Today we traveled for another 8-10 hours from Lusaka to Mwandi, Zambia. It would have been another hot and boring car ride, but we got to see Victoria Falls! It was a pretty good view of the eastern falls and the "rainbow falls" portion from the Zambian side, but Nancy said that we had to go to Zimbabwe to see the whole thing. So, Frank stayed behind with the 6 kids and Nancy and I exited Zambian customs, walked across a long iron bridge and a couple hundred meters of no man's land to the Zimbabwe border. There we had to pay $100 just to get through and then more money to get exit visas and then more to gain entrance into the park...and we were only going to be there an hour! But, it was worth it. It was sooo much water and the waterfall was so wide and long. The main falls is a drop of 93 meters and I took a couple goofy pictures, pretending to dive in, on the 'devil's cataract' portion of the falls, which is a 70m drop (from left to right the falls were: devil's cataract, main falls, rainbow falls, and eastern falls).
The falls were so powerful that me and Nancy got wet from all the mist and the other tourists there had on ponchos. While crossing the iron bridge back to Zambia, we got to see the 'boiling pot' below the falls, where all the water violently mixes and looks really cool. Also, we got to see people bungee jumping off the bridge, with the falls in the background. Nancy's oldest son Nathan-who is my age-bungee jumped off it a couple years ago.
Finally, we got to Mwandi at sunset. All 8 of us stayed with this cool Australian girl named Fiona and her boyfriend Rory. The next morning, Fiona showed us the orphan care program she started and the bakery that she started as a fundraiser for the orphanage. Then we got to see a bit of the hospital, but not the pathology lab. Mwandi mission hosp has the best lab in southern zambia and because I work in a pathology lab at unc, it would have been cool to see it. But we had to get going if we wanted to get to Botswana by that night.
Finally, we got to Mwandi at sunset. All 8 of us stayed with this cool Australian girl named Fiona and her boyfriend Rory. The next morning, Fiona showed us the orphan care program she started and the bakery that she started as a fundraiser for the orphanage. Then we got to see a bit of the hospital, but not the pathology lab. Mwandi mission hosp has the best lab in southern zambia and because I work in a pathology lab at unc, it would have been cool to see it. But we had to get going if we wanted to get to Botswana by that night.
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