Zipping to Zambia
for an education
 When her youngest daughter turned ten, travel writer Pamela Goodman
offered to take her away to a destination of her choice. Little did she realise her
daughter would end up spending time in a school close to Victoria Falls
Turning ten is a very important
moment in the lives of all children.
'Double figs,' my grandmother
used to say, was one birthday
defi nitely worth celebrating, so I
instigated a plan that for each of my children's
tenth birthdays they could choose a destination
to go to with just me - a mother and child
adventure to broaden their horizons and allow
us both some rare quality time together. My
eldest, who has a deep-rooted fear of flying,
chose the simple option of Paris where we spent
three days climbing the Eiffel Tower, running
through the Louvre, having our portraits
painted in Montmartre and hunting for the
hunchback of Notre Dame. My second child
chose New York where we felt dizzy on the
Empire State Building, trotted round Central
Park in a horse-drawn carriage, hung out at the
theatres of Broadway and paid our respects at
Ground Zero. My third and last, Lucy, had a
simple request. She'd like to ride an elephant.
Sensing that Chester Zoo would not pass
muster, a grand plan began to take shape. We'd
go to Zambia, where we wouldn't just ride
elephants, we'd see giraff es and crocodiles and
zebras - all in the wild. But above all we'd see
the Victoria Falls - a sight so spectacular as to
leave an indelible memory on the mind of even
the smallest child. During the course of our
planning I learnt about an African bush school
just up river from the Falls, which was set up by
an English woman ten years ago to provide an
education for underprivileged children of the
area. I booked Lucy in to spend a morning there
to see how diff erent school can be for those who
don't have the good fortune to be cosseted in a
cosy Kensington prep school.
You don't have to stay at the Royal
Livingstone Hotel (there are other hotels in
the area) but it's worth it if you can. Elegantly
colonial in style, the hotel sits on the river bank,
its graceful gardens (through which resident
monkeys, zebra and giraffe meander) sweeping
the edge of the wide, wild Zambezi where, to
the left , spray clouds billow high above the Falls
and the thunderous roar of water echoes back
along the river.
April, after the rains, when the water is at it
highest is not the best time to visit. Th e volume
of water tipping over the edge can be so huge
that you see nothing more than a blanket of
torrential mist. By September and October
water levels have dwindled to a point where the
eastern cataract (closest to the Zambian side)
has no water pouring over it at all. June, July
and August are the best months to go for the
full spectacle of noise, water and a myriad of
dancing rainbows.
From the Royal Livingstone there are
two ways to visit the Falls. First is to walk the
riverside path that leads to the Victoria Falls
National Park. Once inside you can follow
one of the word's most incredible walkways
along a cliff -top spit of land right opposite the
tumultous curtain of water. Th e more water
going over the Falls, the wetter you get. It's
better than the most exciting ride at any theme
park. Th e second way is to take a small motor
boat from the hotel to Livingtone Island, a
rocky, jungly parcel of land so precariously
positioned on the top of the Falls that it looks
like it could slip over the chasm at any moment.
Th is was David Livingstone's fi rst viewing
point of the Falls and, not far from the plaque
commemorating his discovery, you can stand
(and we did) quite literally on top of the Falls as
the
water crashes 100 metres below.
Leaving the Falls behind us, we headed up
stream to a lovely river lodge called Tongabezi,
pausing on the way at a small elephant camp
where eight elephants and two babies, mostly
rescued or relocated from neighbouring
Zimbabwe, live and are cared for in a
picturesque area of riverside bushland. To climb
on
the back of Bob, the largest elephant there,
and
to spend an hour ambling through the
scrub was Lucy's dream come true.
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