April 25, 2024
111/137 Days; 26 days remaining
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
It is all starting to seem a little “strange”. Twenty-six days remaining on our world cruise adventure. Where has it all gone? Perhaps this has been brought on by the fact this is our last full day here in Victoria Falls. There is also the feeling that something was off about yesterday.
When I compare this safari, overall, against the one with Cathy & Peggy in November 2013, or with Grace in March 2103, this safari is seriously lacking. Now, this larger question is – is it the time of year? Or, is it the place? Or perhaps the company? Or it may just be Diane’s superior knowledge of Safaris? For those not in the know, Diane McClarty, my cousin, is a manger at Asilia Africa, a company that specializes in East African Safaris.
Traveling with Cathy, Peggy and Grace was always a good experience, so it wasn’t the company. It could be the time of the year. The turning of the seasons? Another is the feeling of commercialism. Here in Chobe National Park this afternoon there was an over presence that commercialism. Everyone was very nice, and very professional. However, it still felt like they were trying to eke out every dollar. Of course, they have to. It is how the country makes the majority of its money.
Well, it is obvious the only way to settle this is to take another safari. So, come March 2025 we will do just that. Subtitle: need to add at least one more country to the current list of countries visited. The International Committee on The Country Count Register has ruled against my including Mayotte as Comoros. They appropriately ruled it is a department of France; which if it weren’t already on my list, I would be able to count.
Officially my country count, as of this morning, is at 60, out of the possible 195. Mary has 47. In the next three weeks we will add seven more, bringing our respective totals to 67 and 54. We are not “stuck” on six of the seven continents until the December 2025 Antartica Cruise.
Anyway, back to today. Ben is taking us and another guest to the Victoria Falls. Not just the city but to Mosi-Oa-Tunya- the smoke that thunders, as the falls are called. You may remember “Dr. Livingston, I presume?” Well, David Livingston (1813 – 1873), the Scottish physician, Christian missionary, African explorer, scientific investigator, imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader and perhaps the most popular British hero of the late 19th-century Victorian Era, was the first European of publish the existence of Victoria Falls. Mind you it is known that the Portuguese knew of their existence, but the Portuguese were, shall we say, very protective of their knowledge of not only Victoria Falls, or more appropriately Mosi-Oa-Tunya.
According to Dr. Livingstone’s journals from the times, he first saw the clouds of thundering spray from 10 km upstream from the falls. He arrived on an island, that now bears his name, above the falls, walked to the lip of the falls and peered over to see what he later describes as ‘The most wonderful sight I have witnesses in Africa. A rainbow can be viewed from this viewpoint in the afternoon.’
People have been trying to setup our visit to the falls to be as less than overwhelming. We have heard it is the dry season (Late April to Late October), we are entering a period of drought (the last rainy season we had very little rain), and you can hardly see the mist from the falls (from the deck of the lodge, over three miles away). Mind you, we are over three miles away as the crow flys, and we can easily see the mist and hear the thunder of the falls.
Victoria Falls is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, justifiably so. The Mosi-oa-Tunya or Victoria Falls is the largest curtain of falling water in the world; it is 1,708 meters wide and with up to 500 million litres per minute descending at 61 m (Devil's Cataract), 83 m (Main Falls), 99 m (Rainbow Falls), 98 m (Eastern Cataract). There are eighteen different points at which to view the falls. Ben has us start at number 13.
View point number 13 is of the Horseshoe Falls & Rainbow Falls. The shape of the falls, that is the horseshoe part is a cascade of water on either side of outcropping. Yes, it looks like a horseshoe. The water from the Horseshoe Falls here drops 95 meters into the gorge below. The water from the Rainbow Falls drops 108 meters, and is the highest in the whole series of falls.
Mind you we have been told that this part of the falls usually stops flowing during the dry season. Well if this is the dry season someone forget to tell the falls. We now understand why Ben brought the umbrellas. We are across the gorge from the falls and the spray from the falls is soaking us. It is totally awesome!
The Eastern edge of the falls is in Zambia, just across the ridge from viewpoint 15. Here you can see the Eastern Cataract (the decent of water over a steep surface) in Zambia. If you are greave enough to get to the lip of the gorge, you can peer over and into the boiling cauldron of water below the falls. Mind your step, it is very wet and the rocks are very slippery. It is just amazing to see so much water dropping so far and so fast.
If this is the dry season and these are the falls that dry up during the dry season, some one truly forgot to tell the river. The name, Smoke that Thunders, seems oddly out of place. From a distance it looks like smoke, true. And yes you can hear the thunder, even three or more miles away. Standing here, it is raining, except it isn’t. It is the spray from the falls. You can clearly see the falls one minute and then they disappear behind the mist the next.
