I planned on going for a nice long run this morning to really stretch my legs before all of my flights but it was raining so that didn’t work out. It was probably for the best since I had a very busy morning getting everything all packed and ready to go. I talked to Jacob on Skype one last time, then made my breakfast of one egg and two pieces of toast (all that’s left of my food). I packed up most of my stuff then went to the Avondale shops one last time to find the 100 trillion dollar note for Nat. I should have gotten the note a few weeks ago when I was there because the price has gone up now ($6 instead of $5). With everything packed up, I spent the last few minutes in my flat frantically ordering Christmas presents for my family on line (they should arrive in time everyone!). Just before noon, Deborah, who lives below me, took me to the airport and I arrived there an hour and a half before my flight to Jo-burg.

Sadly, I forgot to renew my visa in November so I had to pay $100 fine for not doing so (thank you CEND), but they let me go through immigration and didn’t even question me about the length of my stay.

And now I’m waiting for my flight to Jo-burg to board. It’s two hours there, then I have a 4 hour layover before my marathon 17 hour flight to Atlanta! I have just over an hour in Atlanta, then it’s only another 5 hours to San Francisco. With luck, I will get home Sunday morning, which will be after midnight in Harare. 30+ hours and over 10,000 miles later I will be home in Jacob’s arms!!

Today was my last day at work, which was only half a day since the office closed at 1 pm. Salome and I were busy tying up all of the loose ends for the project this year and we worked right up to closing time. I bought Salome a new cell phone to use as a business phone so she wouldn’t have to keep switching her SIM cards back and forth.

We went on an excursion in the afternoon, which I will describe later, then we met up with Salome’s sister, Ruthie, and the three of us went out to dinner. We went to a place called Adrienne’s and I had some good fish and chips and we got to listen to some karaoke singers. There were some really good singers there, and some really bad ones as well.

I didn’t get back home until 10 pm and I spent a little bit of time packing before going to bed quite late.

This week is really flying by! I can’t believe it’s Thursday already. Salome and I made good progress in our to-do list this week and I’m happy with where I am leaving off tomorrow. In the afternoon we interviewed a candidate for our research assistant position. The guy we talked to, Vitallis, is a nurse which is exactly what we are looking for, but since he has some experience he really wants a higher salary than what we can offer. I guess John will have to decide what is most important.

We had our last Skype call with John this afternoon and that went well. We only added a few things to do tomorrow morning instead of the typical 10 things after talking to him.

I ate the last of my leftovers for dinner tonight so I guess I’ll have to go out to eat for dinner tomorrow.

Last night I watched “Back to the Future” and tonight I watched number 2. They promised me flying cars, shoes with automatic laces, and jackets that air dry by 2015, so I hope technology can deliver!

We had a second session of GIS training this morning and I think this one went better since it was more practical information and less theoretical concepts. There were even some questions from the staff, which shows they are really thinking. It was raining so we weren’t able to go out and actually use the GPS units, but I went over how to use them and we’ll try to go out tomorrow.

This afternoon just flew by with organizing other aspects of the study and making sure Salome and I got everything done before the office closes for the holidays on Friday. I trained Salome in how to enter data into the access database and I showed her how to create Google docs for Skype agendas and to-do lists. She’s a pretty slow at typing but hopefully she will improve.

In the evening I updated my resume and wrote cover letters for four jobs and applied to all of them. That took all evening. I also got rejected from one of the fellowships I applied to, so now there’s even more pressure to find a job by the end of January. John said he will try to find some additional funds for me so I can continue working on this project, but that’s no guarantee.

This morning I had my first Geographic Information Systems (GIS) training session. 13 staff members attended, which was more than I expected. I was a bit nervous teaching a class about a subject that I would only consider myself a novice/intermediate on, but things went well I think. I broke today up into 3 lectures, with two breaks in between to give everyone a brief rest. I provided tea, juice and snacks which went over really well. (Some people here are very eager for free food; I saw one woman take a whole stack of cookies!)

At first I wasn’t sure if everyone understood what I was talking about since no one had any questions at the end of the lectures, but we had a good discussion of how GIS can be used to address health issues in Zimbabwe so I hope everyone got an idea of the potential of mapping different things. At the least I made a lot of new friends when I gave 10 people free 1-year licenses of the software then I presented two GPS units to them. I got a round of applause for that.

