Apr 10 - Zero 7

Victoria Falls is like 1.7 miles long. This is just a tiny portion.

So it's finally time to write another full blog. And again I'm super tired, but now I have time and no excuse not to. I've been doing all kinds of errands today cause I left the office early to come home and get my water cooler repaired. So I feel pretty accomplished already. Ready for a nap, in fact. But first, Zambia.

Getting soaked at the Falls

I went to Zambia last week. I've been a few times already, so Zambia isn't that exciting. But what is exciting is that I went to Victoria Falls this time, a place that was at the top of my list to visit while I was living in Africa, but I never made it until now. I made a point of making it on this trip because who knows the next time I'll be back. And what's also exciting is I got to see my good friend Robyn, who's on a fellowship in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. She came down and met me at Vic Falls and we spent a couple of days together before going back to South Africa together to celebrate Pesach.

Like I said, Vic Falls was top of my list of things to do in Africa and I've been wanting to do it for years. I've heard so much about it and how awesome it is and it's so close to Johannesburg and I always meant to go, then just never did. But boy am I glad I finally did, cause it was incredible. I mean, it's just a waterfall, which doesn't sound so exciting. Except it's like a massive waterfall. It's unfathomable how big it is and just how much water there is. And we were there in high season, which means the water was exponentially higher. Robyn had been a few times already and showed me pictures from other seasons where the falls are pretty normal or just a trickle, but nothing like what we experienced. We were soaked. It was crazy.

Lost in the mist with Robyn

Actually I'm getting ahead of myself. We got soaked on the second day when we hiked the falls. The first day Robyn arrived later than me so I took a sunset cruise. That was nice, but it was pretty overcast so sunset wasn't great. But the cruise was nice, I had some good chats, and about a bottle of wine. So no complaints. Then the next day we spent the entire day hiking around the falls, which ended with cocktails on the deck of the Royal Livingstone Hotel, just along the Zambezi by the falls, for like 2 hours. We should have had a beautiful sunset, but sadly it was really overcast again so no luck.

But the real excitement didn't come until our last morning, when we woke up at like 6am to go and take a microlight flight. If you don't know what a microlight is, it's basically a hang-glider with a propeller on the back. You sit in a seat with a driver in front of you, and then you fly. Open to the elements. It's nuts. I'd heard about it and was pretty excited by the idea, but at the same time kind of freaked out because I'm afraid of heights. But a couple of the friends that told me about it are also afraid of heights and said they were fine, so I decided to do it. And I do not regret it at all. It was absolutely incredible. It was kind of terrifying, ,not in the same way as my fear of heights when I'm at the top of a tall tower or something, but just terrifying cause you know you can plummet 1500 feet to your death at any moment and there is literally only a tiny little seatbelt holding you in. But it was fine, and totally worth it. The terror was definitely overcome by my amazement, because the views are nuts. And we even got to see a couple elephants and impala, plus Robyn saw hippos but I didn't.

Flying above the falls

So that was it, after that we headed back to South Africa, spent a bit more time with friends and "family", had a couple seders, and said my goodbyes. All in all, it was a fantastic trip. Super relaxing ,very eventful, lots of exciting new experiences - basically the perfect trip for me.

Turning and diving to get a closer look at the falls

All in all, a wonderful trip. And I returned to some wonderful music. And the wonderful music that I'll be sharing today is Zero 7. I thought they'd been pretty inactive for a while, but it turns out they put out an EP last year (Simple Science) which is just ok. But now they're putting out another EP this year (EP3), and they've released two out of the four songs. And so far, I'm impressed. The first one I heard was actually the second one they released off of the EP, Last Light. When I first saw it on some playlists I thought maybe it was just an old song that I'd forgotten the name of, but no, they have new music. And they're working with Jose Gonzalez again. These are both wonderful things. Actually, I first learned about Jose Gonzalez thanks to his work with Zero 7 back on The Garden. I also first learned about Sia thanks to them. This was well before she sold out and got popular.




Last Light may not be as good as some of the older songs they did with Jose Gonzalez (check out Today and Crosses), but it's still a great song. But if you want a really great song, listen to 400 Blows, the other song they've released from the EP. This one features Danny Pratt on vocals. I have no idea who he is, but I love this song so I went and checked him out, and he has one song called Antidote on Spotify which is pretty good, so hopefully this is also the start of another artist that I learn about thanks to Zero 7 and then fall in love with.