How’s that for some Z-rated alliteration. See what you’ve done, Becky. You’ve created a blogging monster. I know that you have issued another title challenge, but since I already came up with this one before receiving your comment, that will have to wait for my next post.
Now back to Zambia. When we finally arrived in Livingstone at about mid-afternoon, I had to head straight to an internet cafe because I hadn’t booked a place to stay in town yet. I had initially planned to spend a night in Lusaka after getting off the train, but since we were delayed I had to cancel that reservation. Once I was able to get online, I had a mild panic attack when I saw that apparently all of the hostels in Livingstone were already booked up for the next few days. There was a younger Western-looking couple at one of the other computers so I asked them where they were staying. They told me they were at Jolly Rogers Backpackers, though they thought it was full, which reflected what it had said online. I asked them for directions in any case, figuring I could go over and ask in person.
Not sure exactly where to go given their vague answer, I wandered in the general direction they had indicated and passed a local guesthouse. I decided to go in to see if they had any rooms as I was now afraid the whole town was booked up. The place was very basic, but the room they had available seemed clean enough so I decided to take it rather than risk being homeless for the night. After paying the manager, I wandered back to the main street where I happened to notice a sign pointing toward “Livingstone Backpackers.” I followed the signs down a few streets to a dirt road where I saw the gate for the hostel. The guard let me in and I went in to the office where I breathlessly asked if they had any space for the following night. He said they had plenty of room and since just looking around I felt much more comfortable in that environment, I asked if they had room for that current night as well. He said they did, so I decided to go back to the original guesthouse to see if I could get my money back for the room. The manager wasn’t around so I lied a bit to his wife telling her I had decided to just get on a bus that afternoon and continue on my way. I even offered to let her keep part of the money to make up for the inconvenience. She seemed a bit annoyed, claiming that she had just had to turn away someone else who had come in looking for a room, but in the end she gave me most of my money back aside from about 25%.
Happily checked in to my new backpackers’ hostel where I ended up being the only person in my dorm room as it was, I went back to the main office and asked the manager about booking a whitewater rafting trip down the Zambezi River. The Zambezi is basically the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe with each country on an opposite bank of the river. At first he told me that I was too late because it was the last day of the season. Then he must have made a phone call because he later came up and told me he was mistaken and the following day was actually the final day. After booking the trip I relaxed by the hostel pool where I chatted with a young woman who was staying at the hostel as a volunteer for an affiliated non-profit until the sun started to set and she went in for dinner. I went back into town, got some dinner for myself and then went to bed a few hours later to get ready for my early morning the following day.
The next morning I got up, put on my swim suit under shorts and a tee-shirt, packed a bag and went out to meet my van pick-up outside the front gate of the hostel. I chatted with the hostel guard for a few minutes before the van arrived and I joined about six people already on board. We drove about ten minutes to a nice resort hotel where we all went up to the office to pay before going down to a hut where we got a safety briefing before breaking into four different groups. I ended up by default with most of the people from my van--two British friends, a German woman and three young Dutch girls.
We drove down to the river, joking along the way with the guides, before disembarking and getting ready to walk down a steep path to the river entry point. Our guide turned out to be the guy who had given the safety talk and had more than 15 years of experience, which made us feel a bit more secure. I had gone white water rafting one time before when I was in college, but those had been mostly three and four degree rapids, whereas now we were dealing with fours and fives. I started down the path, but then realized I needed to go to the bathroom so I veered off and when I was done came back and met up with the German girl, Nicole. It turned out that she had worked in PR at Dow Jones in London at the same time that my friend, Angie, had worked for the company in New York so it was really funny to see what a small world it was (even though they only knew each other vaguely by name.) Nicole was taking it really slow down the path, which was probably a good idea since my legs were shaking by the time I got to the bottom myself.
When we finally got to the river bank and boarded the boat, our guide went through some basic skills, though he said we couldn’t practice a water rescue because some local fishermen had spotted a three-meter crocodile in the area a few hours before. Apparently our kayak rescuer hadn’t heard that warning about the crocodile because he came to pull one of the Dutch girls out of the boat and two of us seriously struggled to quickly pull her back up from the river water into the raft in spite of our earlier lesson. Luckily the croc didn’t surface during the time she was in the water.
