Victoria Falls: 7/10

We flew Jo'burg to Victoria Falls on Friday morning, 7/13. Zimbabwe kind of looks like upstate New York with less trees & more monkeys. Sexy Englishman had us at the Hotel Mercure Rainbow, which turned out to be not bad. We wanted to do activities right away, but the earliest thing we could do was a sunset cruise on the Zambezi so we spent a couple hours relaxing & drinking by the pool. The boat ride turned out to be a booze cruise with hippos, crocodiles & elephants. Apparently elephants swim from the mainland to the little islands in the river quite often to forage. SE & I made friends with some English backpackers on the boat, who invited us to a bar later (as if we weren't drunk enough already). Fortunately we had electricity when we got back to the hotel - it had been turned off before. We decided, probably unwisely, to eat dinner at the bar, which of course we forgot to do. Upon venturing out into the town we promptly got lost despite being told directions. We wandered up & down the main street several times until we decided that a pitch-black road was where we should be; happily, my misgivings were proved wrong when we got to Shoestrings. It's an expat bar at a backpacker's hostel, filled with aid workers, student travelers & assorted other (mostly white) people. Lots of fun. We found some Americans there, pretty much the first we'd met in Africa, & over-indulged in $1 beer & $2 vodka tonics. They love US money in Zimbabwe. Sadly, their Zim dollars are pretty much toilet paper. We got Z$100,000 for US$1 on the street, & according to an Economist published while we there we could have got Z$250,000. The worst part of the hyper-inflation for the citizens is that President Mugabe insists on holding the exchange rate at Z$250:US$1. There's now a "farmer relief" accelerator of 60, so it's 15,000:1 but that's still completely divorced from reality. The funniest thing about the money is that it has a sell-by date. I have a Z$100,000 bill in my wallet that is no longer legal tender, as it expired on 7/31. Good job Mugabe, we all totally believe you're not running your poor starving country into the ground.

The next morning we had a helicopter ride & bungee jump scheduled. Poor SE was much the worse for wear, while I was perky & awake at a ridiculously early hour. (I don't get hangovers.) He managed to make it through the flight without throwing up, fortunately. The Falls are gorgeous. They're the biggest system in the world. Their very appropriate Makololo name is Mosi-oa-Tunya, the Smoke that Thunders. It's amazing how deep & winding a gorge the Zambezi has made for itself. The falls come off a flat plain & that's it, the land looks like a
giant was trying to carve something out. An interlocked series of Zs maybe.

After we got back from that I put SE to bed with some tlc. He's never sick, I'm always the one who needs looking after, so it was really nice to be able to take care of him for once. When he woke up he felt much better & was excited, instead of apprehensive, about the bungee. Well, less apprehensive. I was jumping up & down with anticipation. When we got to the Vic Falls Bridge between Zimbabwe & Zambia it turned out that we could do 2 other activities as well, a gorge swing & slide. Of course little miss Adrenaline Junkie wanted to do everything, so we got all suited up & strapped in - they are reassuringly safety-conscious there - & stepped off the bridge into 4 seconds of free-falling terror. Basically there's a rope running across the gorge with another rope looped around it - we were on the 2nd rope. Once you fall enough there's no more slack & you start swinging off the 1st rope. That's the fun part. The falling is actually quite horrible, especially since we literally stepped off the bridge & fell feet first for what seemed like days. It was so fast we couldn't even scream. After it was over & we weren't dead we felt exhilarated though. The slide was a bit lame, great view of the gorge, & then it was bungee time. Now I was scared & SE was excited. I had a vivid recollection of my stomach being around my ears from 10 minutes before & almost wasn't sure I wanted to do that again. Bungee is better, though, because you "fly" off the platform & can see where you're going instead of falling. It was amazing.

We had a calm, sober night at the hotel. Their lapa was quite good & so was the Ndebele dancing, not that I know much about it. They have some scary-ass costumes.

We played Scrabble later - my 2nd time ever - & I managed to beat SE. He's very good at it so I was well pleased with myself. We went to bed early so we could go to the actual Falls early before our flight on Sunday, since we hadn't actually seen them up close. They were really wet, even though it was the dry season, & quite overwhelming in their sheer volume. I got my fill of rainbows & we got photographic proof that someone has taken the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Or maybe that's just in Zimbabwe - someone has clearly taken their electricity & water as well. We were told it was "rationing" to help the farmers but we had our doubts.