The training went until 12:30, by which time I was tired and I could tell people were not paying as much attention. We had a bit of a problem authorizing the software but hopefully that will get resolved soon.

I spent the afternoon working on lectures for tomorrow and in finishing another spatial analysis project that I have been trying to work on since my first week here.

In the evening, I worked more on the lectures and got everything set for Wednesday. What a busy day and it looks like it will be a busy week!

I got picked up go to (back to) the airport at 7:30 and after only a 30 minute delay, my flight to Harare departed. It was a quick one hour flight (with tea and a light snack served) and I was back by noon. After unpacking quickly, I took a combi to the office to get some work done in the afternoon. Salome had a bunch of questions about the falls since she has never been there (it’s very expensive for the locals) and I described my long weekend there.

I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on what Salome had accomplished while I was gone and working on the PowerPoint presentations for GIS training I would be giving on Tuesday and Wednesday. Although it wasn’t quite the day I had planned, it was still productive.

For dinner, I made the last of my sugar beans and lentils on a bed of South African yellow rice. I think I will have just enough leftovers to make it through the rest of the week without having to buy more food.

I completed all of my planned activities on Saturday (and spent the last of my money) and didn’t have much planned for Sunday, but I was going back to Harare in the early afternoon so that was fine. I had plenty of time to hang out, pack up, walk around town and get back to the hotel for my 1 pm shuttle to the airport. While I was eating breakfast, a drive from my tour company came to get me. He said he was there to take me to the airport. Again, I had no idea what he was talking about and I explained that my flight was at 2:30 pm and my ride to the airport was supposed to be at 1 pm. He asked “are you sure?” and I nearly got upset that he thought he knew my plans better than I did! But I assured him and sent him on his way (little did I know…).

The morning went by quickly with a brief walk through town and visiting the Victoria Falls Hotel one last time. The driver was a bit early picking me up, but I didn’t have anything else to do so I headed to the airport.

When I got to the Air Zimbabwe check in desk, they woman at the counter told me that my flight left at 10:15 am!! And there were no other flights that day! I was shocked and outraged. She told me that they called “every single customer” and that everyone else got on that flight. That was a total lie since there were 4 other people there with me with the same problem. I was so upset but when I said that, the woman looked at me blankly for five seconds then turned away. No apology or anything. This country is not known for its customer service.

Luckily, they put me up in the Rainbow Hotel for the night and provided transport to and from the airport, dinner and breakfast. And the hotel was quite nice; it had internet and a swimming pool with a swim-up bar. Since I had a lot of work to do on Monday, I spent most of the afternoon and evening working on that in my hotel room, but I watched part of a movie and had air conditioning which was nice.

Although it wasn’t great, there are worse places to be stranded than Victoria Falls!

I finally didn’t have to get up super early this morning, which was great. I had a helicopter flight over the falls scheduled for 8 am which would give me plenty of time to run, shower and have breakfast. Sadly, it was raining when I got up so I scratched the running plan. During my leisurely breakfast, a driver came asking if I was going on the canoe trip. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. Apparently, the tour company found other people who wanted to go canoeing and since I had enquired about it, they signed me up to go even though they didn’t contact me at all. Maybe if the weather had been nicer, I would have joined, but it was not a good day to be on a river so I just told the driver that I was booked for the helicopter ride and he said alright.

At 8 am I was ready to go and I waited, and waited. Finally at 8:20 I called the tour company to see why they were late. They said the flights were not running due to weather. That was totally understandable but they could have called me! They said it would be around 9 am so I hung out and read for a while. When it was still sprinkling at 9 am I called them back and just requested that they phone me when the trip would depart.

With nothing else to do, I walked into town and went to an internet café for a while to check my e-mail. Then I browsed the shops for a while. I finally got a call that the helicopter ride would depart at 2 pm so I hung around until that time.

I got picked up from town and taken to the launch pad. After a very brief safety video (just do what they tell you to do), I was weighed (no one over 70 kg can ride in the front) and then I was swiftly loaded onto a helicopter with 5 other people. The whole process reminded me of Disney World: it really was like a production, with a helicopter landing and people getting off as the next group waited to get on. It all happened so quickly. And before I knew it, we were airborne!