After the skills overview, we took off down the river and made it successfully through the first two sets of rapids. On the second set, we surfed so high up the waves created by the whitewater that to me it was a miracle we didn’t capsize. On the third set, it was a different story. I had switched into the front seat location along with the British guy. On one of the rapids, Nicole and the British guy fell out of the other side of the raft and out of shock the rest of us stopped paddling. While everyone else fell out one by one, I struggled to stay aboard before finally giving up and going over myself. Nicole and the British guy were swept down the river before being rescued by the kayaks while the rest of us were able to grab onto the side of the raft. Since we were still in the rapids, I swallowed a bunch of water right before we were getting ready to go under for a second to flip over the raft to the right side. Luckily, I was able to get enough air and once we flipped the raft back over, I got pulled back up safely. On the following few sets of rapids, there were a few more close calls and some of the other rafts flipped over, but we luckily remained upright. There was even a point where we were able to jump overboard and hang on to the raft for a bit from in the water. Nicole was the only one who remained inside due to her extreme fear of crocodiles.
After what felt like five minutes later, but was actually more like an hour and a half, we arrived at our exit point from the river. We got out of the raft with our paddles and walked up to a cable car that brought us at a nearly 45-degree angle to the top of the cliff above. We took a few photos and had some sodas before heading back to the hotel to have lunch. After lunch we had a chance to look at the photos that the guides had taken and our group decided to purchase one CD to share amongst ourselves. Since most people were staying at Jolly Rogers we figured we could leave the disc there and everyone could stop by the front desk to make copies for themselves.
When we got back to town, Nicole and I made plans to meet later that night for dinner and I headed off to try to get some cash that I could convert into dollars. I thought I might want to go to Zimbabwe to see Victoria Falls from that side and was under the impression that the visa cost $50. As I planned to come back to Zambia in order to go through Bostwana to South Africa, I thought I would have to pay another $50 to come back in since I had only bought a single-entry visa. Therefore I wanted to get $100 in cash converted. I went to the ATM and took the equivalent out in Zambian kwacha. I then headed across the street toward some of the exchange offices. The staff at the hostel had suggested going to the bank branch in a nearby supermarket, but the store seemed to be closed for renovations so I decided to take my chances with one of the exchange bureaus.
As I neared the first office, it appeared to be closed and as I started to walk away, a black market dealer approached me. I normally would have dismissed him automatically, but I had read in one of my books that you can sometimes get a better deal on the street so I foolishly decided to hear the guy out. Sure enough, he offered me a better rate than was advertised in the bureaus so I told him that rather than changing dollars in kwacha, I needed to get 100 dollars. He started pulling money out of his pockets, but when he heard how much I needed, he went off to get the money from another guy down the street. That should have been my first clue that something was off. However, when he handed me the 100 dollar bill and I held it up to the light without taking my sunglasses off, it appeared to have a legitimate watermark. For some reason, I accepted the bill, gave him my kwacha and then took off back toward my hostel.
The farther I walked, however, the more suspicious I became. The weight of the paper just didn’t feel right and the color of the ink seemed lighter than it should be. Before making a final determination whether it was real or not, I also decided that I wanted to break it into two 50s so that I wouldn’t get change in foreign currency when I went to pay for my visas. The woman at the hostel said she couldn’t break it, but she explained where there was another supermarket in the opposite direction where I could get it changed. When I got to that bank window, the guy told me that all he had was $100 bills at that time himself. As I was getting ready to leave, I started talking to another girl who had just changed some money. I asked her to compare my bill with hers and there were some very clear differences. I then decided to ask the money changer and sure enough he confirmed that my bill was fake. He asked where I got it and I had to confess I had gotten it off the street. I learned that was a pretty stupid move on my part because there is a lot of counterfeit money floating around in Zambia. He suggested that I go back to the area where I had exchanged the money and then if I found the guy, threaten to go to the police if he didn’t give me my money back.
I followed the man’s advice, but unfortunately couldn’t really remember what my scammer looked like since I honestly hadn’t been paying much attention. I seemed to recall that he had been relatively short and wearing a black shirt with writing on it. I couldn’t remember anything else beyond that so my approach was to walk by the area where I had been scammed and wait for someone to come up to me. I had changed my shirt and put on a hat so hopefully the guy wouldn’t recognize me. Sure enough, a man in a gray tee shirt soon came over and I immediately laid in to him telling him that I knew the bill was fake and that I wanted my money back. He denied that he was the guy who had changed my money saying that he had just showed up a few minutes before. I told him I was going to go to the police and after arguing back and forth a bit, I realized that I had serious doubts whether it was the same guy and had no way to prove it even if it was. I finally stomped off in a huff saying I was going to the police, which is exactly what I intended to do, though not necessarily to rat him out.
