John's Blog » Victoria Falls http://johnbain.org/blog Entrepreneurship, travel and life Fri, 23 Dec 2011 20:10:16 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= Zambia http://johnbain.org/blog/2008/08/25/zambia/ http://johnbain.org/blog/2008/08/25/zambia/#comments Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:41:16 +0000 John http://blog.johnbain.org/?p=31 I woke as we arrived at the Zambian border. My bed consisting of cardboard boxes, a bag of potatoes and other misc stuff had allowed me to sleep for about 5 hours, which is a lot longer than the seats in the Emirates flights. Even with the half-decent sleep it was still 7 am, so I wasn’t exactly at my best. We made out way to immigration then walked to the ferry over the Zambezi river to the Zambian side. I emerged from the Zambian immigration lighter to the tune of US$140, suffice to say I wasn’t exactly happy especially when Kiwi’s such as Craig are charged $50 and Malaysian passport holders such as Bhav are charged nothing. It seems they dislike their former colonial masters.

Zambia is the first country to openly advertise things in US dollars and not in their local currency, the Kawacha. The Kawacha seems to have suffered from some pretty severe inflation. Before we even stepped onto Zambian soil we were approached by a taxi driver offering a lift to Livingstone for 60,000 Kawacha. With so many countries with different currencies we had to guess the current value of the Kawacha against the US dollar to make sure we weren’t being ripped off. We didn’t arrive with any Kawacha so we had to take a detour to an ATM en route where we all decided to become instant millionaires. Later I realised it was about £156.

The only accommodation available at the backpackers lodge we tried (how could we not go to a place called Fawlty Towers?) was a small en suite room with 4 bunk beds. It was just good to be able to catch up on some sleep in peace!

In the afternoon we decided to visit Victoria Falls, so the day wasn’t wasted. It turns out that no mater how amazing the falls are half a day is enough, especially with the aggressive baboons that have free roam.


Victoria Falls


The top of Victoria Falls


Angry locals at the falls

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