We flew to the falls and made several circles in either direction so that everyone had a good view. I took a ton of pictures (hopefully some of the look good). It was absolutely amazing! Such a unique perspective and one that I’ll never forget. I got to see the river that becomes the falls and the gorge that the river has eroded away. We saw the rapids where people go white water rafting and all of the islands that make up the channels above the falls. Then we flew 4 km upstream and saw the slow moving water and the cities of Victoria Falls and Livingstone. It was amazing! But 13 minutes goes by very quickly and before I knew it, we were landing and being ushered to a small room where we were forced to watch a video of our flight. The video had some footage of us being weighed and getting on the helicopter then it had some standard footage of the falls then some more video of us getting off. All for just $30! Disney-esque, right? It was a great experience and I would definitely recommend it.

After the flight, I had the driver drop me off at the bridge for my zip lining! The highest bungee jump in the world if from the Victoria Falls bridge, which spans the gorge dividing Zimbabwe from Zambia. Normally to cross the bridge you have to go through immigration and pay the visa fee to enter Zambia. However, if you are doing the bungee jump, bridge swing, or zip line, then you can get a bridge pass without having to pay the fee. You can’t go far into Zambia, but I didn’t want to.

I got a lot of pictures of the bridge and watched some of the crazy people bungee jump. It looked scary. It’s 130 free fall, stopping 30 feet above the swirling waters of the Zambezi river. Not for me.

I did the “baby” event, and got put into a harness then strapped to a metal cable that spans the gorge. With a bit of a push, I went flying from Zambia to Zimbabwe! I went kind of fast, but it wasn’t scary at all and I had a good chance to look out and see everything. On my way back, I even got to view the falls from the Zambian side, which was pretty cool (although mostly dried up at this time of year).

Although the day started off slowly, the afternoon was awesome! Afterward I walked back into town and got a smoothie since it was getting warm again and I hung out and watched the people walking around town.

For dinner I went to a restaurant called “In Da Belly” which is a spoof on one of the local ethnicities, Ndebele, which is pronounced roughly the same way. I had crocodile curry with peanut butter rice which was quite tasty.

I had another early morning today since I was picked up at 6:15 for my elephant ride. There were five of us on the trip, including one young boy and his mother that were on my cruise the night before. We had perfect weather and an early start before it got too hot.

The advantage of being alone is that you don’t have to share some things, like your elephant. While the others paired up with their guide, it was just me and my guide on an elephant named Ladoma. All of the elephants are orphans whose mothers were poached and would have died in the wild if they had not been rescued and all proceeds from the trips go towards conservation efforts so I didn’t feel so bad about riding around on an animal that really belongs in the wild. Ladoma is 12 years old and is not fully grown yet (elephants can live to be 60-70 years old, even in the wild). Unlike the elephant ride Jacob and I had in Nepal, there was no cage on this one, just a saddle and stirrups. I sat behind the trainer and was able to look around in all directions. The ride itself was about an hour, with a guide walking around side us the whole time for our protection.

After the ride, we were able to feed the elephants some treats (corn and molasses pellets) and pet them. It was a cool experience. Of course, they tried to get us to buy a DVD of our ride or an elephant footprint on elephant-dung paper but I declined. I guess they have to raise funds somehow since they are a non-profit.

Then we were driven to an outdoor restaurant and were served a fancy breakfast, including eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, tea and coffee. It was a great morning.

I was dropped off at my hotel around 10 am and I immediately got ready to head to the falls. On my walk down, a nice older man stopped and offered me a ride to town, which saved me 20 minutes. I really like how nice people are here.

The falls themselves, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and a world heritage site, are in a national park and they form the boundary between Zimbabwe and Zambia. During the high water season (May until August) you can view the falls from both countries but at this time of year the Zambian side has dried up because ground level on that side is higher and the falls can only be viewed from the Zimbabwe side. That’s great for me because I only have a single entry visa and not enough pages left in my passport to go to Zambia and back. The falls run over a kilometer across (over half a mile) and have a maximum height of 108 meters (over 350 feet). At the peak times over 500 million gallons of water flow over the falls per minute!! Victoria falls are not the tallest, longest or most volume falls in the world, but if you combine all three aspects they are very impressive and outpace Niagara falls by a long shot.