It took me a little while to find the police station and when I finally did they said there was nothing they could do unless I could positively identify the guy, in which case I could give them a call and they could help “mediate” to get my money back. For some reason, they couldn’t actually arrest the scammer, but rather just sort of stand there backing me up while I pleaded my case. Since the bill was fake they also had to confiscate it, which was fine by me because at that particular moment I was so upset and humiliated that I had no desire to ever lay eyes on the thing again. They did tell me that I could come back in an hour or so in case they had picked up anyone who may be connected to the scam. I went off to get a massage I had previously scheduled, though I was hardly able to relax since I was feeling incredibly stupid and ripped off.
On the way back to the station, an hour and a half later, I tried to take a short cut and wound up getting lost and having to backtrack. Since I had arrived later than I was supposed to, the people who had helped me originally were no longer available. Instead they brought me back behind the counter to talk to one of the other supervisors who decided to lay into me about how it was illegal to change money on the street and it was all MY fault that I had been scammed. He was laying it on so thick that I finally got extremely frustrated and just couldn’t contain my sass.
“Fine, what are you going to do? Arrest me?,” I asked him.
“I’m not going to arrest you since it was the first time, but you shouldn’t do that again,” he responded.
I looked at him and said, “Do you really think I’m ever going to do that again after I was just given a fake $100 bill?”
Luckily he laughed and shook my hand, but I was still annoyed that he was treating ME like the criminal when I wasn’t the one approaching people on the street and offering them counterfeit money. Maybe if he did his job better these scam artists wouldn’t be in business in the first place. Unfortunately, I don’t think he really believed stopping these guys was in his job description. Since that officer was no help at all, as I was leaving I asked when the other guy was coming back and was told I could return the following morning if I wanted. Originally I planned to, but then decided it was pretty much just a waste of time since it was basically a lost cause. I can only hope that at least some of the money I gave the scammer went to a good purpose such as buying food for his family.
That night after the debacle at the police station, I was a bit late meeting Nicole at her hostel. Luckily she was understanding and as stupid and naive as I felt for my huge mistake, it did feel good to tell her the whole sordid tale so at least I could get a bit of sympathy. She even bought me a beer to help me forget my pain. I did decide, however, that since I had basically just lost $100, I couldn’t justify spending the money on the visas to go back and forth to Zimbabwe and would instead stay in Zambia. It seemed Zimbabwe would just have to join Lebanon, Greece and Spain among the countries that I had seen, but not set foot on during the course of my trip (sort of like how Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house in Alaska.)
The next morning, I walked toward town to catch a cab to go visit Victoria Falls. I had brought all my things in a plastic-coated shopping bag because I had heard from the Dutch girls the day before that it gets pretty wet standing in the rainforest next to the falls. However, since I figured I would be walking along trails, I stupidly wore my sneakers and socks. I didn’t bring any sort of umbrella or raincoat either and, though you could rent rain gear near the park entrance, I didn’t want to spend the money and figured I couldn’t really get that wet. I was wrong.
At the first clearing where they were renting the rain gear I was able to get a nice view of the waterfall, but there were a million people standing around trying to see the same thing so I quickly moved on. I headed next down the path into the woods and got hit with the first sprinkle coming off the spray of rushing water. I went left off the main path to get to the other side of the ridge where I couldn’t exactly view the falls, but could see the river down below and the Victoria Falls Bridge crossing over the Zambezi from Zambia to Zimbabwe. It was relatively dry there and I was able to get some nice pictures of a rainbow stretching over the bridge.
Getting back onto the main path, I walked over to the righthand side of the ridge where I started to get a better sense of what the Dutch students were talking about when they said they got soaked when they visited. It got even worse when I crossed a pedestrian bridge that went over the river and buckets of water rained down upon me. I was soaking wet from head to foot by the time l I made it to the other side. I checked out the view from that side of the bridge before crossing back over and getting soaked once again. By this time, my camera, which had gotten a bit wet while I was trying to snap photos was no longer fully functioning. When I would try to turn it on the lens zoom function wouldn’t work so the camera couldn’t stay on. I found a dry spot near a monument where I sat for a while trying to dry both myself and my camera out. I even took off my socks and laid them in the sun before resigning myself to putting them back on while still damp. Once the rest of my clothes were mostly dry, I walked down another path that led along the side of the river from the higher level before the water went crashing over the side of the cliff. From the riverbank I was able to get close to the edge of the falls, which was both cool and pretty frightening. Luckily, my camera started to work again so I was able to take some more pictures.
