The night bus to Livingstone was pretty crowded with only a couple of spare seats. John discovered that his seat did not recline and the bottom cushion kept falling out when he moved on it so had to find a more comfortable seat to try to sleep when there was a vacant one.
In the middle of the night we picked up passengers in Tsumeb and we saw that they were Linda and Patrick who we had met in Outjo. They had spent enough time waiting for their friends' 4x4 to be repaired that they decided to move on without them.
Most of the passengers got off at the border town of Katima Mulilo. There were 4 young German girls travelling together on the bus a few seats ahead of us. One of the girls wrapped her handbag in a scarf and then put it on the floor under her seat and they all went to get something to eat. When they returned to their seats the girl discovered her bag had been stolen. It contained the rental car keys for their car in Cape Town where they were staying, her passport, credit cards, money, and return bus tickets!
The police were called and came onto the bus questioning the foreigners on the bus. After their questioning they concluded that the young German girl had actually left the handbag in Windhoek and had not even brought her bag onto the bus, and no amount of discussion could convince them otherwise! They even wrote this on the police report for the girl! We told the girls that they would not be able to cross into Zambia without a passport but they seemed to think that they could so they were shocked to discover that the bus was going to continue without the girl who lost her passport. As 3 of the girls were sisters they had to stay at the border while the 4th member of their group continued with us all.
Two of the four girls were studying in Capetown and were joined by the other two sisters. Together they all decided to catch a long haul bus from Capetown to Windhoek and then take the night bus from Windhoek to Livingstone to see the Victoria Falls for one day and then do the same the trip back to Capetown. The 4th girl stayed one night in Livingstone and got up at 6am to visit the falls and then 5 hours later had to take the bus back to Windhoek. Even more disppointing for her was the fact that there was hardly any water coming over the falls!
The bus trip took us 22 hours altogether with the extra time being spent waiting for the police to do their investigations.
We checked into a quiet comfortable Backpackers called Fawlty Towers in the middle of town. It was a nice place to recover with a huge garden and green grass lawn, swimming pool, bar and free internet. Unfortunately it had the most un-user friendly kitchen we had ever met. You had to sign for cooking utensils at reception and then return them after as there was only an old stove and a barely working smelly fridge in the kitchen.
We ate a couple of times at an Italian restaurant called Olga's. Olga had left some money to be used to start a training school so the at risk street children were trained not only in hospitality skills but also, sewing, cooking, wrought iron, construction, jewelery, furniture making and art skills. There were not many other places to eat in Livingstone near us other than fried chicken take away places. We were advised not to walk the town after dark so it was convenient to have Olga's across the road.
A young Dutch couple in our backpackers was distressed as they only had Mastercard credit cards and none of the ATM machines would accept them as they only took Visa cards. They were able to leave their laptop with an American lady who lent them money to cross into Zimbabwe and see the falls from there. We had also offered to help them out if the American lady couldn't. Luckily for us we carry carry both cards so have some choices.
Patrick and Linda visited the Zambian side of the falls, but as we knew there was less water than the month before when we were on the Zimbabwean side, we decided not to go. We were quite surprised when we saw their photos of the small falls and lots of rocks.
However we both decided to do a sunset 'booze cruise' on the Zambezi. We were joined by a Greek Australian called Theodore, an Ethiopian American girl, and two South African safari truck guides. There were quite a few cruises and at the end of the day the luxury cruises saw the same animals and sunset as us but had to pay heaps more for the privilege.
We saw elephants and hippos together beside the river as well as a few birds. The zebra and giraffe were probably waiting their turn in the trees.
While Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwean side is built for the tourists, Livingstone is a bustling service town for the area. It has Soviet style grey concrete residential and office buildings, dusty streets, and several government headquarters. The falls are 12 kilometres from the town and along the Zambezi riverfront are several luxury hotels away from the dusty hustle and bustle of the town. Most Zambians are Christians and the supermarket had Christian music playing on Sunday for the shoppers and there were large groups on Friday and Saturday nights attending 'crusades' as the locals call them. The loud speakers would boom the presenters messages in to the night frequently repeating the same messages for 20 minutes or so.
