Today we flew from Makanyi Lodge in Kruger National Park, South Africa, back to Johannesburg for one night before Taking a flight to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. This meant we had to fly backwards and spend a night next to the airport in a giant hotel and casino complex called The Imperial Palace. There were other People at Makanyi that flew direct from Kruger to Victoria Falls, which was a lot faster, took only one flight instead of two and would have meant we could have skipped a whole night of accommodation. I don't know why this wasn't organised for us, but there you go. Unfortunately, when you don't know an area, you are forced to accept whatever your travel agent organises.

Anyway, after a wasted night in Joburg, we flew into Victoria Falls. The falls are in a small town of the same name, which is a quaint little place with a green central park where people sit around and warthogs walk around them grazing. Our lodge was the Safari Club, which was a few kilometres outside town, the rooms setup around a large and a small watering hole. We were right in front of the small watering hole where a croc was swimming around. There were plenty of bushbucks around and also heaps of warthogs. Lidia was happy about this because apparently out of all the magnificent animals in Africa, the warthog is her favourite. In fact, during the entire holiday, every time we drove past one I would look at her and she'd be smiling.

The warthogs at Victoria Falls were particularly entertaining because they loved to come down to our watering hole and wallow in the mud. They'd roll around in it, giving themselves a good coating, grunting with satisfaction as they rolled. They had one move we thought was hilarious, where they sat in the mud and pushed backwards with their front legs, forcing their butts right into the mud.

The Safari Club had a lounge that overlooked the main waterhole and that was also great. The elephants liked to visit that waterhole in the evening and there were up to 25 there at one stage. It was a beautiful experience to enjoy a cocktail while watching the elephants drink.

The Safari Club also had a daily vulture feeding, which was fascinating. They do this every day at 1:00, and the main reason they do it is to track the vultures. These birds are ugly, but essential for the ecosystem, since they clean up the carcasses of dead animals, preventing them from spreading disease. Unfortunately, their numbers are declining because poachers are killing them. They do this because the vultures give away their location when they kill an elephant or a rhino, leading the rangers directly to them. So the poachers have started poisoning carcasses in order to kill the vultures, or poisoning entire watering holes to kill everything. They really are b******s and we were morbidly happy to hear that they now shoot poachers on sight. Anyway, the vulture feeding was incredible. They get hundreds of them, from all different species, including the huge and insanely ugly marabou stork. Watching these animals is like stepping into a Tim Burton movie. They are so creepy looking.

The main reason we came, however, was to see Victoria Falls. In the list of natural wonders of the world, the Victoria Falls are the tallest waterfalls in the world. There are 7 falls in total, the tallest being the Rainbow Falls at 100 metres tall. You walk around the rim of the falls on the other side of the gorge and there isn't even a railing. I was glad we went in low season, because apparently in high season you can Barely see the falls because of the mist and you end up soaked to the bone. There is less water in low season, but they are still impressive.

There was one group of people who took the option to swim at the top of the falls and we watched them from the other side of the gorge. The guides took them to an eddying pool right at the rim of the waterfall. I kept thinking that if just one of the rocks at the edge erodes and suddenly goes over the edge, so will all of the people!

The next day we took a day trip into Botswana to Chobe National Park. We took a river cruise in the morning and then a game drive in the afternoon. This place was truly spectacular. Botswana has the highest population of elephants in Africa at 200,000 and we must have seen over 200 on this one day. The river cruise was so exciting because the elephants swim over the river to a massive, flat island where they wallow in the mud and eat the vegetation. At one stage we saw about 40 elephants wallowing in one massive mud hole, including heaps of babies that struggled to get out of the mud once they got in. It was hilarious watching them trying to get out. The other elephants would help them sometimes.

We also saw heaps of hippos, giraffes, gazelles and crocs. Unfortunately, there are no more rhinos left in Botswana or Zimbabwe because they were completely wiped out by poachers in the 1970's.