As I walked back toward the entrance one of the guides pointed out various places on the map and asked if I had seen them. He suggested walking down a path to the Boiling Pot on the lower level of the falls and told me that if I walked down the road I could walk halfway across the Victoria Falls Bridge without going into Zimbabwe. I thought I would walk to the Boiling Pot first, but as I neared the trailhead it was guarded heavily by two or three large baboons. I had heard some warnings about baboons and how nasty they can be so I decided to walk to the bridge first and then come back into the park to go down the trail.
After exiting the park, I walked a few hundred yards down the road until I came to the Zambian immigration control. I was able to cross the border without getting stamped out of the country by telling them I was just going to the bridge. After going through the fence and entering the “no man’s land” between Zambia and Zimbabwe I was nearly accosted by baboons and vendors trying to sell me things before I made it to the bridge. Once I got there my camera battery died so I once again wasn’t able to take any pictures of the beautiful rainbows created by the rising mist in front of the waterfall. I then crossed over to the other side of the road where people where lined up to bungee jump off the bridge. There was a sign demarcating the border line with Zimbabwe and I walked to the other side of it and eventually even to solid land on the opposite end of the bridge just so I could say I had been in Zimbabwe even if I didn’t get a stamp in my passport. No one was paying attention to which side I had come from anyway so it was easy to get away with it.
While I was standing watching people jump off the bridge with my stomach in my throat, I saw one of the Dutch girls, Wouke, who had signed up for a triple bungee adventure, which included a zip line across the canyon, a bungee jump headfirst and a “swing” feet first from the bridge. She had already done the zip line and there were only a few people ahead of her before she was going to do the swing and then afterward the bungee jump. I decided to stay and watch and even pulled out my video camera so I could record it. I was nervous for her when she got onto the platform to jump feet first into a freefall before swinging back and forth from a cable. She successfully jumped, but was shaking when she got back around to the top of the platform for the headfirst dive. The second time she hesitated a bit, but finally took the plunge and dove headfirst off the bridge. When she got back, she said the swing was actually the scarier of the two because when she was falling feet first, she felt like she was falling to her death until the cable caught her.
After Wouke finished and got unharnessed, I walked back up with her and her friend to the bungee tour center where we met one of the other Dutch girls to have lunch. As I sat there eating with them, I started to contemplate the idea of going bungee jumping myself. It had never been high on my “to do” list before, but I figured if I was going to do it anywhere it might as well be in Africa overlooking Victoria Falls. Since I was still smarting from my $100 loss from the day before, however, I decided I couldn’t justify spending all that money.
Once we finished lunch I crossed back over the border uneventfully with the three Dutch girls and walked back to the park as they got in a cab to go back to town. By this point, the baboons had thankfully moved along so I was able to hike the 20 minutes down the wooded trail to the Boiling Point. This part of the river is right at the base of the falls overlooking the Victoria Falls Bridge and is basically a whirlpool of rushing water. Some locals were actually getting in the water there, but even though I had gotten hot from the hike down in the sun, I had no desire whatsoever to get wet again. The walk up was obviously a bit more arduous so I did walk down to get a quick spray from the rainforest before catching a cab back to town.
Back at my hostel, I put on my bathing suit with plans to sit out by the pool for the rest of the rapidly waning afternoon. However, a few of the guests were taking turns climbing up a poolside rock climbing wall so I went up a couple of times myself without bothering to change out of my swimsuit. Once I had come back down for the third time, the sun was starting to set and it was getting chilly so I went back inside to change. That night I went back to Jolly Rogers to edit the bungee jump video I had shot for Wouke and hang out with Nicole one last time before we all left the next day. That evening I had found out I was getting more back from my income taxes than expected so while talking to Wouke and some other guests I started thinking more about actually going for the bungee jump the next day. While I put that decision on hold, I did decide to cross over into Zimbabwe to see the falls from that side and then spend one more night there before continuing to head south. I figured as long as I didn’t have to cross back into Zambia, I would save money on one visa fee at least.
