A typical Saturday in Livingstone

My work here in Zambia this time around has been far more difficult and busy, leaving me with only Saturday free and a full day of work on Sunday (boo). Being exhausted, my boss and I decided we'd rather relax and see the Falls than do an expensive touristy activity (I'll have time for that in the next weeks).


The dry season has hit here in full force, and the elephants have begun closing in on Livingstone trying to find food in the bushes and trees along the road leading from the Zambia-Zimbabwe border (the bridge over the Victoria Falls through Livingstone and up towards the airport. A herd of elephants has been hanging out along the road not far from the border bridge, and i have had the opportunity to see them a number of times on my way to and from the Falls and the bank. Now, with the border right there, you constantly see men on bicycles weighted down with hundreds of pounds of goods they bought in Zimbabwe (for cheap) and are bringing to Livingstone to sell for a profit. But when these elephants are on the road, they don't dare bike past them. and so you can always tell when the elephants are out because you will first see a line of men standing next to their bikes, warily watching the herd tear up trees and cross the road.







Once past the elephants we arrived at our favorite hotel hang-out - the Zambezi Sun hotel on the banks of the Victoria Falls. This is the same hotel that in a previous blog from my last trip here, I described the cheeky monkeys who terrorized the tourists at breakfast. And so I found it too funny when we arrived to see a man relaxing as he read a newspaper, unaware of the monkey hiding behind him that was about to steel his pair of Crocs.



After sunbathing and enjoying a well-earned mango daiquiri, we headed down to see the Falls, running into the herd of zebras that live on the hotel property (the baby zebra that was one-week old when I was last here is so big now!).







On we went to the Falls, which is so different now in the dry season than it was when I was last here in March. Mainly, I could actually see it! Before, the water was so high the rain mist hit before you could see much. Not so this time.













All-in-all it was a lovely day off, hopefully things will slow down and I'll actually have two days off for a weekend...though I can't complain when I can get in elephants, zebras, monkeys, water falls, and sun-bathing in a single day.