Bike ride at Victoria Falls

I like the unexpected and that pretty much  describes today. After a rather large buffet breakfast we wandered down the road to meet our guide for our cycle tour.  Past lovely autumn coloured bushes enhanced by clay brick coloured dirt we came across the local supermarket. For a while we watched baboons playing and jumping.

We found our bikes chained to a tree but no Farai so we spent a few moments looking at the historical Victoria Falls hotel and onto the Terrace.  Great view of the Gorge. We will go back again to explore  when we have a bit more time. 

Farai took us to the bridge above the gorge. The half way mark is the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. We rode past articulated trucks laden mainly with copper. Zambia borrowed from China and then unfortunately defaulted on their loans - now guess who owns the copper mines.   We spent a while watching four white water inflatables trying to get into a rather a strong current. One boat took 4 attempts -  we were relieved they finally made it.  It was fun looking down on coloured boats floating swiftly down  with kayakers who got a little bit more than just wet.

And then back through border control where passports don't appear to be needed, past more trucks and cyclists with boxes on their bikes filled with cheap foods from Zimbabwe to sell in Zambia.  We cycled through Bush, saw some impala from a distance and stopped by the mighty river to wash our hands and admire the bird life and water lilies which would be beautiful when purple flowers bloom in summer.  We picked up some rubbish (same problem every where some don't respect our special places and others work hard to minimize the damage).

There were lots of broken pots. Some might say this is litter but clay will return to the stuff it was made of  eventually. It is a custom to fill a pot with stones - I think one for each member of the family but I might be making that up.  Then some one smashes the pot by the river and the water washes bad luck away.  The river is lower than Farai has ever seen but the pots are still wet which is a good sign.

Then more cycling to the Baobab tree - the road was lined with them - I marveled at the first one but was told that there was a bigger one round the corner. And there was.

While we were admiring this 1200 year tree and the local market stalls two elephants came to visit.  They stood watching us for a while. We were told to get in the car as occasionally they decide to walk through the market kicking the beautiful wooden and granite animals much to the dismay of the stall owners.  So we sat in the car (our feet on a range of beer bottles - when I laughingly showed Farai the photos later the look on his face said it all - he hadn't picked those empties up from the river).   What majestic gentle animals these animals are. They walked across the road through the Bush crossed the road behind us and went to the river where big signs warned us not to go there because of big crocodiles.

Then we cycled to the highlight of our trip. What could beat the elephants you say. Not a lot. But before I get to that. We cycled up a little hill made more difficult by the bike having only one gear.  I should have mentioned that we had three guides to us two.  A ratio we have never struck before on cycling trips. Two guides were in the car looking for animals and sometimes providing a bit of safety and one led the way on the bike. Ashton was on the bike when we pedaled up this little slope. Apparently Farai won a beer cos he had faith I would make it. We had described to him about the hills in Wellington so I guess he was forewarned.

We went to Farai's house and met Tino his wife and their  two children Scott and Lorraine. Lovely children and a testament to the fact education is excellent in Zimbabwe. The shame is there are few jobs at the end of high school.  Tino told us of her dream to have a non profit organisation for stay at home mums where they could learn to keep chickens and make  handcrafts for sale. What a great idea and we hope that her dream will come to fruition. We talked about Netflix and what we watch on television. They told us power is very  intermittent and most of the time they need to cook outside and television  was not always a available to watch. Not necessarily a bad thing when you see how happy the children are. We felt very privileged being invited into their home and for the pictures the children drew for us.  After lots of goodbyes and hugs we rode the high school, back to our hotel (to pick up some presents for the children - very pleased we had bought some key rings from home).

If you want to experience a Bike ride round Victoria Falls tailored just for you and with the local touch you can contact Farai at Bike and Saddle tours on Google.

And we cycled to Africa Mama for a well earned local dinner. Yummy vegetable curry and pasta. At the table we decided to pay by cash.  Before leaving home I had sewn pouches into the inside of our trousers. Great for keeping passports and money secure but very difficult to get anything out without taking down ones trousers.  The money was in Harry's secret pouch.  Whatever did the other patrons think when Harry started to undo his belt at the table?

We wandered back to the hotel hot and tired but very happy. Late afternoon we lay by the pool and that is where this blog began.