I wake and pack before meeting James for breakfast at 8:30am.  Breakfast is at the riverside boma this morning.  We meet Stuart and Kate for breakfast too.  After breakfast, James helps me up the deck and walkway to show me plans to make the lodge more accessible.  They are working on renovating two rooms right now then adding accessible walkways to each unit, adding paved switchback walkway down the hill in front of my room to the dock and making the dock accessible.  They are planning to renovate two rooms at a time.

Adding these accessible features should take about two years.  I’m planning on another safari in 2015 or 2016 to a different part of Africa but would like to stop back at Chobe Game Lodge to check on the accessibility.  Our vehicle leaves for the Botswana/Zimbabwe border at 10am.  Fran, Stuart and Kate are with me on the drive.  It takes about 45 minutes to the immigration stop in Botswana.  The driver takes my passport through immigration.  I don’t even have to get out of the vehicle.  We make another stop at the Kazungula border post in Zimbabwe.  The driver takes my passport again through immigration.  It costs $30 USA for the entry fee.  It takes Fran, Stuart and Kate about 30 minutes to get through.

We then get transferred to a small mini bus in Zimbabwe operated by Wild Horizons.  We wait on the bus for one hour for three more people.  Dumi is our driver for the 55 minute drive through Victoria Falls National Park to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.  I am dropped off at The Kingdom Hotel, helped through check in and to my room by Gift.  I am once again told to make sure my balcony door is locked so I don’t have baboons for visitors.  I head to the pool bar for a few beers then to the visitor activities center in the hotel.  There’s not much else do besides visit the falls, bungy jump, bridge slide and bridge swing off the Victoria Falls Bridge, or take a helicopter ride.  The helicopter ride would be great but I can not justify $150 USA for a 12 minute flight.  I wheel down to the falls entrance to see how far it is and how difficult the wheel is.  It’s downhill to the falls entrance not too steep but the wheel up is much more difficult.  I stopped twice on the way back up to rest.  It’s not that is too steep just very long with no level spots.  It was a good work out that I needed since I’ve not been very active for 2 weeks.  Tomorrow, I will go all the way to the falls.  I relax in the room for about an hour then head to Quatermains, a bar in the hotel, to watch the World Cup game.  I was able to get dinner brought over from Spur Steak House so I could still watch the game.  I’m very tired so I head to bed around 10:35pm.