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Sunday July 5, 1998 - Arrived in Victoria Falls at 7:30 am. Victoria Falls is one of the wonders of the world. It is 1.7 km long the biggest in the world. It is so loud you can not hear anything else. There is a mist and rain and fog created by the splash of the falls. You get quite wet walking opposite it. It is the only rain , if you can call it that, that I saw. We saw beautiful rainbows. At one point as you walk you are literally surrounded by a rainbow that moves with you. 20 meters away from the gorge the rainforest ends, and it is very dry and the vegetation changes. I.E. no ferns. It is illegal to go over this falls in a barrel and would be very stupid to do. The falls is very undeveloped, you see it in its natural state. I was really suprised by how undeveloped all the tourist sites in Zimbabwe are. After an afternoon rest, we went canoeing with a guide called innocent on the Zambezi river and saw incredible animals. Among them: Iguana, baby crocodile, Green Kingfisher bird, Dart Bird, Egyptian Goose, and 3 elephants up really close. His head was 10 m away from us. It was absolutely astounding. We also saw quite a few hippos. In the evening there was nice traditional dancing and Marimba playing. We were able to see the elephants so close, because even though they are great swimmers and have such tough skin, their feet are very tender. So they will not go running into water. They will very carefully step to make sure the water does not have sharp objects in it. So we were safe. At one point the elephant trumpeted through its trunk and Bob who was right in the front of the canoe got real scared and so did I. We had dinner tonight of takeout Indian food and it was awful. The worst I ever had in my life. It was so bad that nobody ate it. Everybody said it was too hot. The weird thing was the same thing happened last year. I don't know why they went back a second year. That night I dined on the rest of my Zimbabwean Macadamia nuts I picked up earlier in Bulawayo.
