Vic Falls - End of Day One

I don't even remember where I left off...something with the giraffe. Ahhh, yes. The resort.

There are two hotels in the resort: the Royal Livingstone and the Zambezi Sun. They are both less than 10 years old (there was an older hotel on the reserve, but they either tore it down or it fell down, and they decided to build these two), and they are very different. The Royal Livingstone is a little more formal, a little less kid-friendly. It is also right smack dab on the river.

So when you drive up to the Royal Livingstone, you are met by these guys:


At the Zambezi Sun? Met by these guys:


doing this (but not on their sides--it's a camera thing):







I'm sorry there's no sound. There was much singing and dancing and drumming and greeting of guests. I admit that I just about jumped out of my seat when the one guy came up to the van to open the door. He seemed to be the "head man," and he kept asking me to come over to dance with them and calling me "[something something] mama" (each syllable in "mama" is equally accented), which they assured me meant "beautiful queen." I could not help but think of the Far Side of the Lone Ranger finally looking "Kemo sabe" up in the dictionary.

I had asked my driver if his company, Wilderness Safaris, could help me book some activities. He introduced me to his boss, who ran down the list of things to do with me. The sunset cruise sounded good, and he asked if I could be ready to go in an hour. No problem! I took my luggage to my room, locked the laptop in the laptop-sized safe, changed my clothes, and headed out.

It was just a perfect day. Hot but not too hot, breezy but not windy, clear blue sky . . . perfect perfect perfect.

It took a few minutes to drive to the boat dock, and I was dismayed to see that the company running the cruises is named The African Queen. I was on the African Princess, and of course I failed to get a picture. She's a three-deck river boat (not huge, and not a paddle wheel), with the first deck rigged out with tables and chairs, the second deck a large bar in the middle (with barstools) as well as fairly large chairs and cocktail tables pushed up to the rail. The third deck has the bridge and is not open to the public.

It's really quite lovely--dark woodwork, nice furniture--and felt quite gracious. And, of course, the booze and a light snack are included in the ticket price.

Craving sun after so very many days of rain here in Cape Town, I headed up to the second deck, where it seemed brighter. It was wall to wall people. There was one bar stool open, and every chair that wasn't occupied was being saved. It was so firmly packed up there that I was forced on at least one occasion to use my lethally sharp elbows.

I thought for a few seconds about just grabbing the bar stool and staying up there, but then I noticed that the majority of the guests were Vietnamese. If I have learned anything this summer it is to acknowledge my prejudices, and a big one (right up there with midgets and monkeys) is the Vietnamese language. When I'm on vacation, looking for a restful boat cruise, the sharp angles of Vietnamese just do not blend well. And this was a large group of obnoxious tourists to boot--for those of you who watch "King of the Hill," it was a deck full of Connie's parents.

So back down the gracious stairs I went to find a chair among The Family Set. This ended up working out just fine, thank goodness, but it took a few minutes for the man, woman, and young boy to do anything more than smile and nod at me when I asked if the seat was taken.

I need to insert here that the van on the way to the boat from the hotel had 3 people in it: me and a white American couple. We made some small talk for about 3 minutes on the way, and when we got to the dock they ditched me as quickly as possible. Up to this point I was not impressed with the tourists but was completely happy with the guides and hotel staff.

I sat down, and it turned out this family was part of a large group--3 families and a passel of children, varying in age from maybe 4 to 18. The kid at my table couldn't have been more than 5, but he seemed to have older siblings. They chatted among themselves and from table to table, and I was pretty much ignored until two things happened.

First, the waitress came and asked what we'd have to drink. The son had moved to the bench in the bow and was proud to order for himself. A minute later he came over to his parents and said, "Mom, guess what I'm having! A Sprite!" His mother looked at him and said, "I thought you were having a Fanta Orange." "Oh, yeah," he said and trotted back to the other kids. It was so cute I couldn't help but laugh. We started chatting a little after that, but things didn't really warm up until our hostess made her "Welcome" announcements.

This is the African Princess, my name is so-and-so, your crew is here to help you, yadda yadda, and the "inconvenience" is in the rear of the lower deck. We all kind of looked at each other and cracked up.

My family is from Cape Town, one family is from Australia, and the other is from somewhere else. My couple's wife left to sit with the kids after about 10 minutes, and her husband and I chatted some about Cape Town and so forth. Wife came back on and off throughout the cruise. The second husband was the Australian, and he was very, very friendly and funny in a wry sort of way. The third husband was Israeli and had an interesting accent, a booming voice, and a distinct disdain for the British. As the evening wore on, the best thing he did was to smoke a really elegant cigar. It smelled just wonderful.

Oh! The other notable part of the announcement was that the Falls are one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World. What are those 7 wonders? The Falls, the Grand Canyon, some volcano in Mexico, Mount Everest, the Great Barrier Reef, the harbor in Rio (I always think of "Notorious," and Ingrid Bergman leaning over Cary Grant to see out the window of the plane), and the Northern Lights. Cigar Guy did not know what the Northern Lights were. Australia guy tried to explain, saying they can be seen in the Arctic Circle -- so I chimed in, "And Minnesota!"

Drinks had arrived, and everyone was loosening up some, but conversation didn't last long. Someone spotted some lumps in the water that turned out to be a bloat of hippos. (Trivia break: Yes, it's a bloat. The collective noun for fairies? A Herd.)


They were having a grand old time, and the African Princess and every other "booze cruise" boat on the Zambezi stopped to look. This was snapped juuuuuuuuuuust after the big guy bellowed.


I did not until a few days ago know that hippos cannot swim. They live in the water but stick to the shallows, because their big round bodies and stubby little legs are simply not suitable to water sports.

Elephants, on the other hand, can swim, and we were lucky enough to see a whole mess of 'em moving from one side of the river to the other. It makes sense, really, because they come with their own snorkels. I was just fascinated.




They made it across the river, wandered up on shore, and went wherever elephants go at dusk.





At some point we were served a truly delicious sample plate of meat hors d'oeuvre. I don't really know how it happened, but I ended up with two plates, and, yes, I ate it all. The sun set, and it was beautiful, but the pictures did not turn out at all. So we headed back to the landing, and my family's husband and I started talking about South Africa.

He said he had gone to private school and had not really noticed any racial trouble. He didn't have a big opinion of the ANC or Mbeki. And he didn't think that much would happen in 2010. He and his wife import skateboards and bicycles, so they've traveled to the States a lot. They mostly go to California, and they've found it pretty relaxed. Cigar Guy and Australian Guy asked if Americans were still driving their V8s with gas prices rising. I said yes, for the most part, the people in Minnesota with big cars were not giving up their cars but were complaining noisily about the price of gas. And we talked about how the price of gas can change from minute to minute and is not the same at every station. (I think I mentioned that it changes no more than once a month here, and all stations post the same price.) All in all, they seemed like nice people, and they certainly had nice, interesting kids (I told them about Quaker Church, but they didn't really get it.) But my Guy seemed like a fairly privileged White Man, who really didn't have a problem with Apartheid as long as it didn't shake his little world.

Cruise ended, I found transportation back to the hotel, and I then spent a good 90 minutes fighting the internet. Ahhh, well.

More tomorrow, if I get a chance. I really do need to study now, and I need to pack and organize for my trip to Kruger. I leave tomorrow (Tuesday) night and get back
Sunday evening. There's no internet, so the laptop stays in Cape Town. I will have to relearn how to put pen to paper. Yikes.