livingstone

Ah, at last, time for a post not on medicine or careers or morality, but just plain traveling.

This past weekend I had a chance to visit Livingstone, located on the southern tip of Zambia at the Zimbabwean border. The city's biggest attraction is undoubtedly Victoria Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the world. It's name, Mosi-au-tunya, means 'the smoke that thunders' - and indeed you can see the 'smoke' created by the water vapour generated by the waterfalls from miles and miles away. It also thunders, since waterfalls are loud. Just walking around the falls we had to rent raincoats and we still managed to get utterly and thoroughly drenched.

We spent several of our evenings sipping drinks at various restaurants/bars on the Zambezi river. This is the 4th longest river on the continent and feeds Victoria Falls. The weather was absolutely perfect - not too hot, not too cold. The scenery was absolutely spectacular - large, majestic river, nice vegetation, beautiful sunsets, the smoke of Victoria Falls, etc... I would love to spend all my evenings like that...

Another interesting thing I encountered on my trip was the Zimbabwean dollar. During our travels, we walked on the bridge over the gorge created by the Zambezi river after Victoria Falls. This bridge happens to be halfway in Zambia, and halfway in Zimbabwe (so yes indeed, I did technically set foot in Zimbabwe).

Now, Zimbabwe is one of the most messed up nations in Africa at the moment. There are many reasons for this, but one of the unfavorable outcomes has been ridiculous hyperinflation. There are numerous hawkers selling Zim dollars on that bridge. The average bill runs at 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars. Interestingly enough, while the bills were denominated at 10 trillion in 2008, I managed to also get my hands on a 5-dollar bill that was dated 2007. INCREDIBLE HYPERINFLATION! A truly fascinating economic phenomenen that does no good whatsover for a country. I recall learning that in the post-World War I period, inflation in Germany was so bad that people would need a wheelbarrow full of money just to purchase a loaf of bread.

We also went on a river safari - taking a relatively small boat very close the the countless islands that dot the Zambezi. On this safari, our guides navigated the boat to within just a couple meters of crocodiles, a group of lazing hippos, and several rather large elephants. Fun fact: the hippo kills more people than any other African mammal - it may look slow and chubby and otherwise cuddly, but hippos have nasty temperaments and can actually run quite quickly over short distances.

Anyhow, that was just a random collection of some of the highlights of my trip. Livingstone was a lovely place, and I would recommend it to anyone :)