Victoria Falls
I suppose its time to mention Vic Falls even though it was a month ago. We spent a day homeless waiting in Otjiwarango for a bus. Naturally, we visited the crocodile farm to kill some time. Sadly, they were out of meat. Come 10pm, we loaded a bus and arrived in Zambia at 1pm the next day. We stayed at Jollyboys Backpackers in the town of Livingstone, which is about 20 minutes from the falls. One of the girls with us thought there was a huge fire because she thought she saw tons of smoke, but it was only the spray of the falls.
I visited the falls several times and it blew my mind. I can’t think of any place where you can get soaked with rain when it’s clear skies. Safety precautions are a little more lax than places in the US. We dipped our feet in the Zambezi about 8 meters above the falls. We also went on a 2 day canoe trip on the Zambezi. We wanted to go rafting but the water was ridiculously high. We also spent another day doing a gorge swing, which consisted of a 50 meter freefall. This was actually much scarier than any skydiving we did.
I was most intrigued about Livingstone itself. Through a random contact, we were going to visit a rural village. Expecting it to be some personal thing through this person we met, we went only to find it was a typical tour and a major tourist trap. They gave us a half-hour tour through this village of several thousand. We stopped in people’s homes and felt so awkward. They made sure to bring us by the area where a few people were making curios or crafts. The kicker came at the end when they brought us back to where they sell the crafts. About 50 men ran ahead of us to man their stations. I’ve never met salesmen with such aggressive techniques. Everyone says, “Can I ask you one question? Where from?” I’ll tell them the US and then they ask for your name to make it very personal. They’ll use your name nonstop, and then they offer to trade for different articles of clothing. After offering several things for something like socks, then they say, “Well how much money are you going to put on top of it?” They try to make you feel like you’re getting a good deal by trading as well. I felt so conflicted as a tourist by going and “gawking” at some village, but it was also one of their main techniques of making money by suckering us in to buy stuff. People all across the region used the same techniques. I want to support these guys, but its impossible to buy from more than a couple of them.
I actually got into a conversation with one vendor, and somehow he started being totally honest with me. He was young, about 23, and was looking to attend university soon. He described the different techniques vendors use and how they sucker you in by offering to trade, but really they don’t want the item. He also told me some real prices. He might by an item for Kw15000, try to sell it to older people for kw50000 ($12), but he acknowledges that students can’t afford as much so he’ll start offering around kw35000. He said that some people ask how much he wants for items, so he’ll give a price and they will offer more because they want to support him. This is rare, however. We eventually got off of the craft selling topic and had an amazing conversation.
We went to Sossusvlei a few weekends ago and it was the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. That’s all I can do to describe it.
