30 start, so 6am wake up call).
After the cruise we headed to our (temporary) base camp for some more chow and drink, signed up for Microlites at 09:00 the next day before tucking in. At this stage I just want to thank my folks for rocking so god damned hard!! Thanks for organising all the extra boxes with supplies of all sorts, our sleeping gear and the extra clothes (which we intended to give away to under privileged folks... which now turned out to be us!). Love you guys!
So that’s it, for now (phew, that was a marathon!). I’ll try and keep the posts shorter, and I actually skipped over quite a few things. But thanks if you stuck around to the end :)
Till tomorrow
[G & A], out.
In the jungle, the mighty jungle
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