Sawubona! (Greetings!) We visited the town of Victoria Falls (VFA), which was established in 1964, well after its Zambian counterpart, Livingstone, was established, which is why VFA is smaller than Livingstone. David Livingstone was a missionary from Scotland, who arrived in Zimbabwe in 1855. He saw the Falls, and was the one who made the Falls known to others. People started coming to see the Falls in 1876, but there was no road on which to access the Falls. As a result, in 1904, they started to build a train that would provide access. VFA is the only town situated within Victoria Falls National Park. VFA, named after Queen Victoria,…

Greetings! My husband and I recently returned from a wonderful two-week trip to Southern Africa, during which we were able to visit 7 countries! We flew in to Zimbabwe (where we visited the majestic Victoria Falls, which a fellow traveler referred to as “waterfalls on steroids!”), were driven to Botswana (where we did a river safari and land safari, only managing to see 2 of the Big Five), did a short day trip into Namibia (Impalila Island, which is on the Caprivi Strip – a narrow stretch of land that extends from Namibia, between the Botswana and Zambia borders), were driven to the Zambezi River to do a short boat…

Botswana is the size of France or Texas, and has a population of 2 million people. Their biggest industry is diamonds (discovered in Botswana in 1966), followed by tourism and beef. In fact, we disinfected our shoes at the border in order to control for foot and mouth disease (primarily found in Zimbabwe), which impacts the beef industry. Botswana was liberated from the British in 1967, and has maintained a stable economy due to very little corruption. Their currency is the Pula, which means “what you can see around,” and the Pula is stronger than the South African Rand (10 Pula vs. 14 Rand to 1 USD). Most of the…