Victoria Falls

January 25, 2026 from the Rovos Rail itinerary: Day 4 highlights - disembark at Victoria Falls.

Returning to Victoria Falls with Chris has been a dream of mine since first visiting the Falls in 2019. It was one of the most romantic experiences I had and I wanted to share it with someone close to me.

January 25, 2026 - We were up very early to see the sun rise from our cabin. It had been another jerky night, so we were up anyway

We packed and had a final breakfast aboard.

I had the special which was a cheese/chive scone with creme fraiche and 1 poached egg that turned into 2 by accident (a sort of egg benedict). The scone/ creme fraiche wasn't good. The creme tasted like mayonnaise and I ended up taking the eggs off the scone and having some lovely toast with jam.

We sat on the observation car and watched the last miles pass.  

As we got closer to the Falls we could see the mist on the horizon and the baboons and monkeys.  The baboons came and sat on the track after we passed.

Our last miles on Rovos Rail

At the hotel we had a nice surprise of a VIP checkin which included a lounge, snacks, and WIFI!!

The Victoria Falls Hotel is the same, yet not the same. 7 years ago there were monkeys nearby in the parking lot, a fun family of banded mongoose in the courtyard and warthogs that kept the front lawn trimmed. The monkeys and mongoose are now gone, but the warthogs supposedly do still come; although, we haven't seen them yet.

Our arrival was early and we hung out in the VIP lounge having free drinks (which are very expensive in Zimbabwe - local beer costs $4) and snacks.

I spent my time franticly trying to apply for a single entry visa for tomorrow’s excursion to the Devil’s Pool.  Trying to get the border entry point and the car number was a bit of a hassle.

The application was finally granted and we will have to cross all our fingers and toes that my visa is actually granted upon return tomorrow. Our fall-back plan is that Chris enters the country (his visa was approved for the two entries) and I meet him in Johannesburg in 2 days. This means he'll have to pack us out at the hotel and I'll have nothing and have to stay on the Zambia side. Let's hope we don't need the fallback option.

Our room still wasn't ready by 1:30 and we had afternoon tea reservations for 4pm (afternoon cream tea was included in our room rate - see below), so we needed to move to get enough time at the Falls. I would not say that the Falls is touristy; although, there are a great many more people selling trinkets along the way to the park entry point than when I was last here. Also the price to enter the park IS HIGH! 7 years ago it was free and now it's US58 per person! I just about passed out. Once in the park we saw almost no one and it was very magical. Not touristy. There is a great deal more water than the last time I was here, which was in September. In fact, then some of the sections were bone dry. Not this time. There was so much water that spray was everywhere and by the end I looked like I took a shower. Here are some photos to compare - the first photo in each subject sequence is 8/2019 the second is 1/2026

I thought it was great fun; Chris, less so. There was so much spray that you couldn't even see the Falls through it sometimes. In my mind I can see Livingstone trying to get across the Zambezi and it is the height of adventure dreaming for me. Now it seems there are a lot of people interested in doing helicopter views of the Falls - not sure how you'd see anything with the spray.... Here are a bunch of Falls photos.

We just missed the rain on the way back to the hotel, changed into dry clothes and went for tea.

No dinner tonight, but there were some canapes that we tried in the VIP room.

January 26 - Zambezi river cruise, Devil's Pool and High Tea on the Zambian side.

The morning was at leisure and I actually went into the extremely hot fitness room and gave it a try. I finally gave up after 30 minutes and extreme sweating.

Breakfast was a very nice buffet

The mongoose family was out and about

and some baboons

The afternoon's experience was amazing. The excursion started on the Zambia side, so we went through the extremely busy border post to leave Zimbabwe, along with a bazillion other people. This is a huge cargo border passing as coal for smelting copper is trucked over from Zimbabwe to Zambia. There were about 100 of these huge trucks parked and waiting to cross the bridge. After exiting Zimbabwe, there's about a half a mile of no man's land until you get to the Zambia border that had the same sort of chaos. Thankfully Chris' long legs got us to the front of the line and we got through quickly - that said the border patrol gave my passport quite a look.

Zambia seems less touristy than the Zimbabwe side, probably because the Falls are not visible. We pulled over to the start of our experience for our briefing. We ended up having a private tour which started with signing several "hold harmless" forms and being warned about the danger of what we were about to do. I finally turned to Chris and said that if he had suggested this, I would have been angry, but I couldn't be angry because this was my stupid idea. I have to say that I was concerned and all the warnings just made it worse. It is ranked #2 of the most dangerous tourist attractions in the world, after climbing to the top of Everest....

