May Chang 5/12/23 May Chang 5/12/23

Bon voyage to 30!

I’m not so secretly in love with my birthday - I love having a day whose sole purpose is to celebrate my very being, yet I also occasionally dread birthdays because I fear that no one will show up to celebrate me with me. I wasn’t sure what my birthday would be like while traveling in Africa - who’d know?

Well it turns out that the Intrepid crew does know if you’re going to be celebrating an upcoming birthday but will try to get a feel from you just in case you are one of those people who are adamantly against celebrating birthdays. A special shoutout to the Intrepid crew and my fellow travelers for making my birthday a memorable one!

We were traveling in Zimbabwe at the time and passed through the capital of Harare. I’d read in my (very outdated) copy of Lonely Planet that there was a Thai restaurant in the city and had fixated on having something familiar and comforting. Because my guidebook was outdated, it didn’t mention that this restaurant had moved locations and was now a 15 minute taxi ride outside of the main part of the city. Luckily our group of four was game to take a little trip to Chang Thai (haha, how coincidental) to celebrate with me, so off we went! It was quite interesting to explore Harare in a taxi and see the city “behind the scenes” and bits and pieces that we normally wouldn’t be able to by truck.

I was so happy to be eating noodles and rice - one of the things I’ve missed most about home is Asian food, so having Thai food was such a treat.

I should’ve brought my Chang Thai beer shirt to match the restaurant!

As you can see, I’m ecstatic to be having comfort food.

In the evening, after we had dinner and set up camp, the group surprised me with a birthday “punch” filled with lots of fruit and, well, lots of other beverages. They even got me a cake! And we all know how much I love my desserts.

Yes, all of these ingredients went into the punch (except for the cake of course!).

The punch and cake was absolutely delicious and we spent the rest of the night finishing the punch bowl, swapping stories, and laughing our butts off. Thank you Victor, Ben, Nicko, Zoe, Joe, and Jenny for making my thirtieth one to remember and a memory I’ll treasure.

With Ben, Nicko, and Victor (the Intrepid crew) who organized the surprise celebration.

May Chang 5/8/23 May Chang 5/8/23

The smoke that thunders - Victoria Falls

It’s crazy to think that I started my Southern Africa trip with Intrepid three weeks ago and that we’ve already arrived at Victoria Falls. It feels simultaneously like we’ve been traveling for a long time and not at all, as if we just left Cape Town yesterday.

I’m currently in Mosi-oa-Tunya (the local indigenous name for Victoria Falls) which means “the smoke that thunders” because you can see the smoke (precipitation/mist) and hear the roar that the powerful waterfall generates.

The smoke and the thunder!

Most of the world knows the falls as Victoria Falls because of David Livingston, who was the first European to see the falls and named it after Queen Victoria, the British monarch at the time.

I entered the park early in the morning and was able to catch the ending of sunrise. It was lovely to see different views of the waterfalls as the sun changed its position in the sky.

Some fun tidbits:

Victoria Falls falls (hehe) in the Kaza TFCA region, which is a transfrontier conservation area whose members include Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
The world’s only quadripoint is in Africa! This is where four countries meet at one point, aka the “four corners of Africa” (Dad - I bet this is where you’ll want to visit next!). Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe meet on the Zambezi River near Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls is famous for having an ever present rainbow (sun + water = magic!) and it is one of the few places in the world that is also home to the lunar rainbow. This means you can see the rainbow over the falls at night when there is a full moon as the moon acts as the light to activate the rainbow. I was excited to see this but upon learning that the entrance fee to this was $100 (on top of the $50 for a day entry park ticket) I decided to pass

Rainbow over Victoria Falls

A closer look at the rainbow

The falls are split between Zimbabwe and Zambia, with ~80% in Zimbabwe and ~20% in Zambia. I stayed on the Zimbabwean side but there was a person in my group who also ventured to the Zambian side. It’s a bit tricky because to get to the Zambian side you need to go through a border crossing and have a multi-entry visa to Zimbabwe (currently no visa is required for Zambia, although that may change - TIA!) and you need to pay the Zambian park entrance fee of $35.
A couple in my Intrepid group took a helicopter ride and the photos were stunning! They had an aerial view of the falls and could see the “smoke” from the falls all the way from above. Apparently you can see the spray from the falls up to 40km away! If I come back to Victoria Falls I’ll be sure to take this option as viewing the Falls from ground level means that the precipitation mostly blocks your view of the falls

The precipitation made it hard to view the falls sometimes

You get WET! I thought visiting would mean that there would be light misting so I’d get damp, but you actually get very very wet. Even though you’re viewing the Falls from a bit away, going to some viewpoints means that you experience a torrential downpour! This level of rain contributes to the Victoria Falls rainforest where you can see plants that are endemic to rainforests rather than the local climate

Rainy in the rainforest

Victoria Falls is considered to be the largest waterfall in the world*. (*with some interesting calculations in place)

Calculation of “largest” factors in height, width, and flow rate.

Height: Victoria Falls wins (108m as compared with 51m at Niagara Falls and 82m at Iguazu Falls)
Width: 1708m at Vic Falls, 1203m at Niagara, and 2700m at Iguazu
Mean annual flow rate: Vic Falls has the least with 1088m3/s (2406m3/s at Niagara Falls and 1745m3/s at Iguazu Falls)

If you do a Google search, there are different definitions on what constitutes the “largest” waterfall in the world, but at least in Zimbabwe Victoria Falls is #1

There’s not much to do in Victoria Falls outside of adventure activities (did not partake) and small craft shops, but I did visit the small local Jafuta Foundation cultural center to learn more about some of Zimbabwe’s indigenous tribes.

Guess who else visited the Jafuta Cultural Center?

Found UNC Kenan Flagler in the guest book from 2019! Looks like the MBA program conducted a visit as part of a Global Immersion Elective.

I also ran into a troop of vervet monkeys outside the entrance to Victoria Falls National Park. These monkeys are quite playful and mischievous. I saw one sneaking into our campsite to steal some nuts and a fellow traveler saw one open a Coke bottle!

Playtime! Young monkeys monkeying around

A self-care day and time to groom

Otherwise it’s been a couple of chill days conducting personal admin (laundry! Pay the bills!) and wrangling the WiFi. Internet speeds can be slow, which means some difficulty in uploading photos here, but I’ll continue to do my best!