"Dad?" I tapped my dad on the shoulder. We were waiting in line at the Victoria Falls airport to get our visa for Zimbabwe. It was supposed to be an easy process, but something had made it a little more complicated: "Did you know that getting a double visa for Zimbabwe and Zambia was an option?"
"What?"
I pointed at the banners and signs advertising the double visa. Chaos ensued. Would we need a double visa if we were to go rafting on the Zambezi, which functions as the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia? Would the Zimbabwean half of the visa expire if we went to Zambia only for an hour or two on the package deal? So many questions, so few answers. We decided to stick to the single visa for Zimbabwe, which was already quite expensive. Then, the minute we got through customs, we met our tour guide, who told us we'd just screwed up our only chance on this trip to go to Zambia.

I sulked for the rest of my first day in Zimbabwe. It was my fault that we couldn't go to Zambia, I had failed to find us the information we needed. Now I'd never see Zambia. It had never been part of the plan, but it still stung that I missed out on the opportunity to add another country to the list of places I've visited. I couldn't just let it go. I was confronted with my failure for the entirety of the next morning, when we went to the Victoria Falls. Looking at them meant looking at Zambia. But when I thought all hope was lost, one last loophole saved the day: I could cross the Victoria Falls Bridge into Zambia without a visa.


The Victoria Falls Bridge was built over a century ago. Construction started in 1904 as part of a plan to connect Cape Town to Cairo by railway. That railway idea was quickly abandoned, but the bridge was finished in 1905 and has been serving Zimbabwe and Zambia well ever since. Tourists staying in the town of Victoria Falls can cross the border to visit the bridge and the café on the other side, which is on Zambian territory. All is good as long as you don't follow the road into Zambia and go past the border post; Doing that means your Zimbabwean visa expires and you'll have to get a new one to get back to your hotel or camp.
My parents and I went up to the Zimbabwean border posts, where we spoke the magic words: "We want to visit the bridge." A government official gave us a white slip with a stamp on it and we were ready to visit the outermost edge of Zambia.

As soon as we left the border post behind us, I felt like we'd entered the real Africa. Victoria Falls tries its best to craft a comfortable illusion for its tourists, where poverty and politics are kept to a minimum. If you want to, you can stay inside the safe tourism bubble without seeing the mile-long line for the gas station, that only sells gas at night, or without noticing the kids running around in shoes that don't fit. That bubble bursts when you decide to visit and cross the bridge. The amount of white and Asian faces between the Zimbabwean and Zambian border posts is minimal. All of a sudden, you find yourself in the hustle and bustle of an actual border town, where import and export are managed and where locals are busy at work in transport and trade. People stand in line with their bicycles waiting to enter the other country. And here and there, you'll also see street vendors trying to sell their goods to the tourists who dare to leave their bubble, though most of these vendors stay on the actual bridge. They got on my nerves, to be honest, but apart from that, I enjoyed seeing normal people living their normal lives. I liked this small excursion. Until I set foot on the bridge.


Crossing the bridge is risky business when you have vertigo. Crossing a century-old bridge that shakes and trembles when any motorized vehicle crosses it is even worse. Let me just say that I wasn't the happiest of happy campers when I walked slowly towards Zambia. The view made the walk worthwhile, although I was fairly sure it might just be the last view I'd ever see.
Right in the middle of the bridge, a yellow sign let us know that we were "NOW ENTERING ZAMBIA". Without a visa, but with the magical slip that got us here.

Just after I'd set foot on the Zambian side of the bridge, another truck made the whole thing tremble. It made me nervous, so I picked up the pace more and more until my dad and I ended up in a race to become the first of the Fisher family to set foot on Zambian soil. I won.

There wasn't much to see when I took in my surroundings. A small hill blocked my view. While I waited for my mom to reach this end of the bridge, my dad went to have a look. He told us there wasn't much to see on the other side of the hill either, except for the road to the Zambian border post. It didn't matter. The fact that I'd actually made it to Zambia was enough.


We went to the small café right next to the bridge for a drink. For a few moments, I considered spending $45 there on the zipline that would take me across the gorge and back to Zimbabwe. It looked amazing, flying high over the Zambezi and crossing an international border in the process, but I couldn't justify spending the equivalent of seven hours of work in my current job on a minute of adrenaline. I settled for a bottle of coke and reminded myself that I was lucky to be here. Lucky to be in Africa, lucky to be in Zambia. I sat down at a table with a view of the bridge and Zimbabwe, where another family from our tour group was waiting for their lunch to arrive. Like us, they'd decided not to spend an entire month's worth of rent on rafting and bungee jumping. They were the only people in the group that didn't make me feel bad for being a working-class kid.

We sat there for a while, all seven of us, drinking, eating and taking pictures of the monkeys that had decided to come and steal some French fries. We enjoyed the calm, the quiet, the occasional rumble of a truck crossing the bridge. When the other family left to take a look at the Victoria Falls in the late afternoon light, we stayed a little longer. I was quiet, taking in the moment. I couldn't comprehend yet that I, a nobody from the Netherlands, was enjoying a coke in the faraway country of Zambia, despite all my mental issues, despite my mistakes with visa.
"Glad we came to the bridge?" my mom asked just before we went back to Zimbabwe.
I nodded.
"I'm sorry we couldn't do more in Zambia."
I smiled and raised my coke bottle. "Mom, this was exactly what I wanted from Zambia. Good company, a cold drink and a nice view of Zimbabwe. I couldn't wish for anything more."