Nicole got some good sleep last night since we didn’t have to get up early for anything. In fact, we were basically just killing time until our flight at 615pm. Checkout time was 10:00am, so this was not necessarily an easy feat, but we asked for late checkout which was . . . 1030am! Wowzers. Then we left our bags in a baggage room which had about 50 bags in it, thanks to the very serious check-in/check-out policies. The temperature felt significantly warmer than the previous day. We decided to walk to Zambia today. It just entailed walking back toward Victoria Falls entrance and veering right up a road to the Zimbabwe exit border station. We were processed fairly quickly and given a piece of paper with a stamp with a not very official looking #2 written in pen to indicate there were two of us. Essentially, this whole charade was done because we just intended to cross the bridge to Zambia without any further adventures into the country. If they had physically stamped our passport over the Zimbabwe visa, we would have been in excess of our Double Entry Visa that we purchased. Complicated right? There was a large backup of commercial vehicles and trucks, but none of this affected us thankfully. Halfway across the bridge we saw a small sign that let us know we were entering Zambia.
The actual Zambia immigration checkpoint wasn’t for another 10 minutes walk up the road. We went there to see if we could just get a stamp and turn around, but they were pretty adamant that they couldn’t do that, even just “for fun.” Why so serious? Anyway, we turned around and walk back toward the bridge. We watched a few people bungee jump off the side and went to a cafe while still on the Zambia side. I had a local Zambian beer so we can say we actually did something in Zambia other than just walk across a bridge and back. After this we continued back into Zimbabwe and then stopped at some of the stalls outside Victoria Falls to do a bit of shopping. Nicole bought a wooden hippo statuette, magnets for Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana, a pin for her backpack, and I got a Zimbabwean soccer jersey.
We then continued back toward the middle of town, but made a couple stops at the fancier hotels, eventually sitting for a bit at the Victoria Falls Hotel, which looks like something straight out of The Crown, because it was built early in the 20th century and large portraits of various monarchs decorate the interior spaces. We sat in a lounge area with some ceiling fans going full blast, so it was a nice respite from the oppressive heat outside. Eventually we got up to walk to some more shops. They all kind of have the same exact stuff, which is not super surprising I suppose. We found ourselves shortly thereafter at the River Brewing Company for a couple beers and some fries to snack on. After this, we went back to the hotel to get our bags and headed off to the airport.
We endured about 40 minutes in the check-in line before going through security and ended up boarding the flight about 45 minutes ahead of schedule. We spent the next hour and a half on board an Embraer 135 regional jet over to Windhoek, Namibia. I enjoyed my snack box design which was made to look like an old-timey suitcase with various destination stickers on it. Once we arrived in Windhoek, it was a fairly easy immigration line, and then we went to get our rental car. The lady behind the counter said, “We have no cars! We sent you an email two weeks ago! Didn’t you get the email?” I found that a bit odd, so Nicole and I were questioning her a bit, but she was adamant that an email was sent. After about 30 seconds of back and forth, she admitted she was kidding. The African sense of humor is a curious creature. Anyway, apparently not many people are renting cars because we were the only people on our flight at any counter, and when we went to the parking lot, another employee was waiting at our car to show us all the features which was quite exhaustive. We will be driving a Renault Duster, a 4-wheel drive, 6-speed, diesel-fueled small SUV. We had a roughly 25 minute drive to our hotel in Windhoek since the airport is out in the middle of nowhere. Despite arriving early, the sun had already set, so we had to drive in the dark. And it was DARK. There were absolutely no buildings or anything to give off even the tiniest bit of light until we got within half a mile of our hotel.
We checked in to our room, grabbed a light (and late) dinner on the hotel’s roof and called it a night. Tomorrow another adventure begins . . .
The actual Zambia immigration checkpoint wasn’t for another 10 minutes walk up the road. We went there to see if we could just get a stamp and turn around, but they were pretty adamant that they couldn’t do that, even just “for fun.” Why so serious? Anyway, we turned around and walk back toward the bridge. We watched a few people bungee jump off the side and went to a cafe while still on the Zambia side. I had a local Zambian beer so we can say we actually did something in Zambia other than just walk across a bridge and back. After this we continued back into Zimbabwe and then stopped at some of the stalls outside Victoria Falls to do a bit of shopping. Nicole bought a wooden hippo statuette, magnets for Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana, a pin for her backpack, and I got a Zimbabwean soccer jersey.
We then continued back toward the middle of town, but made a couple stops at the fancier hotels, eventually sitting for a bit at the Victoria Falls Hotel, which looks like something straight out of The Crown, because it was built early in the 20th century and large portraits of various monarchs decorate the interior spaces. We sat in a lounge area with some ceiling fans going full blast, so it was a nice respite from the oppressive heat outside. Eventually we got up to walk to some more shops. They all kind of have the same exact stuff, which is not super surprising I suppose. We found ourselves shortly thereafter at the River Brewing Company for a couple beers and some fries to snack on. After this, we went back to the hotel to get our bags and headed off to the airport.
We endured about 40 minutes in the check-in line before going through security and ended up boarding the flight about 45 minutes ahead of schedule. We spent the next hour and a half on board an Embraer 135 regional jet over to Windhoek, Namibia. I enjoyed my snack box design which was made to look like an old-timey suitcase with various destination stickers on it. Once we arrived in Windhoek, it was a fairly easy immigration line, and then we went to get our rental car. The lady behind the counter said, “We have no cars! We sent you an email two weeks ago! Didn’t you get the email?” I found that a bit odd, so Nicole and I were questioning her a bit, but she was adamant that an email was sent. After about 30 seconds of back and forth, she admitted she was kidding. The African sense of humor is a curious creature. Anyway, apparently not many people are renting cars because we were the only people on our flight at any counter, and when we went to the parking lot, another employee was waiting at our car to show us all the features which was quite exhaustive. We will be driving a Renault Duster, a 4-wheel drive, 6-speed, diesel-fueled small SUV. We had a roughly 25 minute drive to our hotel in Windhoek since the airport is out in the middle of nowhere. Despite arriving early, the sun had already set, so we had to drive in the dark. And it was DARK. There were absolutely no buildings or anything to give off even the tiniest bit of light until we got within half a mile of our hotel.
We checked in to our room, grabbed a light (and late) dinner on the hotel’s roof and called it a night. Tomorrow another adventure begins . . .
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