We woke up for our last day in Victoria Falls a bit sad to leave. Granted, I was also madly excited to go back to my favorite city, but Victoria Falls was an unexpected joy. We had high expectations for the sights themselves, from the waterfall that gives the city its name, to the safari, but the little quaint town itself, the quality of its restaurants (nothing tweezery and michelin star, but a bunch of places that put out good food and take great pride in what they do), the fact it has a craft brewery, the niceness of most of the people. I realize that in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana are both relatively well off, and even within that context, Victoria Falls being purely a tourist driven town (built to capitalize on the wealth of Western tourists) is even more well off, but we leave this part of Africa with only good things.
Of course, this would be maximized by the last stop, the last bit of tourism in our time here - which was a late splurge on a helicopter ride to get a overhead view of the falls. Today is also my parents 35th Wedding Anniversary - more of a nice coincidence than a central aspect of the trip, but it worked well for a day that had a helicopter ride in the morning, and then the most luxurious of our meals in teh evening.
The helicopter ride was run by a company called mjair, one of many that offer the service. They aren't cheap - 150pp for a 15-min ride (280 for a 30 minute ride, though hard to imagine what more you would see...) but the service is high class all around. We were picked up from the AirBNB in a nice mini-bus for the 10 minute drive out in the park to a clearing with two helipads. Not even 10 minutes later, we were taking off - befit with headsets to hear messages from the captain along with overhearing the discussion between captain and air traffic control, which for an aviation nerd like me was a nice touch. The ride itself was so worth it, with just incredible views of Victoria Falls. The Falls were impressive from ground level, but you get a new appreciation of just how long and brilliant they are as a spectacle from the air. They go in a figure-8 shape to give each side of the helicopter a great photo view. The guide also gave us some facts of what else we can see, like the gorgeous gorge that extends eastward after teh falls, to even spotting a few zebra and kudu in the park. It is hard to describe how great this was, especially for three people who had never taken a helicopter before. Not sure I would've ever expected my first time to be in sub-saharan Africa, but there it was, and it was incredible.
Back on the ground, we were given a show of a 6-minute video somehow quickly pieced together of photos taken of us entering the helicopter, it taking off, and then returning, with footage of the view from the helicopter during the flight. I'm 90% sure the footage in-flight is stock, but what we saw was basically as clear of a day as we had in reality, so it was hard to tell. It was really nicely put together, and we without too much cajoling took their offer to purchase a copy which they load directly into a phone so it can be reshared. From there we went back to the AirBNB, finished packing up and headed off to the airport.
Victoria Falls Airport was a bit barren on the arrivals side, but on the departures side it is a very nice small, regional airport. They had some nice shops selling handicrafts and souvenirs (admittedly, higher priced than it is outside the captive walls of the airport), a well decorated restaurant, and a cleanliness that was impressive from someone used to regional airports in America, let alone a place like India. Both my actual country and ethnic country can learn a thing or two from Victoria Falls - including serving a really nice little meal box (think a normal airplane meal, just 50% the size) on the 2h30m flight to Cape Town. Soon enough we were on our approach, and I got to see my parents on the other side of the aisle get their first look at the gorgeous City, as the flight path into landing gave a glorious view of the brilliant mastiff that is Table Mountain. It was their first time, it was my sixth - we were all equally taken aback.
We fairly quickly got through immigration and into our uber into the city and into the AirBNB. A quick stop at Woolworth's, conveniently half a block away, and we were ready to explore the Waterfront. It might be too commercial for some, but to me there is no better encapsulation of what makes Cape Town special, and I was really interested to see my parent's reaction. The uber dropped us off at the uber pickup point outside the Victoria Mall. As we walked through, my Mom fairly remarked on how so many of teh stores were common to what we have in the US. Needless to say as we left the other side of the mall, which opens out to the Waterfront proper, she changed her mind as they both immediately were engrossed by the beauty. A very much expected and elongated series of photo taking commenced as I spirited them around to see various views of the Waterfront, and Table Mountain behind it. Needless to say, they got how incredible it is.
Dinner itself at Pier was lovely. It was elongated, taking us a good 3h15m to go through the 11 courses, but that was not a surprise with us eating at a slow pace. My parents night would end with dinner, so they took it all in. The menu was about 50% different from when I came last year, including what sneakily might be my favorite course. I'll do a full course by course later, but the notable one to me was seemingly their "bread course", which centered around a really well baked sourdough. But the accompiaments were outrageous. One was a butter topped with crumbed yeast - unsure what that means but it tasted lovely. The next was a paprika emulsion sauce and mussel pate which was insane. The last bit was ghee with added in curry powder and other spices that wass used to poach a broken up piece of hake, being made into something of a dip. Again, this was the bread course. It was incredible.
My parents night ended there, and after I dropped them back at the AirBNB (we were able to get a 2nd key, but that would only arrive tomorrow), I headed out. It was already about 11pm at this point, and Cape Town aside from Long Street which has turned a bit too clubby (in a bad way) for me is not a 4am type city during weekdays. However, I holed up at The House of Machines - I came just in time to see their live jazz music wrap up at 11:30, but they had a good mix of rock and pop playing after that and a great crowd of 20-30 people that cycled in and out. The House of Machines is a really stable place, a coffeeshop by day and full bar known for its barrel cocktails at night; the place just oozes a great vibe. It can get crowded on weekends, but for now this was about perfect a way to end the first day of another inevitably great trip to Cape Town.