I will post the amazing photos tomorrow.
Now back to Zambia. When we finally arrived in Livingstone at about mid-afternoon, I had to head straight to an internet cafe because I hadn’t booked a place to stay in town yet. I had initially planned to spend a night in Lusaka after getting off the train, but since we were delayed I had to cancel that reservation. Once I was able to get online, I had a mild panic attack when I saw that apparently all of the hostels in Livingstone were already booked up for the next few days. There was a younger Western-looking couple at one of the other computers so I asked them where they were staying. They told me they were at Jolly Rogers Backpackers, though they thought it was full, which reflected what it had said online. I asked them for directions in any case, figuring I could go over and ask in person.
Not sure exactly where to go given their vague answer, I wandered in the general direction they had indicated and passed a local guesthouse. I decided to go in to see if they had any rooms as I was now afraid the whole town was booked up. The place was very basic, but the room they had available seemed clean enough so I decided to take it rather than risk being homeless for the night. After paying the manager, I wandered back to the main street where I happened to notice a sign pointing toward “Livingstone Backpackers.” I followed the signs down a few streets to a dirt road where I saw the gate for the hostel. The guard let me in and I went in to the office where I breathlessly asked if they had any space for the following night. He said they had plenty of room and since just looking around I felt much more comfortable in that environment, I asked if they had room for that current night as well. He said they did, so I decided to go back to the original guesthouse to see if I could get my money back for the room. The manager wasn’t around so I lied a bit to his wife telling her I had decided to just get on a bus that afternoon and continue on my way. I even offered to let her keep part of the money to make up for the inconvenience. She seemed a bit annoyed, claiming that she had just had to turn away someone else who had come in looking for a room, but in the end she gave me most of my money back aside from about 25%.
Happily checked in to my new backpackers’ hostel where I ended up being the only person in my dorm room as it was, I went back to the main office and asked the manager about booking a whitewater rafting trip down the Zambezi River. The Zambezi is basically the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe with each country on an opposite bank of the river. At first he told me that I was too late because it was the last day of the season. Then he must have made a phone call because he later came up and told me he was mistaken and the following day was actually the final day. After booking the trip I relaxed by the hostel pool where I chatted with a young woman who was staying at the hostel as a volunteer for an affiliated non-profit until the sun started to set and she went in for dinner. I went back into town, got some dinner for myself and then went to bed a few hours later to get ready for my early morning the following day.
The next morning I got up, put on my swim suit under shorts and a tee-shirt, packed a bag and went out to meet my van pick-up outside the front gate of the hostel. I chatted with the hostel guard for a few minutes before the van arrived and I joined about six people already on board. We drove about ten minutes to a nice resort hotel where we all went up to the office to pay before going down to a hut where we got a safety briefing before breaking into four different groups. I ended up by default with most of the people from my van--two British friends, a German woman and three young Dutch girls.
We drove down to the river, joking along the way with the guides, before disembarking and getting ready to walk down a steep path to the river entry point. Our guide turned out to be the guy who had given the safety talk and had more than 15 years of experience, which made us feel a bit more secure. I had gone white water rafting one time before when I was in college, but those had been mostly three and four degree rapids, whereas now we were dealing with fours and fives. I started down the path, but then realized I needed to go to the bathroom so I veered off and when I was done came back and met up with the German girl, Nicole. It turned out that she had worked in PR at Dow Jones in London at the same time that my friend, Angie, had worked for the company in New York so it was really funny to see what a small world it was (even though they only knew each other vaguely by name.) Nicole was taking it really slow down the path, which was probably a good idea since my legs were shaking by the time I got to the bottom myself.
When we finally got to the river bank and boarded the boat, our guide went through some basic skills, though he said we couldn’t practice a water rescue because some local fishermen had spotted a three-meter crocodile in the area a few hours before. Apparently our kayak rescuer hadn’t heard that warning about the crocodile because he came to pull one of the Dutch girls out of the boat and two of us seriously struggled to quickly pull her back up from the river water into the raft in spite of our earlier lesson. Luckily the croc didn’t surface during the time she was in the water.
