Livin' La Vida Luxem: Into Africa

One of the many benefits of living in Luxembourg is its 'centrality'. (Apparently this is a real word because spell-check didn't correct me…hope I used it correctly.) Of course the Grand Duchy is the Green Heart of Europe, but living in the Central European Time zone also means that we are within a one hour time difference to the plethora of neighbors to our south. The only hurdle to reaching southern Africa is that pesky equator….and Heathrow airport. That said, as Americans, it was a whole lot easier reaching South Africa from Luxembourg than, say, Washington DC, or Dubuque.

Ahem…Heathrow Airport. In the immortal words of
Ron Swanson, "We don't have clocks in America."

For reasons I shall not go into here, dear reader, I was obliged to take an extended stay in London. Suffice it to say that it would not be a Jeni and Brian holiday without at least one hiccup. The take-away message from my 24 hours in Olde Britannia is that people who work in airports seem to think that we travelers know the surrounding area as well as they do. Wether your passing by The Old Number 9 in Geneva or you need a hotel on The Bath Road in London, airport folks will send you off into the wilderness with a flick of the wrist. I did succeed in securing a hotel on The Bath Road, and the next morning I found myself with a few hours to kill. So, I hopped on the Tube and went to see London-town.

The trip from Heathrow into the center of the city takes nearly one hour on the metro, mostly above ground through a dystopian version of the Mary Poppins' rooftops. In town I saw many of the famous sites (a first for me), and met this amiable bloke in a London pub. I sh#t you not, his name is Tommy, and he was utterly fascinated with my smart-phone.

By law there is to be at least one old codger per bar (British Pub Council Sec 1234). Apparently there's some sort of loading capacity at the rail, or something.

Enough of that distraction. Let's go on to Africa!!!

Jeni and I made our rendez-vous in Durban, South Africa. Before I left, a French friend quipped that it was our wicked American geography skills that led us to Durban…you do realize that South Africa is the exact half-way point between Ice Station Zebra and Luxembourg :P

Back in Baby's Arms…

By far, the best part of the entire Africa trip was reuniting with my marvelous wife! We stayed in a part of Durban called Umhlanga Rocks which is a bit outside the city center. That was OK with us because we were able to enjoy the sights and sounds of the Indian Ocean just a stones throw from our hotel. Umhlanga itself is a self contained quarter of town that has an quaint Arcade full of restaurants, boutiques and shops. We relaxed, dined and did a bit of shopping. Jeni picked up a new pair of sandals, and we experienced the local liquor store firsthand. This last shopping excursion led to probably the funniest moment in Durban when we returned to our swanky hotel with our bag o' booze, and the doorman immediately called us out. "Ooh, Pick and Pay," he said with a wry smile as he let us into the lobby. (Please note the calculator at the bottom right of the link provided.)

We did bring a little Luxembourg Magic with us to South Africa, but after a couple of days the weather cleared up nicely.

The view of the hotel pool from our room…it's literally 'on the rocks!'

Surely we couldn't be the only guests to BYOB at the Beverly Hills Sunset Hotel…well we do march to our own drums. The hotel was superb, and we discovered a few local wines from the Western Cape. Keep an eye out for South African Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. You won't be disappointed.

Sunrise over the Indian Ocean. The lighthouse is fully operational as this is apparently a major shipping lane.

After a couple days to decompress and reconnect in Durban, we packed up the traveling circus and headed to Victoria Falls up in Zimbabwe.

On the tarmac in Johannesburg. Don't worry…there's loads more selflies still to come :)

Now you may have heard the Zimbabwe has had some difficult times recently. This may be true, but the people are so warm and welcoming, you'd never know there was an economic crisis raging within the country. In fact the US dollar has replaced the local currency which made the math much easier for us. As a souvenir, you can purchase an entire set of the old Zimbabwean paper money, including the Fifty Billion Dollar note!

We flew to Victoria Falls in a Boeing 737 (shown above), and landed in the middle of the savannah on a red packed tarmac complete with grazing animals. As we approached, Jeni and I looked at each other and said, "There's no way we're landing on that!" Well we sure did.

As we disembarked the plane, the scale of Victoria Falls (the village) became quite evident. The single room 'airport' had no waiting room, and we were to queue up along the front of the building while customs officials checked everyone's documents. Each non-African visitor was charged between $30 and $60 on what was apparently a rather arbitrary scale. We got in for thirty bucks each, but the Canadians behind us (who thought they were so clever) pre-paid $75 per person! See what planning ahead gets you? We finally sidled up the the counter to be met by not one, but two customs agents who then commenced to stamp our documents like the passports owed them money! Jeni calculates that each stamp must have been worth around two US dollars…ka-chunk...ka-chunk…ka-chunk-kachunk-kachunkachunkachunkachunkachunkachunkachunkachunk. This is not an exaggeration. I just wish taking photos was permitted inside the 'terminal'.

Oh yeah, after the stamp attack we sifted through the pile of luggage to find our own bags and pop them on the conveyor belt through security.

At long last we made it to our hotel. Our travel agent (who I shall heap praise upon later) booked us into the Victoria Falls Hotel which was built back in 1904 and the charm and character of a Rudyard Kipling short story. British Imperialism aside, it's easy to see why this was a popular destination for the well-heeled colonials who travelled, sometimes for weeks, to get a glimpse at this most wondrous spectacle of nature!

The grand veranda at the Victoria Falls Hotel...

…and, of course, the view from the veranda. The mist you see rising from the left of the old bridge is actually the water spray from the falls. It hits with such force that water actually splashes up twice as high as the cliffs surrounding the waterfalls.

I'll leave you with some photos of the famous waterfalls, but stay tuned as I sort through more photos. We still have to show you the rest of Victoria Falls, Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta. We encountered so may amazing landscapes, friendly people and crazy creatures on this trip that it would be impossible to write about them all in just one post.