Zim or Zam

Before arriving in Zambia, I spent hours (and I do mean hours) looking for a hotel for us to stay at. The problem with Zambia/Victoria Falls is that the accommodations are either really cheap or really expensive -  no mid range, which we stay at. So you can either stay at a hostel for $40/night of an "alright hotel" for $180/night. So if you are going to spend $180 for an "alright" hotel, you might as well buck up an extra $40 for a sweet hotel. Right? Well that was my dilemma. Anyways, after I finally found a really nice hotel for us to stay at for a price that was "okay" (meaning expensive for our budget), but had great reviews. We show up at the airport super excited to be in Livingstone and ready to see the falls!!!! Wooo ... haha.... BUT small problem, our airport transfer was no where to be seen, which wouldn't be a problem, if the hotel was on the Zam side, but the hotel was on the Zim side and well, Zimbabwe isn't really a country you want to be messing around in. So we had two options, 1) take a taxi to the border, walk across the Zim border, then grab a taxi on the other side to our hotel - sounds easy, but when you are in Africa, it can be risky business - you never know what is going to happen or 2) grab a taxi and try and find a new accommodation. Which again sounds very easy, but after you have spent hours researching, you know your options are either very cheap or VERY expensive (like $400+ a night expensive). So trying to make the best of things we decide to take a cab to the city centre and head to the Internet cafe. I run in, while Arnold stays with the taxi. I write the hotel we were supposed to stay at an urgent note asking what happened to our transfer and letting them know that we aren't too happy. (I mean come on, we definitely aren't paying $100 a night and we are there for 4 nights - so we expect a bit better service). After a quick search on expedia, I'm not feeling any better. The $180 "alright" hotels are now sold out leaving the $400+/night options open. I start to stress because to me, $400 a night is WAAAAY too expensive, maybe under different circumstances we could say "well this one time", but when you are gone for a long time and on a budget, that is crazy!!!!

So I get back to Arnold and our waiting taxi, not really sure what to do. Our taxi takes us to this resort that he seems to like, but as we pull in, I know that it won't work for us. So we tell him to take us to the Zambezi Sun Hotel - and that's when I let Arnold know that that hotel is very expensive, even on expedia. His thoughts are, get there, see what the price is, and if we don't like it, at least we are at a hotel that the hotel on the Zim side can come and get us from. Okay, deal, but I still feel deflated. We arrive and as predicted there prices are pretty high. So back to the drawing board. Arnold went to try and call the hotel and I stayed with our taxi driver sort of waiting to see what was going to happen, I didn't want to tell him to leave in case we needed him and yet I didn't know if we were just wasting his time. So we started talking and I was trying to get him a deal. And honestly, we couldn't have picked a better driver for this situation - he was amazing!!!!! (on a side note, he spoke FOUR languages). He started talking to the hotel guys on our behalf, trying to get us a better deal. One of the guys at the hotel was asking me what my lowest price would be and I told him and he said he would see what he could do.

They came back to us with a lower price - still higher then what we wanted to pay, but at this point we were starting to feel desperate. Either we make our way to the Zim side or we just suck it up and pay to stay there. After Arnold and I chat about it, we just decide to stay at that hotel because 1) they are located in the park and we wouldn't have to pay the park fees every time we wanted to enter to see the falls, 2) we wouldn't have to pay for a Zim visa and then again for a Zam visa (which is $50/person/entry) and 3) we were running out of options. So I went up to the counter to start the process of checking in. The agreement was, they were giving us a "local" rate, meaning our taxi driver was going to put his home address and number on the form, instead of our Canadian address, which would allow us to get
a lower rate. We couldn't believe it. After all was said and done, our hotel rate was even cheaper then they told us, I'm not sure how or why, but we were taking it. Our driver signed off on everything and we were set. It was even cheaper (somewhat) then the hotel we were going to be staying at, so needless to say, I was VERY excited. We were sooooo close to the falls (like we could see the mist from the falls from our hotel). Just when I thought our luck in Africa was finally starting to turn, we met the right taxi driver who got us a sweet deal on a hotel room and turned somewhat of bad luck, into something good.