In Victoria Falls I had booked just the default accommodation that Kumuka used, the Sprayview Hotel, but for some reason almost everyone else on my tour had booked into Shoestring Backpackers. This suited me fine as I felt I could really use some downtime. I was quite low on physical cash; we’d been promised a stop in Kasane in Botswana before entering Zimbabwe but it had never actually eventuated. Money is important to get right in Zimbabwe, as you aren’t allowed to withdraw or change into any currency other than ZIM$ while there, but it is such a pathetically worthless currency that most activities and services prefer of even demand US$ or other major foreign currencies. I wasn’t aware of this either before arriving in the country so I found myself in a slight pickle. So, that first afternoon after seeing the presentation on the options for what adventure stuff there is to do I wandered down to check out the ATM facilities. The idea is to get out ZIM$, then change them either with mates or local money changers that get around, or if you want, the black market. OK, so at the ATM I find out that it only gives a maximum of ZIM$800,000 – that sounds like enough but it’s actually less than US$10. This was quite a blow because I needed millions of ZIM$ for what I wanted to do. I grabbed enough for dinner and left it at that.

I was really looking for a rest that afternoon, and was low on cash, but knew I’d be low on time over the following days so I pushed on and went down to see the falls. It was, of course, a great move and entirely worth the US$20 and all the time I had.
It was simply amazing to see so much water! At some place you could see the falls clearly and there was only a slight mist-fall in the air, but at most vantage points of the mail fall there was just a swirl of mist and spray that soaked everything. If only I’d been warned earlier I’d have brought wet weather gear, but oh well, being wet is a very minor complaint to have when you are walking around the Victoria Falls!
The falls are just magnificent to see and an absolute must to view if you are ever anywhere near them.

Dinner was at The Safari Lodge. The setting there is just fantastic, out overlooking a waterhole and plains, and in our case a sunset. I ordered Guineafowl Hors Dervs and the Warthog Fillet with some quite nice imported wine, and a coconut ice-cream sandwich for desert. I very highly recommend warthog as a meat, it really is one of the best meats I’ve tried – quite gamey, and with a wonderful texture. But everything else about the meal was great too, and all ten of us there (our tour plus some starting the next tour) had a great time until the bill came. We knew it would be some outrageous number, and it was: about $18,600,000.00 – but it took us literally 45mins to put the money together and count it up. It seems crazy to say “ah whoops, we’re still $400,000 short” but that’s how it happened. And even with pills of $20,000 each and some payment in US$ the pile of money was depressingly large. IT really highlights the problems of the country, and is quite the shame.

In Zimbabwe you do not speak out openly against President Mugabe if you don’t appreciate a quiet evening in a prison cell. But still I found chatting to taxi drivers and other locals they are openly sad about the current situation. About six years ago Mugabe kicked out of the country all the non-african farmers. They had the option to pack up and burn down their own homes, or to have them burned down for them. Within 12 months of the farmers leaving, the country was already importing maize (the staple); those to whom the land was given had no training or experience working land.
As the farmers left, they sold everything they could, and converted all their cash to hard US$ so they could take it wherever they went. This caused a massive devaluation of the ZIM$ (which not long before was stronger than the South African Rand), but one that Mugabe refused to recognise. He froze the conversion rate of US$->Zim$ despite the rest of the world and the black market having insanely different values – in the order of magnitude of thousands of times greater.
This absolutely screwed the country financially, and apparently most of it is still fairly inaccessible to cautious tourists. Many people, Colin noted, and himself among the first will be celebrating a very large party the day Mugabe dies.

In Victoria Falls the upshot of all this is mostly that everything is quite cheap. It is a wonderful little town – I didn’t feel threatened by anyone I passed on the street, even when walking alone in the early evening. And I got on just so wonderfully well with all the people I spoke to – from the concierge at the hotel to the security guards at the ATM to taxi drivers to random folk at the bar. If ever I wanted a good time to de-stress or find fun, I think Vic Falls is where I’d go first.