Viewpoint 16 is the furthest northern point and overlooks the gorge and The Victoria Falls Bridge. The bridge has been designated International Historic Civil Engineering landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The river is the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, and links the towns of Livingstone, Zambia to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
The bridge was part of Cecil Rhodes’ grand plan to build a railway from Cape Town to Cairo. The bridge was prefabricated in England, shipped to Beira in Mozambique, and then transported by railway to Victoria Falls -in 1904! The bridge, constructed of steel in good Victorian fashion, it is 198 meters long. The main arch spans nearly 157 meters, it is 128 meters above the low water mark in the river below.
For more than 50 years, the bridge was crossed regularly by passenger trains as part of the principal route between the then Northern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), southern Africa and Europe. Freight trains carried mainly copper ore (later, copper ingots) and timber out of Northern Rhodesia, and coal into the country.
The age of the bridge and maintenance problems have led to traffic restrictions at times. The bridge was last repaired in 2006. There have been proposals for both more repairs and even replacing the bridge entirely. It is the engineering marvel that earned it the appreciation of civil engineers.
We turned around and started working the view points backwards towards number 1. We watched people swim in the pools above the falls on Livingstone Island. The views from each vantage point was spectacular. Sometimes it appeared to be raining hard, other times the sun shone through. View point 1 is called the Devils Cataract. The sheer power of the water through this narrow gorge is unbelievable. The mist rose up and the sun hit it just right and voilà there was a prefect rainbow!
Reading the brochure prepared by the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority you would believe that you were going to be disappointed when you see the falls. It warns that during the rainy season, from November to March, it may be difficult to see the falls due to the immense amounts of spray enveloping the falls. It further warns photography is most difficult during this period. That during the dry season only the water through the Devils Cataract may be visible. It is hard to believe you could be disappointed. They need better marketing people.
After seeing the falls ww were off to the Lookout Café on the Bakota gorge and a horseshoe bend in the river. The café sits high on the ledge above the river. The views of the gorge and the river below are wonderful. For the brave there is a zipline running across the gorge. It stops just short of crossing into Zambia. However the other end of the line is anchored in Zambia. There is an electric motor on the line above the rider which then drives the rider back to the starting point. It would be a little crazy to do it one way, but stopping three-quarters of the way? And, then by pulled back up. Looks quite exciting – maybe next time.
Lunch was very good. The vegetarian curry was excellent. Mary and Linda had a hamburger and a beer. Linda works for the UN as an interpreter. She lives in Geneva Switzerland. She has had an interesting life and been in several hot spots in the world in her job.
We got back to the lodge just after it had gone 13:30. It would have been a good time for a pisolino but we weren’t really that tired. It was a nice time for a shower and getting out of the still wet clothes. We did finally find out what the plant with the large leaves and small orange flowers were – Budda Belly Plant.
The Budda Belly Plant, or Jatropha podagrica, is a succulent plant in the family Euphorbiaceae. It is native to the tropical Americas but is grown as an ornamental plant in many parts of the world due to its unusual appearance. Common names include Gout Plant, Gout Stalk, Guatemalan Rhubarb, Coral Plant, Purging-Nut, Physic Nut, Goutystalk Nettlespurge, Australian Bottle Plant, and Tartogo. As a traditional medicine, it can be used as an analgesic, tonic, aphrodisiac, purgative, laxative, and to treat infections, intestinal worms, snakebite, gout, and more. Other uses include tanning, dye making, soap making, biofuel, fish poison, lamp lighting, and fertiliser. Nice little guy to have around. Just don’t pick it, you’ll get a rash. In fact, don’t step in it, it like like stepping into a nest of fire ants. Unfortunately practical knowledge gained the hard way. P.S. Toothpaste on the rash clears it up rather nicely.
As the sun was going down Ben called us to the main lodge to go on a sundowner at the gorge. We went fairly deep into the park to the edge of a gorge on the Zambezi River. It was beautiful. The river as a good 100 meters below us. There was beautiful white water rapids below, Ben claims they are class 6, and yes people do come here to shoot the rapids. There was a smaller set of rapids just a little up stream which looked more manageable than a class six, but once you start down the river there aren’t may places to get off.
We enjoyed a glass of wine, watched a chipmunk looking rodent sitting on the lip of the gorge devouring some little nut or seed as the sun dipped below the horizon. Did people 1,000 or 10,000 years ago live in these canyons? It seems it would be the prefect place to be safe from wild animals and even other humans. Ben says probably not, but to his knowledge no one has ever done a study. If only we were twenty or thirty years younger and had the knowledge to explore. It would hav been fun to discover the caves of a long lost ancestor.
It was a beautiful ending for the day and a nice cap on this excursion. Tomorrow we are off for Cape Town.
Buonanotte e Ciao, Enrico e Maria
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