In the park, there’s a paved walkway to follow with numbers marking where you are. Near the beginning of the path, there’s a giant statue of David Livingstone, who was the first European to see the falls. Then you slowly wind your way through and see the falls from various viewpoints.

I can’t even put into words what it’s like so I won’t try. I’m sure the pictures won’t do it justice either, but they will be a bit better.

In the low season (like now) the volume of water is much lower, but that means much less spray so you can actually see the falls. During peak flow times, the spray is so high that you can’t actually see the water falling! Different people recommend the falls at different times of years and it’s probably something that should be viewed multiple times.

At the Main Falls point, there is so much spray year round that it creates a tropical rain forest on the Zimbabwean side, with huge ferns, palm trees, and vines growing everywhere. Even with the low flow, I got very wet standing at the viewpoints for even a few minutes. But it’s so hot out that the cool water feels good and I dried off very quickly. Just a few meters down the path the water spray lessens and the terrain turns from rainforest to savannah/scrubland very quickly.

I met a guy from Harare and walked and talked with him for a while until he turned back and then I was on my own for the rest of the time. I took a lot of photos and some videos and will post them at a later point (probably when I get back home since the internet here is very slow).

Near the end of the path is a place called “Danger point” which is at the edge of the gorge with no railing or even some thorn bushes as a barrier between you and certain death. There’s only one small sign urging you to be cautious. It’s very different than what would be in America; here they trust that individuals are smart enough to not get too close and are responsible for their own safety. In the US there would be railings, signs and liability forms to sign before going out there. It was a beautiful place and the only one where you could see the river at the bottom of the gorge. I took some time and wrote a few postcards seated on a rock.

The final stop is a view of the bridge and I got to see one person bungee jump off. Overall, I spent about 3 hours in the park and only headed out when I got hungry.

I had a great lunch at “Mama Africa’s” then mailed my postcards and checked out the craft market. The craft market might have been a mistake since I was hot and tired and not up to so many people asking me to buy something. I’ve been to Africa enough times that just about everyone I know has some souvenir from here and after a while everything looks all the same. Honestly, I don’t know how so many vendors can compete with each other when all of their wares are identical. I did get a gift for Jacob (a surprise) and I was talked into two bowls for $5 even though I only sort of liked one of them. After an hour I needed to leave to save my sanity.

When I got back to the hotel I took a quick dip in the pool to cool off. It was so refreshing after my long walk in the heat. I took a quick shower then walked up the road to the Safari Lodge where I heard there was a deck that overlooked a watering hole. On my short walk there, I saw some warthogs and striped mongooses just hanging out on the lawn. TIA (This Is Africa).

I had a cocktail and looked out at the savannah and watched the animals like impala, storks and a whole herd of buffalo come down to drink. I also saw a huge storm on the horizon with rain and lightning; it was really impressive to watch.

At 7 pm I caught the shuttle to the Boma Restaurant, which is actually on the grounds of the Safari Lodge but far enough away that you can’t walk there when it’s dark because of the animals.

Everyone recommended going to the Boma for the experience but I think it’s best if you’re in a large group. As someone alone, I was a bit underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong: the food was great but maybe I had different expectations that were not met. I thought there would be entertainment throughout dinner, distracting me from being alone, but there was only one short dance while we ate and everything else was after the meal was over.

The buffet style meal was great though. We started with some traditional beer (made of millet, milky white in color with chaff floating in it) and some snacks of peanuts, roasted corn and fried corn covered in dough. Next came the cold starters including crocodile tail, warthog, impala, guinea fowl, and vegetables. Then came the most delicious butternut squash soup. The main course was a bunch of game meat, including impala, kudu, warthog, and steak and two types of stews, some sauces and sadza (the traditional corn meal side dish) served three ways. And dessert was incredible with cheesecake, other cakes, fruit, custards and puddings. I didn’t even make it to the crepes table. I certainly ate more than I needed to and more than I intended but it was really good.

I started to rain midway through the meal and the lights went out several times which was a bummer, but the party didn’t stop. After eating, everyone was given a drum and we “played” with the professionals. It was a bunch of racket but fun. Then there was a dance circle which ended in everyone dancing together in the rain. It was a pretty good value for $50 but would have been much more enjoyable to me if I had someone to share it with.

