D&D in Africa

Zambia 1: Bordercrossing with currency problems and Victoria Falls

September 15, 2008

   

Crossing the border proved to be an interesting experience. In the no-mans land on the Botswana side of the river, a bunch of guys wanted to help us with the formalities on the Zambian side for a nominal fee of 20 Rand (ca 3 CHF). At first we politely but persistently refused but after a while we figured it was really cheap and they seemed to know what they were doing concerning the extremely confusing process. We agreed with a guy calling himself ‘Mel Gibson’ (they give themselves english names to be understood by tourists and often choose the names of celebrities, we met ‘Kennedy’ sometimes later ). On the other side they shuffled us from counter to counter ‘sign here, pay here, give them this paper over there’ and in the end we did cross without much hassle. During the process we realized that we had no clue about the exchange rate of US$ to Zambian Kwatcha. Because they paid some things in one and others in the other currency that was important and we asked some of the officials for an estimate. 3400 or 3560 Kwatcha to the Dollar was their answer. When payment time came they first wanted to rip us off with a rate of 2500 to the Dollar! We loudly protested and said we would know our stuff. All they said was that there was a spread between buying and selling course… Of course there is but it is by no means that large. We insisted on a rate of 3400 to the Dollar and it took a looooong while until we had them somewhere near that. It was getting to be a quite uncomfortable situation and in the end we settled for a rate near 3200. You might think why bother, how much money can it be about… Well, entering Zambia set us back a mere 300$… Zambia, we found out, is more expensive than Switzerland. Incredible… Petrol costs 3$ the liter, all food (exept the maize meal that the villagers eat) is outrageously expensive and a 15 minute ‘ultralight’ flight over the Vic-Falls would have been 150$.
We felt a little down because we were ripped off (we later found out that of course the right rate would have been 3400) and drove into Livingston. At the ‘Waterfront’ there was no more space for us so we settled for the ‘Bushcamp’, but for me it added a little to my not so perfect mood. After checking in and settling down a little we set out again to look for a place we could do laundry (handwashing just doesn’t get the white stuff clean…). After asking around for ages we found a place. But hold on for their price: roughly 80 CHF for 10kg of clothes – and that was the discount ‘Backpacker’ Rate. We refused and cleared out to go to the Vic-Falls. We forked over 10$ each at the entrance to the ‘National Park’ around the falls and set of on one of the walkways. Because the dry season is now at it’s climax there was very little water and much of the falls were actually dry! Only further down, where the main falls were on the Zimbawean side could we see some spray mist from large waterfalls. We decided against crossing into Zimbawe to see them because it would have cost 100$ each to do it (30$ Visa for Zim, 20$ entry to the ‘park’ on the Zim side and another 50$ for getting a new Visa for Zambia). Although the falls are not as spectacular with so little water, walking across the edge over to Livingstone Island becomes possible. It’s not quite an official path but lots of people do it. Its quite cool to stand on the edge of the drop to the pool 108m below and imagine the thundering watermasses that drop here in the wet season. We watched the sun set behind the mist of the main falls and made our way back to safe territory and the camp.
We decided against Kafue NP in favor of visiting lake Kariba, so the next day we were to drive to Siavonga on the lake Kariba (just a quick spoiler until I have written the post about it: it was amazing and turned out to be three days of high-life .

Victoria Falls – in the dry season… in the back are the main falls which unfortunately are on Zimbawean territory.

Dinu on the edge of the falls

Diego on the edge of the falls near Livingstone Island

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