Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls is also called Mosi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) and is one of the worlds seven natural wonders. It was discovered (first seen by european eyes) by the explorer David Livingstone in the 1850s. The falls are 1700 meters wide, 108 meters high and forms the largest sheet of falling water in the world.

On sunday I saw it myself, and it was truely beautiful. We took a taxi as close as we got and walked the last kilometer. Close to the falls there is a lot of plantlife, so you cant really see far ahead because of trees and bushes. We first came to a big statue of David Livingstone and as we went over to it the trees opened and we could see the falls in the distance. At the same time a calm wind of humid chilled air hit us, a very welcome change from the otherwise hot, dry air in Zambia at this time of year.

We spent most of that day walking both on top of the falls and at the bottom. From the top you can see the falls as a wide wall where the river falls into a cleft while youself stand on the other side of the cleft. There are fences most places, but there are still a lot of places where you can go as far to the edge as you want, and I learned that no, Im actually not without scare of heights.

Oh, and theres baboons there. Ridden of their fear of humans they walk on and of the trails looking for food they can steal from unatentive tourists. By chance I actually had some nuts and fruit in my satchel. If I had taken it off it would probably been gone before it hit the ground. One of the bigger baboons actually went over to me and started tugging on it. if your have seen a baboons teeth and jaw you dont want them unhappy with your complience of giving them what they want. Still, he gave up pretty quickly and continued lazily on his way.

In short, Victoria Falls is awesome, and this will not be my last time seeing it.