Rainbows, Waterfalls and Monkeys!

I have to admit that before going to Zambia I didn't know anything about Zambia. Really nothing. I didn't know that everyone there would speak brilliant English, I didn't know that their money was called Kwacha. I didn't know it was winter there... I really knew nothing. I had heard a rumour that there was an awesome waterfall there though. And there was...

I am a big waterfall fan and a big rainbow fan, I am also a fan of monkeys and Victoria falls has all these things in one place! The Victoria falls totally rock! It was the biggest waterfall ever and it is loud! Nic and I decided that we definitely didn't need a waterproof coat and that everyone else was being a wuss and happily headed towards the falls. It was so wet. It was wetter than rain or a shower or something. At times it was as wet as if someone was constantly throwing a bucket of cold water over you.

A bit like being at Victoria Falls

So we bravely went back and dried off before renting some coats. While we were drying off we hung out at the top of the waterfall which was a really beautiful place:

We then got our plastic bag coats and our cool big green welly coats and plodded off towards the water.

We have no photos of this bit which is a real shame as it was my best bit, so just imagine an insanely big waterfall right ahead of you and it is really, really big and there are rainbows everywhere and it is sort of very heavily raining upside down so that the water goes right up your nose all the time.

Here's a random photo of the same place that I just found on Google, just so you have a vauge idea of what it was like:

We looked even cooler than this dude!

So you wander around this amazing rainforest and over the 'Bridge of Snot' which is literally (not literally) a bridge made of snot.

The Bridge of Snot

Because the bridge is always sprayed by the falls it is the slimiest thing! I slipped up and down this bridge quite happily because the views are tremendous from here. And at one point I was standing where the rainbow ended. It was awesome.

Then we walked down to the Boiling Point - the river at the bottom of the falls. We walked down a steepish path. I didn't worry too much about the steepness as I was too busy worrying about the MASSIVE BABOONS that were EVERYWHERE.

I like baboons really, they have always been nice to me and vice versa. These ones were super big though and super close. They were just lying around on the path that we were supposed to be walking down and they were not moving.

We saw an angry baboon at the Bird of Worlds and they have fangs that could snap your arm off.

We had a stick that an old German man had kindly given us, but I was worried that one of the baboons would take the stick off me and than he would have out-evolved me and that would be so embarrassing. But it was fine, I mainly hid behind Nic and the baboons passed by without taking my stick.

The rest of the walk down was lovely, in a rainforest.

Nic being David Livingstone

When we got to the bottom you can almost appreciate how steep the valley is. I don't know if there was more water at the falls when we went than there normally is, but there was an awful lot. It went by so fast - and people go white water rafting here! This was Nic's favourite bit. I'm not surprised, he really likes currents and tides and rapids and things like that.

Boiling Point

 We met 2 girls who went canoeing near here and a hippo nearly ate them. Like that's a real thing that really happened. It's not even the beginning of a joke.
A hippo nearly ate them.
The hippo broke their canoe in two
pieces and they fell in the water.
With a hippo.

Mental.

Anyway we finished our trip to the falls by walking down the 'photographers trail'. Was a cute little walk with a good view of the falls and the bridge.

 It was still difficult to get a real idea of the size of the place. We didn't do the helicopter thing, mainly due to money, but we did get a very good view of the falls from the plane on the way home. That was awesome. It looked a lot like this:

I was much more impressed with Vic falls than I thought I would be. But then, I'm not sure what I was expecting. I totally loved it there. It was the most impressive thing I've seen on the Earth so far. Well done Earth.

Also, we learnt some cool David Livingstone facts...

Mr Livingstone, we presume?

1. David Livingstone was a total dude. He canoed down the Zambezi towards the falls and just managed to stop on a little tiny island (called Livingstone island) just before the waterfall. He lived there for 3 days.
2. He worked a lot to stop the slave trade
3. He did 3 big expeditions around Africa
4. There were no roads or planes or things when he was travelling
5. He married a transvestite 
6. He nearly got eaten by a lion
7. He always wore his explorer hat - like Indiana Jones!
8.