I got up at 5 this morning and was at the airport by 5:45 for my 7 am flight. I was taking Air Zimbabwe to Victoria Falls and they do not have the best reputation of timeliness or flights departing at all. Checking in was fine, but then we sat at the gate, staring at the plane for an hour and a half. Apparently there were “technical issues” with the plane and it took some time to sort things out. We finally left at 8:30 and I guess I should be glad that the plane departed at all (I have heard stories of flights being canceled or delayed for 8 hours).

It’s not that far from Harare to Victoria Falls (about the distance from San Francisco to Seattle, or a 12 hour drive) and yet my flight stopped in Bulawayo, the other major city in Zimbabwe, which is about half way between (like stopping in Portland). The two 45 minute flights were uneventful and they even served breakfast and a snack during each.

I arrived at 10:30 and was met at the airport by the Shearwater Company which I had arranged beforehand. I hadn’t booked any activities yet, so the driver took me to the office to sign up for some things. I really wanted to do an all-day canoe trip on the upper Zambezi river (which divides Zimbabwe from Zambia and results in Victoria Falls) but since I am just one person and they require two to confirm a trip I was not able to.

Next I enquired about a morning game walk since the walk Jacob and I did in South Africa was awesome. The game walk is not running at this time of year because the brush is too high and it’s difficult to walk around and see anything.

Next I asked about this “Zambezi river adventure” and learned that it’s a cruise in a small boat that goes up the narrow channels of the river where other boats can’t go. It sounded great. And it is not running right now because the river is very low.

Since I couldn’t do my top three activities and I wanted to do something other than stare at the falls all weekend, I settled on an elephant-back ride and interaction and a helicopter ride over the falls. Booking those two got me a free evening cruise up the river and I decided to try this “flying fox” or bridge slide as well. The tour operators really pushed the white water rafting and bungee jump from the bridge (the highest in the world) but I wasn’t really interested in either of those.

Having gotten that settled, the driver took me to my hotel, the Amadeus Guest house, which is on the edge of town.

I should clarify that Victoria Falls refers both to the falls themselves and to the village on the Zimbabwean side of the river. On the Zambian side there is Livingstone town, named after the famous explorer. Both towns are centered around tourism and the falls and everything is very expensive, but very safe: I’m told there’s practically no crime in Victoria Falls because it’s a small community and all the locals know each other and know that their livelihoods depend on tourists. The only thing you really have to be careful of is walking around at night. This is not because of getting mugged, but because wild animals, including ELEPHANTS WALK THROUGH THE VILLAGE AT NIGHT!!

Amadeus is very small and cute, with only 11 rooms, 4 of which are occupied now. There’s a small pool in the courtyard and breakfast is served outside under a thatched-roofed building.

I unpacked, got settled, and talked to the owner about things to do around town then set off to explore.

The village is not that big and I walked around most of it in an hour or so. The vendors are very persistent and most annoying. No matter how many times you tell them that you do not want to buy their hand-carved giraffe or the hyper inflated Zimbabwean dollars, they keep dogging you for blocks. I had to get angry at a few of them because they would not stop following me. And I was only walking around for an hour and a half!

I went inside the Victoria Falls Hotel, which is the oldest and fanciest in the area. It has the classic colonial architecture and sprawling grounds. I looked at the stone work gallery that they have there then wandered down the path to the falls themselves. On the path, I ran into a security guard who said he would accompany me to the lookout point down the way. It was nice to have someone to talk to and to ward off the vendors so I took him up on the offer.

It was a short walk to the overlook, which offers views of the gorge and the bridge. You can’t actually see the falls themselves, but can see the spray they send up. I watched someone bungee jump from the bridge and saw a few people doing the zip lining across the gorge. It was a great day, sunny and warm but not too hot, and a great first glimpse of what was to come.

The park where the falls are closes at 6 pm and I wanted a lot of time to wander so I decided to save the falls for the next day and headed back to the hotel.

I was picked up at 4 pm for my sunset cruise. I think “sunset” is a bit of a misnomer since the cruise started at 4:30 and lasted two hours and sunset right now is about 6:45 since it’s so close to the solstice. I would call it more of an afternoon cruise. Either way, it was alright. I might two nice people from Singapore and sat with them and chatted. We saw crocodiles basking in the sun and a bunch of hippos in a shallow part of the river. There were some birds on shore I couldn’t identify as well. We didn’t see any other game, but it was nice to cruise the river and have a cool drink and some snacks. It was no canoe trip, but an alright substitute.

