E is for Eating Italian?

Our second weekend outing was a whole weekend in Livingstone. Livingstone is about an hour away and the next biggest city outside of Kalomo. We stayed at a Protea hotel, the same hotel we stayed at in Johannesburg. Upon seeing our rooms we yelled and acted like we had never seen a normal shower or a queen sized bed before. Needless to say the free wifi and complimentary breakfast made the Protea feel more like a palace. I’m pretty sure I took three showers in the span of a day and a half.

First things first we headed to the market; here my bargaining got a bit better. Fortunately I had a few hair ties because the booth sellers loved those and helped bring down the price. No chetanges to buy in Livingstone but as many crafts as I could ever want and paintings to cover all of my walls. My biggest problem is that the things I wanted, there was no way I could bring those home! Wooden masks as tall as me, hand carved tables, and bongo drums half my size. Thankfully I fell in love with some paintings, jewelry, goblets, and other crafts. The booth sellers will call you over “my sister, my sister, I give you good price” and “I will give you Sunday discount.” Most booths have generally the same thing but it’s hard to resist walking into every single one. Again, once I fell in love with something I gave into whatever price the seller wanted.

Later that night we got ready to go see the Lunar Rainbow at Victoria Falls and had dinner at Olga’s Italian Restaurant. Italian? In Zambia? That’s good? We were all shocked. Olga’s is a restaurant in Livingstone run by an Italian family. They are part of an organization that teaches young adults in Livingstone several trade skills such as cooking and making crafts to sell. We had bruschetta and pizza and I could have sworn we were at home eating Italian. 

Next stop, Victoria Falls for the extremely rare Lunar Rainbow; it only occurs six times a year in three areas around the world. We hiked out to the observation deck in the pitch black night, we were extremely thankful for our handy dandy headlights. Once we made it to the observation deck we waited with all the others from around the world for the rainbow to emerge among the mist. As the brightest full moon I’ve ever seen rose higher the rainbow slowly made its appearance. While it does not look as bright as a daytime rainbow, it is extraordinary nonetheless. More importantly, now I cannot wait to see Victoria Falls, one of the wonders of the world, in the daylight. It truly is the smoke that thunders.