On a safari trip to Botswana and Zimbabwe in July, my family and I made a two-nights stopover in Victoria Falls town. Just to brush off the dust of our pants and admire one of the seven natural wonders of the world: The gigantic waterfalls.
Victoria Falls town was a great place to visit, because it offered a contrast to the peaceful savannah (at least peaceful for humans) with all the urban impressions of streets, cars, shops, and people.
We stayed at Victoria Falls Hotel very close to the main shopping street and to the waterfalls. Baboons stole sugar at the hotel’s breakfast buffet and ravaged the shopping street, until a shopowner fired his slingshot at them! Warthogs dug holes in the hotel lawn. Street vendors offered wooden skulptures and 3 billion Zimbabwe dollar bills. We bought one for 1 US Dollar, and found another one (5o million) lying on the pavement.
Victoria Falls Hotel is full of British colonial history. On the walls hung zebras and other trophies, colonial advertising posters, and portraits of celebrities who had stayed at the hotel. Stanley and Livingstone included. According to the hotel book, the first royal guest was”Princess Christian of Slesveig Holsteien” (I am pretty sure Christian was a Danish king, not a princess :))
From the restaurant terrace, there was a superb view of ascending clouds from the waterfalls. Tourists flocked here to have high noon tea. The hotel food was average, but service was great. We preferred The Palm Restaurant at Ilala Lodge Hotel next door, where we had ostrich. On our second night, we walked to The Lookout Cafe for sundowner drinks, and watched four Dutch girls trying a freefall swing in the gorge. Luckily, we did not have time to try it!
After 2 nights in town, we drove to Victoria Falls Airport, to continue our safari adventure in Hwange National Park. Victoria Falls Airport is the cleanest and emptiest airport I have ever travelled through. And Security to domestic fleets was a joke: It beeped when I went through, so they asked me if I had something in my pockets. I said no, and that was it.