I got back to the hotel at 6:30 and ordered an omelet to complete my dinner (not very nutritious but what can you do?) then fell asleep reading at 9 pm. What a day!

I finally finished all of the lectures for the training next week (6 lectures over the course of two mornings) and was able to tackle a few other things at work today.

We had a Skype call with John in the afternoon which lasted over an hour. It’s great to talk to him to make sure we are on track but my “to-do” list always multiplies by the end of our conversations. Certainly, we will never be bored here.

Today was my last day of work this week: tomorrow I fly to Victoria Falls for a long weekend of site seeing. I’m excited to get out of town for a few days and to get away from the office since I have been spending way too much time with Salome.

I arranged a taxi for early in the morning. My flight is at 7 am and I need to leave by 5:30 because traffic into town gets quite bad in the mornings. I packed up some clothes and my computer and managed to fit it into my backpack and other small bag, which I think was quite impressive.

I spent Monday and Tuesday working on the GIS lectures which I will give on Dec 13 and 14, right before I head home. There’s nothing else to note about Monday since I worked on the talks in the evening as well, but on Tuesday after work I went to another play at “Theater in the Park” with Salome.

This play was entitled “Fes Bhuku” and is pronounced like “Facebook” and although it was about the social networking website, it was not a recreation of the successful movie of the same name. Since it was opening night for the play, it was free again but they were checking names at the door since this was an invite only event. Salome’s sister, Ruth, works for the company that was producing the play so our names were on the list. I felt like a celebrity.

Since they didn’t have tickets, they oversold the show and people had to sit on the floor (on cushions), make the stage even smaller. The room was packed and hot.

It was a one hour play, with 5 cast members. The lead character is a guy in rural Zimbabwe who runs a small restaurant with his brother but is obsessed with Facebook and making posts which are politically or socially controversial. When he hears some new news about Egypt he wants to post something but realizes that he has lost his internet password (which is written on a yellow card). He goes all around town looking for it, following the garbage truck and going to the dump yard. Meanwhile, his wife has stolen his yellow card to prevent him from getting into trouble with the government for the nature of his posts. She plots with his brother to break the posting habit. The brother is also having an affair with a married woman whose husband is very rich and powerful in the village. Much comedy ensues and the audience would have been rolling in the aisles if there were any.

The play was good, but a lot of it was in Shona so I missed out on many jokes and had a hard time establishing the relationships of the characters early on. I felt like I was two steps behind the whole time and didn’t get many of the jokes at all. That’s completely my fault for not speaking the language; obviously everyone else thought it was wonderful. It was entertaining and certainly better than going home and sitting alone although if I had known how much Shona there was I would have thought twice about going; still it was a great experience and I hope the play is successful.

The Zimbabwe mountain club was having an all-day walk today and I was very excited to join since I haven’t had the chance to leave Harare in some time. They were going out somewhere to the east of Harare, about a 3 hour drive away, which meant leaving at 6 am!! I couldn’t find anyone from the club who stays in my area, so I arranged for a taxi to pick me up at 5:15 to take me to the meeting place.

Because of the storm the night before and the threat of rain, I texted one of the hike leaders at 5 am to see if the hike was still on; I didn’t want to pay $20 for a taxi all the way out to the meeting place if it was canceled.

And canceled it was! But not because of the weather; the hike leader somehow got injured on Saturday and wouldn’t be able to go and no one else felt familiar enough with the area to lead the hike. That was a bummer, especially since I woke up at 5 am and didn’t sleep well with worrying about not hearing the alarm. But luckily I was able to go back to sleep (after I canceled the taxi at the last minute).

But then when I did get up around 7:30 I didn’t have anything to do all day. I ended up working a lot on a series of training lectures about GIS that I’m going to be giving next week and I finished reading “Return of the King” (started and completed in 4 days! But not counting the appendices since the version I downloaded didn’t have them).

And as it turned out, it didn’t rain at all on Sunday: it was cool and overcast, a perfect day for a long hike!!