Between our game drives in South Africa and our Safari in Namibia we had a day in Victoria Falls, Zimbzbwe to view the Victoria Falls - and we had two nights on a houseboat on the Chobe river as previously reported.
As we crossed the border from Zambia to Zimbabwe we could see the precipice over which water would be flowing during the rainy season. It was dry. Based on my first observation I was expecting that we were not going to see much of a waterfall. If we had arranged to see it only from the Zambia side we would have been very disappointed.
However, there was still a lot of water flowing on the Zimbabwe side. The wet part of the falls was probably about 1/4 mile wide instead of the 3/4 mile that it would be when the water level is up. Those are both my guesses of width. There was still a lot of water flowing. In some parts of the falls there was enough of a mist to carry up and across the canyon (where we were) that I did not want to expose my camera to it. When the river is at full flow it is doubtful that you would be able to see the bottom of the canyon because of the intense "smoke". We could see the rising mist from our accommodation about a half mile away. At certain times, there was a rainbow in the mist.
____________ Change of subject - still related to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
When we left our houseboat on the Chobe River we had to take a boat to where we could clear passport control in Namibia; then boat to Botswana where we were met by a van to take us back to the Zimbzbwe border. There we would catch another bus after clearing Botswana and Zimbabwe passport control. Unfortunately our ride from where we entered Botswana to the border to leave Botswana was about 1/2 hour late. When we finally left there were two bus loads of Europeans ahead of us at all three passport control points. We were late to get to the airport and it appeared that we might not make our flight. Then we got the bad news. Our South Africa flight had been overbooked. There were only 2 seats available on the flight to Johannesburg. We gave those seats to Diane's sister and cousin and we were guided to the British Air office in hopes that we could get seats on their flight which was to depart before the South Africa flight. We waited in the BA office for about two hours. Then we were asked if we minded flying in the "jump-seats". We said we were fine with that. We ended up on our original South Africa flight - much to our travel companions (and our) surprise. That was possible only because the flight was about 2 hours late. We found out later that for us to be able to fly in the jump-seats the pilot had to give permission. He got permission from the flight attendants before he granted permission. By the way, the jump-seats are fold-down seats that the flight attendants use. Because we were sitting in the galley we were able to see the flight attendants make preparation for serving meals and drinks. We now have a new appreciation for flight attendants. Before they calmly roll their carts down the isle and present a cool and relaxed face to the passengers there are a few minutes of rapid and well choreographed preparation of the carts. It looked pretty stressful to me. I was amazed at their ability to transition instantly from the highly efficient, intense preparation mode to the friendly customer service mode.
Fortunately, we arrived in Johannesburg in time to catch our flight to Windhoek, Namibia.
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