When I woke up at 4:30 am not feeling so good, I thought it was because I didn’t take my malaria pill until too much time had passed after our dinner. You’re supposed to take them on a full stomach. But by breakfast time I was vomiting and had disgusting diarrhea. So I realized it wasn’t the pill. Not able to eat anything, and after several trips to the washroom during breakfast, I had no choice but to suck it up and get on the bus. I begged for the front seat and grabbed the garbage bin, just in case. I then proceeded to be sick at both ends every 20 -30 minutes for the next 24 hours. At the border between Botswana and Zimbabwe just as soon as I’d cleared customs I ran for the toilets but ended up puking in the dirt at the edge of the road.
Let me be a little less self-absorbed here for a minute while I talk about the borders in this area. Any transport trucks going from Angola or Zambia or from anywhere further north going south to the port of Durban in South Africa has to go through the border in a small area where Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana all join. It appears to be utter chaos and given that they said that it sometimes takes a week to two for the trucks to get clearance through the border, I think appearances must be accurate. Sometimes a driver will wait for a week only to find out his company has messed up on the paperwork and he has to go back to the end of the line. To make matters worse, there is a river crossing involved. Many of the trucks use a ferry, that only takes 2 transports at a time, and there are hundreds of them in line waiting their turn. Can’t imagine how any perishable goods would get to the port before spoiling. And we think the Windsor/Detroit corridor is bad.
So after the border crossing, and in to our 4th country in Africa, Zimbabwe, we drove a short distance (but which to me seemed like an eternity) to Victoria Falls. The plan was for us to get dropped off at the Falls to enter the park and walk around, then head to an activity centre to book anything we thought we’d like to do. There are all sorts of activities available to do at the Falls on both the Zambia and Zimbabwe sides, including a helicopter fly over, High Tea overlooking the Falls on Stanley’s Terrace at the Victoria Falls Hotel, bungee jumping from a bridge over the canyon, white water rafting on the Zambezi River which separates Zambia from Zimbabwe, and swimming on the edge of the falls in the Devils Pool, which just looks insane. There are some animal interaction things that Intrepid specifically asks it’s clients not to participate in because they are contrary to their Responsible Travel Policy.
Well, I said to Innocent that there was no way I could walk around in the park and could I be dropped at the hotel first, and he said, yes, there were 2 others ill that wanted to be dropped off as well. I knew that one other was sick too, but not a third. We all surmise it must have been food poisoning since not only the initial 3 were ill but several others came down with various symptoms in the next 24 hours.
While I have utter condemnation for the lodge where we stayed in Chobe, I have nothing but high praise for the hotel in Victoria Falls. The Cresta Sprayview Hotel went out of their way to get rooms ready for us early. Innocent and one of the hotel staff, Alfred, checked in on me, talking to Nanci several times throughout the day. Alfred had asked if we needed a doctor or anything else. Dry toast was my only thought, as Nanci had been shuttling ice chips and sodas to me, and so it was provided in no time and “on the house”. It was such a pretty hotel, with a lovely pool area, and patio restaurant. I’m just sorry that the only part I saw was the inside of my room and the lobby washroom that I visited several times while waiting for my room to be ready.
Nanci got to the Falls, and has offered to share her pictures, which I’ll post when I am back home and get them from her. I spent that time intimate with the bowl in the bathroom, at times not knowing which end to put in it (sorry, probably TMI). I have never been as sick as that, and hope to never be again.
The farewell dinner and a birthday celebration for the youngest of our group was planned for that evening but there was no way I was going to be able to go. Nanci wasn’t feeling all that well either by evening. So we both crashed for the afternoon, and evening. Not the exciting grand finale we had in mind when we started the tour 22 days ago.
Sorry no interesting pictures today.
Lois' Adventures 