Vic Falls

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General information

The Victoria falls in one of the major tourist attractions of Zimbabwe. With a thundering sound an enormous mass of water falls in the canyon. The falls are located 1000 km from the spring witch become the Zambezi river. They are 1700 meters wide and 90 to 107 meters high. Every minute 20.000 – 500.000 sqm water falls down. Above the falls the Zambezi is a quiet width river; downstream it is a small deep and wild river.

The Vic Falls has its origin in the Jurassic period, a long time ago. When the earth was cooling down cracks exist in the surface of the earth. In the next millions of years erosion did the rest.

In the small city of Victoria Falls it is a circus of tourist shops. It is the adrenalin capital city of the world. You can do: bungee jumping, raften, fly in an ultra light plane etc. In short: there is no respect for nature and the Falls are not the main attraction anymore. And it is on the world inheritance list….

We expected that it was very touristy, so it was. We found a hotel just out of town. We went to the village to get something to eat. More than 10 times people asked us if wanted to change money (illegally) or if we want to buy a ticked for a tour. Disgusting. That is not our place to celebrate a holiday. The centre of town is an only 4 or 5 small street but they are packed with tourist shops, tour operators eating places etc.

We walked to the Vic falls, 2 minutes from the centre. I wanted to see the falls at the afternoon and in the morning by sunrise. I read in the books that you can be really wet, walked along the falls. I took only my APS camera, just in case. It wasn’t possible to buy a multi-entry ticked like you can by the other parks. Every time you leave the (small) park and you want enter again you have to pay again. Not very friendly! And everyone wants to see the falls in different light circumstances of course. I was a bit annoyed by this but when I heard, felt, and saw the falls I forgot all of this. Perfect, overwhelming, great, I have no words to describe it. I wouldn’t want to miss it. Day and night, year in and year out, everlasting, the water, you can’t imagine it. South of the falls there is a little rainforest. It is very small. You can walk through it and there are a few viewing points. The eastern part was almost dry because it was the end of the dry period. On the Zambian site there were people above the falls. They could look over the edge. It is a pity that they want to exploit that part of the falls too. What irritated us were the choppers and the plane. They make an awful lot of noise. At first a wanted to fly above the falls too but when I saw this I didn’t want it anymore. I don’t want to be a part of such a circus.
	I made a few very nice pictures with my small APS camera. Pictures with a rainbow. We decided to come back in the morning by sunrise.
The next day we entered the park just when the gates open at 6:30. It was beautiful in the early sunlight. And it was quiet; there were no choppers jet. We saw a few bushbucks in the “rainforest”.	Bushbucks
	Later we walked along the Zambezi. They told us that there were wild animals there. We saw a elephant about 10 meters from us. A policeman pointed at the animal in the bushes otherwise we wouldn’t see him. And to say it is a small one…

At night I ate crocidilestail (very nice) and we left the next day. 2 days of circus was enough for us.

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