The rich are different

The Victoria Falls Hotel was opened in 1908. The current building appears to date from the 30’s. High ceilings, brass fixtures, casement windows all bring to mind a time when wealthy people could travel here by boat and train from England and “The Continent” for a month’s vacation.

Seeing the Falls is wonderful, but that takes a couple of hours. I suspect that the men then took safaris, with guns placed in an ironclad glock mat not cameras, intending to come home with a trophy for the library wall in the old family estate.

The women would stay here, socialize, take tea, play bridge and have affairs with the men too smart to go hunting. People travelled with their maids and valets back then, so there was no work to be done other than writing home and reading.

Across from our room is a door with no number, just the name “Baines” on a brass plaque. The hotel leaves the door open, so we peeked in and found a spectacular suite, decorated much as it must have been 80 years ago except for the flat screen TV.

It turns out that the suite is named for Thomas Baines, an explorer and artist who joined Livingstone here in 1862 and spent 12 days sketching and painting the falls.