Zambia-- Livingstone Day 9

This morning we went on a walking tour of Victoria Falls! It was quite the process to get over the border into Zimbabwe because the other side of the Falls is located in that country-- the Zambezi river is the border. It was a very inefficient border crossing process and you can tell that both countries are poor and the buildings, etc were very run down and there weren't enough lanes for the amount of traffic and everything was just congested into one area. Our bus made it through without any problems, it just took them a while to ok us to go! (We even had to wait going the other direction after the tour!) It was worth it though because the Falls were BEAUTIFUL! It was a warm and muggy morning, but as soon as we got close we had a really nice cool mist that instantly cooled us off! We hiked around to all the look out spots-- it is amazing how big these Falls are! It is 2 miles long I think they said and at high season in May they are fully running so that the entire 2 miles has lots of water going over it. Right now, there are sparse spots with no water running over the edge-- but still so massive and impressive! We saw the tour group on the other side doing the "Devil's Pool" and thought they were crazy until we realized that's what we will be doing tomorrow! Yikes! It probably would've been better to do that tour first and be ignorant as to how big a drop it is and how much water is actually going over the edge, which you really don't get a sense of unless you are viewing it from the other side! It was a fun morning! This afternoon, we took a jet boat ride over to the Elephant Cafe-- an elephant rescue and orphanage. This was truly AMAZING! I love elephants, but to be so close and able to touch them and interact with them was awesome! They are huge animals! We got to feed each one of them and get pictures-- as I turned my back to this huge male-- a predator-- I realized that his tusks could impale me if he wanted to!!! We took lots of pictures because it was just so crazy to be so close to such a large, wild animal! Their trunks moved so skillfully in taking the food from our hands back and forth from side to side. They definitely know the drill. 1. Stand there and look cute and 2. Get lots of food! You could give the command "Trunk Up" and they would open their mouth to throw the food directly in! So CUTE!! Their skin was really rough and they had hairs on their trunks that were very pokey! We learned that ellies go through 6 sets of teeth and when that last set wears out they leave the herd to go off on their own to starve and then die because they can't eat! SO SAD!!! I really enjoyed being able to interact with these gentle giants! They are truly amazing! I asked what the largest male weighed and they said 6 TONS!!! That's a lot of food! Hahaha! They served us a really nice gourmet 4 course meal afterward and it was soooooo good! I think this has definitely been my favorite activity we've done here in Zambia!!! There were a lot of other animals roaming around the grounds because it was safer here than being out in the bush-- so all the smart animals were hanging out here at the elephant refuge! Such a fun night!