Victoria Falls from the air...

What is most obvious from this photo is how little water there is in the mighty Zambezi river: despite the fact that this was the dry season, there should still be a greater flow on the right hand side of the canyon (the Zambian side of the border.)  

It still easy to imagine this as a curtain of crashing water in the wet season though!

This helicopter trip was supposed to be a highlight of the trip, but it turned out to be the most stressful experience of the entire vacation and the actual flight was not really worth the hassle. Although this trip was nominally booked in for yesterday, in practice, the hotel arranges a time with the company - and the earliest they could do for myself and another member of the group was 9.15am on the day of my departure.  (My friend was staying on for a few days.)  About an hour and a half before I was due to leave for the airport.

As you can imagine, I was sceptical that I would be there and back in an hour, but the reception staff were confident, so I acquiesced, largely on the basis that these flights take place day in, day out and the drone of the helicopters was a constant sound so you'd like to think that the whole thing went like clockwork.

You'd really think I'd know better.

We were picked up on time, so far so good, but it went downhill from there.  There was absolutely no system at all at the helicopter base to deal with the clients.  We had to confirm our bookings with the airfield office and were told to 'wait'.  Ten minutes passed, then twenty, then thirty.   Helicopters and other tourists came and went. It was never clear which helicopters were doing the short flight we had booked or the longer 'deluxe' flight.  By this point I was getting very twitchy and everyone we approached had no idea about anything.  

Eventually we were weighed and told we were on the next flight - which went without us.  At that point, I was all for packing it in and getting the next minibus back. My anxiety must have got through to someone, because we were hustled on to the next helicopter, but as I said, by this point, it wasn't worth it.  Even after the flight, we (well, I) had to jump up and down to get the next available minibus to take us straight back to the hotel.  The staff were very keen for us to view (and buy) the handheld video they'd take of each bunch of tourists getting on and off the helicopters.  In the end, I made it back by the skin of my teeth, with a minute to spare to grab my luggage and say a hurried round of goodbyes to the amazing group I've been privileged to travel with.