After the skills overview, we took off down the river and made it successfully through the first two sets of rapids. On the second set, we surfed so high up the waves created by the whitewater that to me it was a miracle we didn’t capsize. On the third set, it was a different story. I had switched into the front seat location along with the British guy. On one of the rapids, Nicole and the British guy fell out of the other side of the raft and out of shock the rest of us stopped paddling. While everyone else fell out one by one, I struggled to stay aboard before finally giving up and going over myself. Nicole and the British guy were swept down the river before being rescued by the kayaks while the rest of us were able to grab onto the side of the raft. Since we were still in the rapids, I swallowed a bunch of water right before we were getting ready to go under for a second to flip over the raft to the right side. Luckily, I was able to get enough air and once we flipped the raft back over, I got pulled back up safely. On the following few sets of rapids, there were a few more close calls and some of the other rafts flipped over, but we luckily remained upright. There was even a point where we were able to jump overboard and hang on to the raft for a bit from in the water. Nicole was the only one who remained inside due to her extreme fear of crocodiles.
After what felt like five minutes later, but was actually more like an hour and a half, we arrived at our exit point from the river. We got out of the raft with our paddles and walked up to a cable car that brought us at a nearly 45-degree angle to the top of the cliff above. We took a few photos and had some sodas before heading back to the hotel to have lunch. After lunch we had a chance to look at the photos that the guides had taken and our group decided to purchase one CD to share amongst ourselves. Since most people were staying at Jolly Rogers we figured we could leave the disc there and everyone could stop by the front desk to make copies for themselves.
When we got back to town, Nicole and I made plans to meet later that night for dinner and I headed off to try to get some cash that I could convert into dollars. I thought I might want to go to Zimbabwe to see Victoria Falls from that side and was under the impression that the visa cost $50. As I planned to come back to Zambia in order to go through Bostwana to South Africa, I thought I would have to pay another $50 to come back in since I had only bought a single-entry visa. Therefore I wanted to get $100 in cash converted. I went to the ATM and took the equivalent out in Zambian kwacha. I then headed across the street toward some of the exchange offices. The staff at the hostel had suggested going to the bank branch in a nearby supermarket, but the store seemed to be closed for renovations so I decided to take my chances with one of the exchange bureaus.
As I neared the first office, it appeared to be closed and as I started to walk away, a black market dealer approached me. I normally would have dismissed him automatically, but I had read in one of my books that you can sometimes get a better deal on the street so I foolishly decided to hear the guy out. Sure enough, he offered me a better rate than was advertised in the bureaus so I told him that rather than changing dollars in kwacha, I needed to get 100 dollars. He started pulling money out of his pockets, but when he heard how much I needed, he went off to get the money from another guy down the street. That should have been my first clue that something was off. However, when he handed me the 100 dollar bill and I held it up to the light without taking my sunglasses off, it appeared to have a legitimate watermark. For some reason, I accepted the bill, gave him my kwacha and then took off back toward my hostel.
The farther I walked, however, the more suspicious I became. The weight of the paper just didn’t feel right and the color of the ink seemed lighter than it should be. Before making a final determination whether it was real or not, I also decided that I wanted to break it into two 50s so that I wouldn’t get change in foreign currency when I went to pay for my visas. The woman at the hostel said she couldn’t break it, but she explained where there was another supermarket in the opposite direction where I could get it changed. When I got to that bank window, the guy told me that all he had was $100 bills at that time himself. As I was getting ready to leave, I started talking to another girl who had just changed some money. I asked her to compare my bill with hers and there were some very clear differences. I then decided to ask the money changer and sure enough he confirmed that my bill was fake. He asked where I got it and I had to confess I had gotten it off the street. I learned that was a pretty stupid move on my part because there is a lot of counterfeit money floating around in Zambia. He suggested that I go back to the area where I had exchanged the money and then if I found the guy, threaten to go to the police if he didn’t give me my money back.
I followed the man’s advice, but unfortunately couldn’t really remember what my scammer looked like since I honestly hadn’t been paying much attention. I seemed to recall that he had been relatively short and wearing a black shirt with writing on it. I couldn’t remember anything else beyond that so my approach was to walk by the area where I had been scammed and wait for someone to come up to me. I had changed my shirt and put on a hat so hopefully the guy wouldn’t recognize me. Sure enough, a man in a gray tee shirt soon came over and I immediately laid in to him telling him that I knew the bill was fake and that I wanted my money back. He denied that he was the guy who had changed my money saying that he had just showed up a few minutes before. I told him I was going to go to the police and after arguing back and forth a bit, I realized that I had serious doubts whether it was the same guy and had no way to prove it even if it was. I finally stomped off in a huff saying I was going to the police, which is exactly what I intended to do, though not necessarily to rat him out.
