Stage 2 of our southern Zambian safari

We are already well into February of 2023, high time for me to continue writing about our family trip through the southern parts of this country, during December. If you’ve missed the first part, you can still read that, and enjoy the pictures, here.

But for now, I will assume that you can remember our visit to Mukalya Lodge, and I’ll take you towards Livingstone and the Victoria Falls.

From Mukalya, we headed back to the main road in the direction of Lusaka, but then took the turnoff towards the southwest, towards Livingstone. Just outside Mazabuka, we had our almost obligatory coffee stop at Coffeeberry. Not pictured here, but I’ve shown it in other stories. If you are really interested, have a look at them online: Coffeeberry Cafe.

Suitably refreshed and nourished, aware that there was still a long way to go, we hit the road again and our next stop was the Lay-by in Choma.

Fortunately, we completed our journey without incident and arrived at our next destination, the Victoria Falls Waterfront, in good time. That rooftop tent on the Prado looks like quick a big box, but it would have been a challenge for all five of us to sleep in it. So we had reserved “Adventure Village Rooms” at the Waterfront. These are not particularly adventurous, but quite comfortable. Good beds, hot showers, etc. And near to the pool and the restaurant overlooking the river. Over the years, we have spent quite a few evenings here, and we hope to do that many more times!

We’d chosen the Victoria Falls Waterfront as the place to spend the days on and around Christmas, which was a good decision. It’s one of our favourite places in Livingstone, even though we may want to try other places, like the newly-refurbished Maramba River Lodge, the next time. Both have excellent camping facilities, too.

There is a covered boma near the campsite and the braai area. It’s used for pre-rafting and other pre-excursion meetings, as all the branding on the benches indicates. But we used it to celebrate our family Christmas. Which was fantastic. We unwrapped presents and generally just enjoyed being together. It would have been even more perfect if we’d had the other kids here too…

The next day we went to visit the Victoria Falls themselves. Although the rainy season in Zambia had started, the water level was still quite low, and so there were equal amounts of rock and water to see. Not the overpowering, thick curtain of water that will be there in a few months’ time, but nevertheless impressive.

Once you’ve walked around and seen the waterfalls from a few different angles, gone over the “knife edge” bridge, looked down from the “Danger Point” (which is only dangerous if you are really stupid) then the last thing to do, is to clamber down the trail towards the “Boiling Pot”. Sometimes accompanied by baboons who are mostly interested in any snacks or drinks that you may be carrying. It’s a climb down into the gorge, immediately downstream of the Falls. Here all of the water that has come over the waterfall is squeezed into a narrow space. It’s easy to see why this whirlpool is called the “Boiling Pot”.

Once you are down there, it’s nice to dip your feet into the little stream that hurtles down into the river, and to generally enjoy the shade. And then, you start thinking about the steep hike back up…

As any of you who’ve been here will know, one of the highlights of this area is definitely to experience the sunset (or hopefully more than one) over the Zambezi river. I really like sunset pictures, so here is one of my favourites:

And now for some action… The long string of rapids below the Victoria Falls provide some of the world’s most exciting rafting. Marina and I have done it twice, in different conditions, and some of you readers have been there with us. This year, Quintin and Marcel were also keen to do it, and so this had been arranged through Bundu Rafting, whom we had also used before. The boys did have a memorable experience, as the next photo will try to show.

While the boys were enjoying the adrenaline rush (and getting sunburnt…) Marina and Tessa and I drove around to visit a few different lodges, had a coffee here, a lunch there, and so on. One of these was the Taita Falcon Lodge, from where it’s possible to look onto the river where the rafting teams had gone through, earlier in the day. From that great height and distance, the rapids look totally unexciting, in stark contrast to the way they were experienced by the guys in the rafts!

During our last day in the Livingstone area, we had a great lunch at the Maramba River Lodge, and a quick dip in their pool. We’d camped at this place some years ago, but it’s now under new management. Although it’s located on the Maramba river, a small tributary to the much greater Zambezi, we might go and camp there, the next time we visit this area.

It seemed fitting to end our time in Livingstone with a sunset cruise on the Zambezi. There are a number of large boats cruising up and down the river, serving drinks and snacks, sometimes accompanied by music. But we opted for a smaller boat, that took us from Maramba, and onto the Zambezi, with more privacy.

Being in a much smaller boat, enabled us to get closer to wildlife and even to alight onto an island at one point, for a short ablutionary walk. Our guide told us about the people that used to live on the island, but to be fair, we were more interested in making sure that we would not unexpectedly meet some large animal when going behind a tree!

And then, having seen some wildlife, after enjoying the obligatory sundowners, it was time for the sun to actually go down. Which it does majestically, in this part of the world:

And so we concluded the second stage of our trip through southern Zambia, certainly one of the highlights. But there were more adventures on the agenda. Look out for my next post, when I will describe our trip towards Lake Itezhi-tezhi and the Kafue National Park.