We got into a small speed boat and started an amazing drive towards the Livingston Island. This was crazy with all the currents and speed of the water. To think that when Livingston did it, they only had small canoes and the water level was much higher as there was no dam.

The ride was about 10 minutes and we disembarked. We met the prior group leaving and asked if they like the experience, which they did. We were met with some hybiscus juice which was lovely - tasted like grape juice. I teased them that they were trying to get us drunk to relax us, but was assured it was non-alcholic.

Punters then walk towards the "stepping off place". On the way they lock everything they own, except for their bathing suits and phone, into a big metal box for safe keeping.

This is the area of the Devil's Pool.

Due to high water levels, we were going to the Angel's Pool, more on that soon. Devil's Pool is only 1 meter from the Falls face. To get there, normally you walk some of the distance and then swim to the shallow area that is the pool. To be honest, I couldn't see anything that looked like a shallow pool. All I saw was raging, racing brown water. Chris was laughing at the thought that he would be swimming at all, much less fast flowing water towards a cliff face.

We walked towards a look out point and I managed to slip and fall - thankfully not down the cliff. The walk towards the lookout was optional, but of course I had to see it. It involved jumping over a waterway. After my fall I was holding 1, if not 2 guide's hands. It was worth it because the look down was incredible.

From there we went to see the Livingston memorial plaque before heading over to the Angel's Pool. This "pool" is 2 meters from the cliff face. These guys are experienced and they knew where to position me. The first shots had one guy holding my legs while I stretched out almost to the edge. By mistake I looked to the side and saw the falls next too me - big mistake and I almost freaked out. Anyway, below are the shots and I managed to get back up.

From there you sat in a "depression", I wouldn't exactly call it a pool because there was raging water everywhere. It was more like a whirlpool tub. There was a rope to hold on to and you could stick you head under the water. It was so strong at some points that I was losing my bathing suit and getting pushed around. The water was pleasantly warm and once I relaxed a bit I really enjoyed it.

Then I started feeling something that I thought was either plants under water or weird eddies. Thankfully i didn't find out until later that it was pup fish biting me.

The bites didn't exactly hurt, but it was a weird sensation. The guide likened it to fish pedicures (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr7DXZ6HYw0).

Chris sat on a rock and watched all this. Buni was locked in the metal box for safety.

I survived to tell the tale and we got back to the island in time for our high tea.

We were told we could show our guides appreciation in the form of tips, which we did for not throwing us off the Falls.

Tea was in a tarped in area and included steak sliders, chicken curry tarts, millionaire shortbread, brownies and scones. We both had beer. I wanted to wash the Zambezi out of my mouth with it. Towards the end of the meal, I found a fly in my beer.... We ate while watching and listening to the rushing water.

We were the last tour of the day, so our return boat had all the guys giving the tours. It was just as fun a ride returning. I was relieved to have made it back alive. Now on to the next problem which was getting the visa to return to Zimbabwe.

Bizarrely, Chris almost had more problems than I because the stupid customs official couldn't figure out that he had a multiple entry visa. It took 3 officials to get my single visa approved and affixed. Finally all was ok and we made it back!

Almost as a reward, the mongoose family and the warthog family was there to welcome us back.

We spent the evening in the VIP lounge sucking champagne and eating canapes.

27 - The Return to Johannesburg.

We were up at 0 dark 30 to see the sunrise over the Falls. The Park didn't open until 6am and the sun would have already been up, so we decided to watch it from the porch of the hotel. It was amazing to see the mist change the shape of the view.

Breakfast was a delightful extension to our viewing as we continued to watch the mist rise from the Falls area.

On the way to breakfast we ran into the warthog family - two ladies, one with 9 babies and the other with 2. The mongoose family wasn't awake yet.

Finally we had to return to the room for final packing, one final drink in the VIP lounge,

a good-bye to the mongoose family and we were on our way to the Victoria Falls Airport. Bizarrely, the Notre Dame group from the train were also on our flight.

We were able to see the falls in the distance during take-off.

We beat the larger flights into the Johannesburg airport and were able to get through passport control quickly, our checked bag was on the belt, and we were in our Uber in under about 30 minutes. It was rather odd to be back in civilization with huge traffic jams and houses surrounded by high walls and barbed wire.

We are in the Hampton Inn for 2 nights in Sandton.

Dinner was at an Indian restaurant which was quite good.

Back again at the hotel and a huge pop made us jump as something blew the fuse in our room. Maintenance came right up to fix it and we were glad that it wasn't anything worse.