LIVINGSTONE (one of only two African places to have kept its colonial name)

So I have spent two highly contrasting weekends in Livingstone in the last month. The first was a flying visit from Kev F-H, where we were so privileged to spend a weekend at the 5 star Royal Livingstone Hotel. What a fantastic hotel. We were spoilt and lived in a different world for just a couple of days. No having to pour buckets of water over your head to wash, you could flush the toilet every time and stay in the shower for as long as you like. We ate like kings and queens (I ate like the kings before Shrimper Gazza writes any rude comments!) and Heidie enjoyed a very colonial type afternoon tea in particular.

This weekend we took a youth group from Lurgan (will blog about them later) down to Livingstone and stayed in a backpackers. Well I know you can't expect much for $8 a night but it was not the best and I was blooming freezing the whole time. Here's a sentence I never thought I see myself write: In the end I was looking forward to getting back to the home comforts of Chikankata - at least its warm there and I can control the volume of the flaming music.

It doesn't matter how many times you see the Victoria Falls or what season you see it in, it is truly magnificant and lives us to its billing as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. All those who accompanied us on both occassions wholeheartedly agreed.

"Scenes so lovely they must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight"

David Livingstone (who "discovered" the Falls on 16 November 1855)

ps. Blantyre is the other

pps Blantyre is the birth place of David Livingstone

(It's just one big history lesson)