It took me a little while to find the police station and when I finally did they said there was nothing they could do unless I could positively identify the guy, in which case I could give them a call and they could help “mediate” to get my money back. For some reason, they couldn’t actually arrest the scammer, but rather just sort of stand there backing me up while I pleaded my case. Since the bill was fake they also had to confiscate it, which was fine by me because at that particular moment I was so upset and humiliated that I had no desire to ever lay eyes on the thing again. They did tell me that I could come back in an hour or so in case they had picked up anyone who may be connected to the scam. I went off to get a massage I had previously scheduled, though I was hardly able to relax since I was feeling incredibly stupid and ripped off.
On the way back to the station, an hour and a half later, I tried to take a short cut and wound up getting lost and having to backtrack. Since I had arrived later than I was supposed to, the people who had helped me originally were no longer available. Instead they brought me back behind the counter to talk to one of the other supervisors who decided to lay into me about how it was illegal to change money on the street and it was all MY fault that I had been scammed. He was laying it on so thick that I finally got extremely frustrated and just couldn’t contain my sass.
“Fine, what are you going to do? Arrest me?,” I asked him.
“I’m not going to arrest you since it was the first time, but you shouldn’t do that again,” he responded.
I looked at him and said, “Do you really think I’m ever going to do that again after I was just given a fake $100 bill?”
Luckily he laughed and shook my hand, but I was still annoyed that he was treating ME like the criminal when I wasn’t the one approaching people on the street and offering them counterfeit money. Maybe if he did his job better these scam artists wouldn’t be in business in the first place. Unfortunately, I don’t think he really believed stopping these guys was in his job description. Since that officer was no help at all, as I was leaving I asked when the other guy was coming back and was told I could return the following morning if I wanted. Originally I planned to, but then decided it was pretty much just a waste of time since it was basically a lost cause. I can only hope that at least some of the money I gave the scammer went to a good purpose such as buying food for his family.
That night after the debacle at the police station, I was a bit late meeting Nicole at her hostel. Luckily she was understanding and as stupid and naive as I felt for my huge mistake, it did feel good to tell her the whole sordid tale so at least I could get a bit of sympathy. She even bought me a beer to help me forget my pain. I did decide, however, that since I had basically just lost $100, I couldn’t justify spending the money on the visas to go back and forth to Zimbabwe and would instead stay in Zambia. It seemed Zimbabwe would just have to join Lebanon, Greece and Spain among the countries that I had seen, but not set foot on during the course of my trip (sort of like how Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house in Alaska.)
The next morning, I walked toward town to catch a cab to go visit Victoria Falls. I had brought all my things in a plastic-coated shopping bag because I had heard from the Dutch girls the day before that it gets pretty wet standing in the rainforest next to the falls. However, since I figured I would be walking along trails, I stupidly wore my sneakers and socks. I didn’t bring any sort of umbrella or raincoat either and, though you could rent rain gear near the park entrance, I didn’t want to spend the money and figured I couldn’t really get that wet. I was wrong.
At the first clearing where they were renting the rain gear I was able to get a nice view of the waterfall, but there were a million people standing around trying to see the same thing so I quickly moved on. I headed next down the path into the woods and got hit with the first sprinkle coming off the spray of rushing water. I went left off the main path to get to the other side of the ridge where I couldn’t exactly view the falls, but could see the river down below and the Victoria Falls Bridge crossing over the Zambezi from Zambia to Zimbabwe. It was relatively dry there and I was able to get some nice pictures of a rainbow stretching over the bridge.
Getting back onto the main path, I walked over to the righthand side of the ridge where I started to get a better sense of what the Dutch students were talking about when they said they got soaked when they visited. It got even worse when I crossed a pedestrian bridge that went over the river and buckets of water rained down upon me. I was soaking wet from head to foot by the time l I made it to the other side. I checked out the view from that side of the bridge before crossing back over and getting soaked once again. By this time, my camera, which had gotten a bit wet while I was trying to snap photos was no longer fully functioning. When I would try to turn it on the lens zoom function wouldn’t work so the camera couldn’t stay on. I found a dry spot near a monument where I sat for a while trying to dry both myself and my camera out. I even took off my socks and laid them in the sun before resigning myself to putting them back on while still damp. Once the rest of my clothes were mostly dry, I walked down another path that led along the side of the river from the higher level before the water went crashing over the side of the cliff. From the riverbank I was able to get close to the edge of the falls, which was both cool and pretty frightening. Luckily, my camera started to work again so I was able to take some more pictures.
