Victoria Falls

First things first..we have been trying very very hard to upload our pictures, but due to slow internet connections we have been unsuccessful. We will keep trying though....
After our few days in Lusaka we decided to head off for a little adventure to Livingstone. The first shocking thing was how the bus for Livinsgstone actually left ON TIME..and there were no chickens or masses of people in the aisles. The best part about the whole bus ride was a free Fanta and vanilla wafer cookies. It was a glorious way to begin..We arrived in Livingstone and checked into the greatest hostel called Jolly Boys. Thank-you Joseph Landry for telling us to stay here..it is awesome.

Stop hogging the computer Jessica...Yes, it is an amazing hostel with a pool and lawn chairs, great food, and a bar. Everything you need , this place has it. Livingstone is a touristy town with lots of activities for adrenaline junkies and for those wanting to relax as well. It is located 12 minutes from Victoria Falls and borders with Zimbabwe. Let me tell you about the experiences so far: I have never in my lifetime seen something so majestical as Victoria Falls. It is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world and I agree, it is a wonder. The three of us walked around the entire park and were completely drenched from the spray coming off the falls. Water was coming at you from every direction. As we were walking around we went upstream to dry off. There was a group of school children washing their face in the water. Jessica and I were noticing how there was no rails or fences that blocked people from getting close to the water...In fact, people could swim in the water, just feet from the edge of the falls. Safety is a different concern here!! We also got to experience a once a month phenomenon...a lunar rainbow. Who even knew these existed. The full moon was shining so bright that the mist from the falls created an amazing rainbow...at night! What an experience.

I agree with Lianne, Victoria Falls was one of the most beautiful things I have seen. It doesn’t even compare to Niagara Falls! It was neat to be able to walk all round the park, we got soooo close to the falls. We also walked downstream to the Zambezi river, this is where they run rafting trips from..note: Jessica and Lianne will be back in about 3 months time to raft this river...it looks intense! Speaking of intense things....right at this point we were also looking at the huge bridge connecting Zambia and Zimbabwe. This bridge also contains the Bungee jump. Which we just so happened to be planning to do the very next day.

Bungee jumping is pretty scary, so I think we should change the subject JB. While we were drying off by the river, I decided to take a little wander. I came across the water intake for the hydroelectric dam and found a group of locals sitting nearby...so I decided to pick their brains. They told me that the dam supplied almost all the energy for all of Zambia right up to the Copper Belt region. This is the reason why there have been no power outages so far...Zambia has a great source for power. I asked why the Zimbabwe side didn’t use the falls as a source of power and the response was, "I do not know." I was told that there is a dam further down the Zambezi on lake Kariba, but the energy is not as sufficient as the Zambian power supply. The potential for power from the falls is there, but with the corruption in Zimbabwe, natural resources are not used to their potential.

On that note, I have more troubling news about Zimbabwe.. Since we are so close to the Zimbabwe border we noticed at the border crossing there are SO many Zimbabwe people fleeing their country into Zambia. The border crossing has huge line ups, we heard that 600 people cross into Zambia each day right now. This is due to huge political tensions that are occurring in their country, due to a certain dictator called Robert Mugabe. The next elections are supposed to be running on June 27th.Good thing we will be outta here by then, you can just feel it even in Livingstone that something bad is about to go down. We have UN Peacekeepers staying at our hostel from the Democratic Republic of Congo. We did hear rumours that the UN has their people stationed around here in time for the elections..just in case.