Victoria Falls is not like any other town in Zimbabwe. With lush gardens and high-priced hotels lining the city streets, Vic Falls hardly seems to represent the vast majority of Zimbabwean cities. Most of the city is well-developed and it is difficult not to notice the larger number of tourists here, than in any of the other places we have thus far visited. Billboards adorn the highways leading into the city advertising whitewater rafting, bungi jumping, and numerous other adrenaline sports on the Zambezi River.

Our group arrives in town late afternoon after a long and dusty ride through the eastern Kalahari desert. We pile out of the LandCruisers, tired and in poor shape after a hot and cramped car ride, but cheer at the news that the Sheps have an all-you-can-eat meal planned for us at one of Vic Falls' most luxurious hotels, The Kingdom. We ditch our tired and sweaty safari clothes for something at the bottom of our packs that the Sheps would deem "smart casual" and head off in the direction of The Kingdom.

"The Kingdom" as it turns out, is all but the African version of a Disneyland hotel complete with larger-than-life size bushmen statues, imitation lagoons, eletric torches, and hidden speakers echoing the sounds of the African wild. Dinner is served in a massive dining room with a large variety of Western and African foods. In addition to the all-you-can-eat buffet, we have a chance encounter with the candidates for this year's Zimbabwe Supermodel contest, who make an interesting dinner-table conversation...

After dinner we head out into town to meet up with our Hwange guides, Mike and Derek who are in Vic Falls to pick up their new clients. With lots to do in Vic Falls at night, we stay out in town for a long time, before eventually wandering back to our cabins for sleep.

The next day is our first chance to see the actual falls for which the city is named. We splinter into smaller groups: some to go swimming above the falls on the Zambian side, some to see the falls from the bridge spanning the gorge, some to climb down to the pools at the bottom of the gorge, and some to hike the trail along the edge of the gorge.

The falls, of course, is gorgeous. Several thousand tons of water come crashing over into the Zambezi gorge each second, causing impressive clouds of mist to well up from the gorge and shower the trees along the edge of the trail. The water provided by the mist creates a tropical rainforest environment all along the rim of the gorge such that when walking along the trail also means ducking under massive vines and leafy green fronds while being sprayed with the mist from the gorge.

By midafternoon we return to camp for our trip to the airport and our flight back to Harare. We are exhausted from our two weeks of trekking and our last two nights without sleep, but we manage to say goodbye to Mike and Derek one last time, and we climb into our shuttle for the trip home.

-- Eric Bielke