It was one of those freak accidents. The kind that can ruin a vacation if you don’t see some sort of humorous irony in it.
We had just finished an incredible six day trip through the Okavango Delta in Botswana (here, here, here and here), flew from the Kasane airport, crossed the border into Zimbabwe, and checked into our hotel. There was one last “touristy” activity on our list before meeting up with Painted Dog researcher Dr. Greg Rassmussen: to see Victoria Falls.
Victoria Falls is right on the Zambezi River at the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and classified as the world’s largest sheet of falling water, twice the height of Niagara Falls.
It also has many well paved walking trails. Nothing could go wrong.
We started walking around, enjoying the sites and taking selfies. One of the vistas required us to walk down uneven cobble steps that were wet from the misting spray. As we started to descend I hear my mom yell. I turn around and see she’s slipped and fallen and is now covered in mud. She tries to stand up. No go. I come over to help her and eventually we get her to hop up to the top of the steps and find a water spigot so she can wash the dirt off her legs. At exactly the same time, it hits me. Tunnel vision. Dizziness. Bright spots. My stomach turns. I stop helping my mom and immediately run off to the nearest bathroom. Insides out from both ends. It had to be the smoothie I drank for breakfast.
While my mom was cleaning off her legs, I gave Greg a call, “Hello Greg! You wont believe what is happening. Before we come visit you, we’ll have to take a trip to the hospital. I think my mom broke her foot and I’m not feeling too hot either.”
My mom and I find the nearest hospital and wait to be helped. I started freaking out because as a graduate student now, I need to alert Student Health services before I do any off-campus health care. I needed some antibiotics, I had no internet, and no way of checking in with school. I feared my doctors visit would be astronomically expensive and the clinic wanted us to pay in cash too. My mind started racing, I dont have cash on me, let alone hundreds of dollars of cash (which is what I was expecting based on US doctors visits), and the nearest ATM had a line around the block because it was pay day in the city and everyone wanted to get their money.
My mom and I went in to see the doctor. He took an X-ray of her foot and concluded she had broken the weirdest bone along the outside. For now, he’d get her a cane – a great souvenir if you ask me. I asked if I could get some antibiotics while she was at it and he added Cipro to the bill. All said and done, the appointment was only $20 for the X-ray, and $111 for antibiotics, Imodium, milk of magnesia, a cane, and anti-inflammatory creme. IN TOTAL! I dont even understand how it was that cheap, but we were thankful and caught a taxi back to the hotel.
My mom had to decide if she wanted to stay in the hotel the last two days she was to visit, or come to Gregs house and camp for the remainder of her time.
Because she is a trooper, she decided to head over to Greg’s with me and camp. I later learned this was only her second time camping! Better to be miserable, sweating from the heat, covered in mosquitos, with a broken foot in good company than alone. Plus, Christmas was only five days away and this was suppose to be our Christmas holiday family time!
Greg came to pick us up that afternoon and we also met Bongo and Mary.
To turn the bad day around, we went to have fancy drinks at the amazing Gorges Lodge looking over the Zambezi River. We sipped wine, snacked and chatted.
With Okavango Botswana behind us, new adventures were waiting around the Zimbabwean corner…
(See Part 2 – Building an African Ecology Center with Dr. Rassmussen)
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