Thursday 22 September: Livingstone, Zambia

SEPARATE WAYS

Our tour officially ended this morning so mid-morning Ted headed off to the airport to fly to Europe, Sue and Rob transferred to another hotel for the start of their next safari adventure, Cosmos went home to visit family in Zimbabwe, Sophie off to try white-water rafting and the remainder, except me, crossed the border so that they could explore the Falls for the day from the Zimbabwe side.

I only had one planned outing on for today, a sunset cruise later on this afternoon so to fill in time I caught a ride with the rest of our group to find somewhere which had the internet. We drove through the town but Innocent decided it probably wouldn’t be wise for me to stop there so I ended up getting dropped off at a small ‘upmarket’ shopping centre which had an internet café being used by other tourists. After checking in online for my flight home tomorrow, getting news from home and updating my blog, I caught a taxi back to the hotel.

With a few hot hours to fill in I tried to keep cool in my non air-conditioned room – the ceiling fan wasn’t particularly effective – so having a shower was the best option. The bathroom is unusual, partially built from brick and stones, and the shower itself falling from a small protruding ledge out of the stones walls. In theory it was a good idea but in practice it meant that I had to lean awkwardly into the wall to wash my hair.

 

Not long after 4pm I was picked up for the transfer to the Lady Livingstone, the newest cruising vessel on the waterways near the Falls.  It can hold 120 passengers but there were only under 30 of us spread across the 3 deck levels. I stayed on the middle deck with 3 other Aussie ladies and a group of 4 South Africans and throughout the cruise we were served nibbles and drinks. When we saw some of the other vessels which were very crowded, they listed to one side when everyone rushed to view the animals, but we didn’t have that issue on the Lady Livingstone – there was plenty of space for everyone!

The wildlife viewing wasn’t in the same league as the Mazambala or Chobe River cruises but we did see hippos, several elephants, etc. Two of the elephant sightings stood out. The first was an elephant swimming from one of the islands across to the Zambezi side – its head would pop up every now and then but usually only the tip of its trunk could be seen, acting as a snorkel as it swam. The second was a baby elephant separated from its mother, running along the water’s edge, trumpeting as it splashed through the water, disturbing the nearby hippos. Hopefully it was reunited with its mother but we didn’t see it while we were watching.

Before the elephant reached deep water - after that only trunk tip could be seen