Crossing over to Victoria Falls Zimbabwe

The hotel has a free shuttle to and from the airport and the Zimbabwe border. He can only go as far as the Zambian post and you then need a driver with a special permit to drive the 'no-man's land between the posts over the bridge itself, then a driver on the other side to go to your destination. He dropped me at the Zambia post where a driver quickly finds me to agree on a package deal for the next two stages, and a porter takes my bag and leads me into the passport control building and 'assertively' pushes to the front of the long line and to an immigration officer, before gong back to the taxi. Well worth the $1 tip!!

The bridge is an ancient 1-lane alternating structure carrying all the international semi-trailer (only one allowed on the bridge at a time) trade between these countries as well as residents and tourists on bus, car, foot and bike. The latter are quite interesting. There a a thriving free trade entrepreneurship. Men go from Zambia with up to 100kg of goods such as sweet potatoes or corn meal etc. which are cheaper in Zambia. They sell it to Zimbabwe shop keepers in Zim dollars. They then buy cooking oil or washing soap etc. which are cheaper in Zim, paying in US dollars as the black market rate for USD is good in Zim. They then ride their heavily laden bikes back to Zambia to sell to shopkeepers there. They do this trip two or even three times in a day How no tariff free markets work!

A lot of people walk over the bridge to enjoy the views of the falls and just catch a taxi on the other side. I was planning to, but changed my plans of course.

Dropped at my hotel at 12:00 and amazed they had a ground floor room available, so got checked in early. The hotel is in a very nice leafy enclave of hotels, eateries, craft shops and art galleries.Lue lisää