As I walked back toward the entrance one of the guides pointed out various places on the map and asked if I had seen them. He suggested walking down a path to the Boiling Pot on the lower level of the falls and told me that if I walked down the road I could walk halfway across the Victoria Falls Bridge without going into Zimbabwe. I thought I would walk to the Boiling Pot first, but as I neared the trailhead it was guarded heavily by two or three large baboons. I had heard some warnings about baboons and how nasty they can be so I decided to walk to the bridge first and then come back into the park to go down the trail.
After exiting the park, I walked a few hundred yards down the road until I came to the Zambian immigration control. I was able to cross the border without getting stamped out of the country by telling them I was just going to the bridge. After going through the fence and entering the “no man’s land” between Zambia and Zimbabwe I was nearly accosted by baboons and vendors trying to sell me things before I made it to the bridge. Once I got there my camera battery died so I once again wasn’t able to take any pictures of the beautiful rainbows created by the rising mist in front of the waterfall. I then crossed over to the other side of the road where people where lined up to bungee jump off the bridge. There was a sign demarcating the border line with Zimbabwe and I walked to the other side of it and eventually even to solid land on the opposite end of the bridge just so I could say I had been in Zimbabwe even if I didn’t get a stamp in my passport. No one was paying attention to which side I had come from anyway so it was easy to get away with it.
While I was standing watching people jump off the bridge with my stomach in my throat, I saw one of the Dutch girls, Wouke, who had signed up for a triple bungee adventure, which included a zip line across the canyon, a bungee jump headfirst and a “swing” feet first from the bridge. She had already done the zip line and there were only a few people ahead of her before she was going to do the swing and then afterward the bungee jump. I decided to stay and watch and even pulled out my video camera so I could record it. I was nervous for her when she got onto the platform to jump feet first into a freefall before swinging back and forth from a cable. She successfully jumped, but was shaking when she got back around to the top of the platform for the headfirst dive. The second time she hesitated a bit, but finally took the plunge and dove headfirst off the bridge. When she got back, she said the swing was actually the scarier of the two because when she was falling feet first, she felt like she was falling to her death until the cable caught her.
After Wouke finished and got unharnessed, I walked back up with her and her friend to the bungee tour center where we met one of the other Dutch girls to have lunch. As I sat there eating with them, I started to contemplate the idea of going bungee jumping myself. It had never been high on my “to do” list before, but I figured if I was going to do it anywhere it might as well be in Africa overlooking Victoria Falls. Since I was still smarting from my $100 loss from the day before, however, I decided I couldn’t justify spending all that money.
Once we finished lunch I crossed back over the border uneventfully with the three Dutch girls and walked back to the park as they got in a cab to go back to town. By this point, the baboons had thankfully moved along so I was able to hike the 20 minutes down the wooded trail to the Boiling Point. This part of the river is right at the base of the falls overlooking the Victoria Falls Bridge and is basically a whirlpool of rushing water. Some locals were actually getting in the water there, but even though I had gotten hot from the hike down in the sun, I had no desire whatsoever to get wet again. The walk up was obviously a bit more arduous so I did walk down to get a quick spray from the rainforest before catching a cab back to town.
Back at my hostel, I put on my bathing suit with plans to sit out by the pool for the rest of the rapidly waning afternoon. However, a few of the guests were taking turns climbing up a poolside rock climbing wall so I went up a couple of times myself without bothering to change out of my swimsuit. Once I had come back down for the third time, the sun was starting to set and it was getting chilly so I went back inside to change. That night I went back to Jolly Rogers to edit the bungee jump video I had shot for Wouke and hang out with Nicole one last time before we all left the next day. That evening I had found out I was getting more back from my income taxes than expected so while talking to Wouke and some other guests I started thinking more about actually going for the bungee jump the next day. While I put that decision on hold, I did decide to cross over into Zimbabwe to see the falls from that side and then spend one more night there before continuing to head south. I figured as long as I didn’t have to cross back into Zambia, I would save money on one visa fee at least.
I will post the amazing photos tomorrow.
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