Victoria Falls - Zimbabwe Side

We flew South African Airways for the 100 minute trip to Victoria Falls airport. Though you can obtain visas ahead of travel, we had opted just to get them on arrival. Thankfully as we were nearly the first to disembark the aircraft, we had an early opportunity to complete the forms and get them authorised by an immigration officer.

The bags were delivered promptly and within 15 minutes we were on our way to the Ilala hotel. The drive took around 30 minutes, check-in was completed quickly, rooms were large and comfortable with a wet mini bar containing wine, beer and soft drinks.

We had to make the most of our time, we only had three full days. It didn’t take too long to walk around the town, it's only a few blocks long and wide. We had heard that it was quite expensive to eat and drink in the town, but we didn’t find that, it is more expensive than South Africa, probably because it is a major tourist attraction.

I had pre-booked some tours before we left. The first was a tour of the falls, and we set off around 9 am with a guide who explained all about the falls as we walked through the national park. As park admission for the day had been purchased, we decided to stay in the park and explore on our own. It's only when you see the falls from every angle can you appreciate the scale and power of the water constantly falling, and in July it’s the dry season, so the falls weren’t as full as they would be earlier in the year.

After we left the park we had a treat and took ourselves off to The Victoria Falls Hotel for traditional afternoon tea. I thought we’d still be hungry, but I couldn’t eat a wafer thin mint when we were done. Three tiers of cakes and sandwiches, accompanied by tea or coffee went down a treat, so much so, we passed on dinner that night.

We discovered you could obtain a bridge pass at immigration and walk over to Zambia, works well, so long as you didn’t get stamped in to Zambia. So we had a walk to get a different view of the falls, the aspect changing constantly. We also watched some daredevils have a bungee jump and do a zip-line over the gorge, better them than me.

Last day was action packed, we had decided to do a helicopter flight over the falls, to make the most of every opportunity. It certainly paints a very different picture to the one you see fall side. We circled 3 times so got a great view from all angles. On the way back to the helipad , the pilot noticed giraffe and elephants probably only a couple of hundred yards from the landing spot. So he kindly circled a couple of times for us to get a good view.

We were taken back to the hotel, just in time for a quick change and wait for our transfer to the Zambezi River cruise. For the next 3 hours we sailed calmly and quietly up river from the falls. All refreshments were included , both the wine and nibbles flowed. We saw hippos too numerous to count, and one very impressive young bull elephant who posed quite happily for photos.

Not to mention the seen and unseen dangers of the ever present crocodiles. All too soon our visit was over, other than the Falls there are a few other attractions available for visitors, but unfortunately they included elephant riding or some kind of big cat petting. Thankfully everytime we passed the offices promoting those tours they were empty. hopefully a sign that ecological tourism is starting to catch on.

If its on your bucket list to go, try visit during the rainy season, as we were informed the amount of water going over the falls at that time is huge in comparison to the dry season.