Our hotel in Vic Falls was the Vic Falls Safari Lodge, and our first view of it was from the road below. Our first sight upon entering the grounds were a few warthogs eating grass along the road. Their work avoids having to use a lawn mower. The Vic Falls Safari Lodge was a very elegant hotel that was also quite primitive. The only parts of the hotel that had A/C were the rooms; the common areas were all open air.
As our van pulled up to the front of the hotel, a man dressed in African clothes came out to do a dance of welcome for us. He then nicely posed with me for a photo.
The hotel was all wood, and the hallways had thatched roofs. I found the roofs to be incredibly thick.
The pool was built to look like a swimming hole in the bush. One level spilled into the second. Very few people were swimming while we were there.
The dining room in the hotel was on its own levels. The buffet table was on one level, and the tables were on two different levels. Not at all the place for a handicapped person. Many of the tables were set up along the edge of a wall so that those seated there could look out at the watering hole in the back of the hotel.
At breakfast one day a friendly bird came to visit me. It flew in and landed in front of me on the table. I snapped a few photos while it sampled the food on the table, deciding it like the little rosettes of butter best. I managed to get a photo of the bird with butter on its beak. The rest of the people in the restaurant enjoyed the little spectacle the bird gave them, and then a party pooping employee came to shoo the bird away.
The different parts of the hotel were named after animals. I took photos of some of the plaques.
Our room was very tiny although we did have French doors leading to a balcony that looked out on a waterhole at which we saw some antelope. We were able to watch the sunset from our balcony, and the colors were magnificent. There were steps leading down from the entrance where the bathroom was. I hated having those steps between the bed and the bathroom, and we were very lucky not to trip up or down them during the night.
In the room itself there were two twin beds set together and surrounded by mosquito netting that formed a sort of valance during the day. At 6:30 pm a man would come around to close the shutters over the French doors and to let down the netting which fit snugly around the mattresses. We had a good laugh at using the netting, but it was necessary. Bugs in that area are all too common.
The usual basket full of soap, shampoo, etc. in the bathroom had something a little extra. Each day there were two jars, one of sun screen, the other of bug repellant. I thought it was a nice little touch as well as something that was definitely needed.
One couple went out for dinner and left the light in their room on. When they returned, the entire room was filled with every kind of buy you could imagine. They had a few chameleons that they were frightened of, and they insisted on being given another room.
We put our bathroom light on to attract the bugs, and we slept in peach. A welcome chameleon was found in our room, and we watched him eating bugs. I'm sure that he enjoyed himself that night.
The toilets in the hotel were unusual. The one in our luxurious bathroom was cantilevered out of the wall. The flushing apparatus was a button set high enough so that one had to stand up to flush it. In the lobby the flushing button was covered with a slab of wood decorated with an African motif.
