Day 19 – Victoria Falls

Today was a relaxing day. We had a late breakfast buffet (not the best we have encountered) overlooking the water hole. It was a really pleasant way to spend the morning.

There was nothing scheduled today, so we went “you know where again,” you guessed it, the crafts market. The tourist police accompanied us and we went straight for the things Susan wanted. The boys looked around with little interest. Greg wanted to buy something but he couldn’t find anything he wanted. That is the first for a boy raised on the Plateau! Normally the “afluenza” disease is so prevalent there that they buy because they can. Jennifer has cured Greg of that problem, it appears, so he and Reese both came away with nothing to speak of. Lunch was at the Pizza Inn, which shared a space with a chicken place. Reese had a chicken burger, a cheese hamburger, fries (called “chips” here), and a drink. The young lady serving us was duly impressed and she was very cute!

The afternoon was planned for us. Greg wanted to do bungy-jumping and Susan and Reese wanted to do the elephant ride, so I organized it and then accompanied Greg on his jump. The other two had to could not attend as their elephant ride was at the same time. Greg was nervous as he could be (scared to death is more likely), but insisted on going. It was a jump off the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia on the Zambian side, so we needed our passports to go through Zimbabwean passport control. We had to go to Zambia and sign up for the jump, weight Greg, and give him a number…then back to the bridge. After about a 30 minute prep and equipment set up, he was ready to jump and I had the camera poised to take video. The guide had him look up in the air and counted to three… but pushed him off at 2. Greg did his best to do a swan dive, but the fall was 345 feet and he couldn’t hold it when he went vertical. He bounced back up about half way to the bridge before going down again and then hung there while he waited for a guy to come down on an electric winch line to help him back up. By the time he resurfaced on the bridge he was very enthusiastic. I immediately asked him if he wanted to do it again (a favorite trick of mine was to ask Susan after each baby delivery is she was ready to have more kids just to shake her up a bit), but to my surpise he said, “YES, absolutely!”

Reese and Susan were picked up at the hotel by the elephant ride folks and taken about 20 minutes out of town where the refuge was located. They used rehabilitated elephants and taught them to be ridden. Susan’s elephant had about a fourth of his trunk severed by placing it in a lion cage and having it bitten off when he was young, so she had to feed it by putting food directly into it’s truck opening and then it popped it into its mouth. After about a half hour or so of familiarizing themselves, the people and elephants headed off on a ride… one driver and one rider per elephant. For those familiar with elephant rides, it is quite common for Asian elephants to be ridden like this, but this was supposed to be the only place in Africa where people rode African elephants. It was a thrilling and exciting time had by all.

We had a late dinner in the lodge and shared stories about our day. We had another early morning, so we headed back to the rooms to pack and read a bit before sleeping under the mosquito netting again. All told, it was a very fun day!