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by Gill
Staden
8 November
2009
I spent the day
today in Vic Falls Town. The border
crossing from Zambia was a breeze &endash;
not many people and all the officers
seemed to be doing an efficient
job.
My first port of
call was the Victoria Falls Hotel. This
hotel is the town's colonial hotel, being
built in 1914 … well the first bit,
anyway. It has had extensions over the
years to make room for more and more
people.
The hotel
overlooks the gorges, below the Victoria
Falls and the Victoria Falls bridge. It
has maintained its high standards and
remains a popular hotel.
Next I took a
tour along the road by the river and found
some baboons pruning each other, and then
one mum ran off with her baby in a rather
ungainly fashion. The rainy season, which
we are just starting, is often overlooked
as a time to visit this region, but I love
it. The animals are all dropping their
young and the bush is so beautifully
green.
This river road
turns inland and passes the baobab.
Everyone who visits Vic Falls Town has to
go and take a photograph of this old
baobab which must have stood for over
1,000 years … and seen many changes
in its lifetime.
From there I
popped up to Victoria Falls Safari Lodge,
affectionately called Saf Lodge. This
lodge is high up on a ridge overlooking
MFA. M = Miles. A = Africa. The F is for
your interpretation. Down below is a
waterhole which attracts animal from miles
around. Today the waterhole was fairly
quiet &endash; just a few marabou storks
… and I could see the ripples in the
water &endash; a sign of crocs, and there
are plenty there …
As the time
passed, vultures began to appear circling
around overhead and then landing on trees
just below the hotel. They were waiting
for lunch. Every day at 1pm, the meat
scraps from the hotel are strewn in the
bush below. And the vultures, storks and
kites know this routine. And … just
after 1pm … the guide went there
carrying a crate of meat scraps and bones.
He threw them into the bush, made a hasty
retreat and we all watched as the birds
swooped en masse, divinghead-first into
the feast.
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