After our final game drive at Chobe, we ate breakfast, finished packing and headed for the border.
We checked out of Botswana, crossed into Zimbabwe, showed our yellow fever vaccination records when asked, changed vehicles and continued toward Old Drift Lodge near Victoria Falls.
We'd spent the previous five nights moving between safari camps in Botswana. Old Drift was another safari lodge, but considerably more luxurious than Little Sable. By this point, moving every few days had started to feel surprisingly normal.
Victoria Falls
The next morning began early.
4:30 wake-up.
Then we headed to Victoria Falls.
My notes from that morning are unusually brief: "Utterly awesome. The power of the water was intense. The place looks prehistoric. Smiles on our faces all around. I still can't believe this is my life."
There really wasn't much more that needed to be said.
The amount of water, the sound, the spray and the landscape surrounding the falls made the entire place feel almost primeval.
After weeks of seeing extraordinary things, Victoria Falls still managed to surprise us.
And apparently we couldn't stop smiling.
Life at Old Drift
We continued doing game drives from Old Drift, but by now we were settling comfortably into the safari rhythm.
Early mornings no longer seemed especially remarkable.
Neither did returning to the lodge, eating breakfast, resting for a few hours and heading out again later.
At some point I found myself sitting alone on the dock with a Zambezi beer.
It was quiet except for an occasional boat, birds and nearby hippos.
Then a massive thunderstorm rolled directly over us.
Another African downpour.
By this point, rain had simply become part of the trip.
Getting Comfortable With Safari
Something else was happening by then.
Shirley and I were becoming surprisingly comfortable with the logistics of moving around Africa.
Before the trip, changing lodges every few days had sounded as though it might be exhausting.
Instead, on our final night at Old Drift, we talked about how easy it had been.
Shirley knew why: We hadn't packed much.
For the safari portion of the trip, we'd left our large suitcases behind in Cape Town and traveled with only what we could fit into our soft-sided bags.
That changed everything.
No hot water at one camp? Okay. Wake up at 4:30? Okay. Meals at strange times? Okay. Rain? Okay. Wet clothes? Okay. No laundry? Okay.
We'd stopped expecting everything to conform to our normal routines and simply adapted to whatever the day required.
One Thing We Might Do Differently
We also began noticing that there were sometimes more possibilities than the scheduled lodge activities.
Another couple staying at Old Drift used the break between game drives to go into town and have a drink at the Victoria Falls Hotel.
We hadn't thought to do anything like that.
It wasn't that we particularly regretted missing a drink at the hotel. We were perfectly happy at Old Drift.
But it was a useful reminder that even when staying at a safari lodge with a full program, we didn't necessarily have to follow the program every minute.
There might be other things nearby worth exploring too.
What We'll Remember
We'll remember getting up at 4:30 to visit Victoria Falls.
We'll remember the roar of the water and the enormous clouds of spray.
We'll remember thinking that the landscape looked prehistoric.
We'll remember Shirley smiling.
We'll remember sitting quietly on the dock with a Zambezi beer, listening to hippos and birds before a thunderstorm exploded overhead.
And we'll remember how ordinary something that had once seemed intimidating had become: packing a small bag, moving to another lodge, waking before dawn and heading out to see what Africa had waiting for us that day.
Would We Return?
We'd certainly recommend seeing Victoria Falls.
It was one of those places where photographs can't really convey the scale, sound and physical force of what you're experiencing.
Would we need to see the falls again? Probably not.
But we would absolutely do another safari, and Old Drift confirmed something we'd begun realizing at Chobe: we liked the combination of wildlife and a comfortable lodge enough that we could happily spend more time somewhere like this.
On January 26, we left Old Drift and began making our way back to South Africa.
The safari portion of the trip was over.
Next came wine country.