Swimming On Top Of The Victoria Falls
By Lothar. Filed in Zimbabwe |
We went to see Victoria Falls, which is very impressive. The great Zambezi river plunges down about 100 meters into the gorge along an approximately 500 meters wide section. There are several separate waterfalls this time of year, since it has not yet rained. In April and May there is so much water coming down that the spray could make it difficult to see the waterfall itself. At night we had a Zambezi beer at sunset sitting on the bank of the Zambezi river. I was wondering, how long it had taken for the water from the river to make it into the beer bottle. During the day we had purchased one bottle of water for 20 000 Dollars ( Zimbabwe Dollars that is) and noticed that the cap opened too easily. There must be a reason that you could not buy sparkling water, but only still water in Victoria Falls.
While we hiked along the rim of the waterfall gorge, we witnessed something pretty crazy. Some white tourists had climbed to the edge of the Zambezi river and were taking a swim in a rock basin right on the edge of the 350 foot drop. They probably have never heard of schistosomiasis ( or Theodor Bilharz, the German physician in Cairo, Egypt( 1825-1862), who had discovered the Biharzia parasite).
We left Victoria Falls after only two days since there was nothing else to do and we objected to being treated like cash cows. Foreigners have to pay higher prices than Zimbabwe citizens and it has to be in hard currency. The restaurant menues do not list any prices, since they are subject to frequent changes. I read a newspaper ad offering 103% interest on a 90 day CD ! Maybe I should start investing here. They can not keep up with printing the money and as change we received promissary notes that look like monopoly money. I actually learned that the Zimbabwe government does not have the necessary funds to buy the ink and paper from Germany to print more money.
Our going- away- present in Zimbabwe was being sprayed with insectizide while sitting in the plane before take-off. The flight attendants’ instructions were : ” Close your eyes and mouth” while emptying the spray cans on us.
Good bye Zimbabwe ! The people were really friendly, but they live with difficult conditions.