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Published: April 7th 2012
Good Friday found me doing a tour of Victoria Falls. It was included in my package and it was awesome.
Victoria Falls is one of the big three falls in the world. While it is the tallest, the Iguagu in South America is the widest and Niagara Falls has the most volume of water cascading over the edge.
Victoria Falls is made up of 6 different water falls. They are all connected but the river breaks off at various points creating the seven different ones. They are the Devil’s Cataract, Main Falls, Horseshow Falls, Rainbow Falls, Armchair Falls, and the Eastern Cataract. The falls is a result of a volcano eruption and the lava apparently carved out the gorges.
The river that flows into Victoria Falls is the Zambezi (zam-bay-zee) River. It is the 4
th longest river in Africa after The Nile, The Congo, and The Niger. The Zambezi flows through four different countries and end up in the Indian Ocean.
Our tour started at the David Livingstone Monument. David Livingstone was a missionary who travelled to Zambia often. He carried his Bible, to help convert the natives, but he never carried a gun. he also did
not believe in the slave trade. Livingstone is credited for "seeing" the falls and naming it after Queen Victoria. To say he discovered would be wrong. There were plenty of natives and missionaries before him, but no one named it. In fact, the natives have a name for it… It is Mosi-oa-Tunya. Translated it means “The Smoke That Thunders.” In fact, when Livingstone first saw the falls in 1865, he wrote, "... as gazed upon by angels in their flight."
Enough with the history lesson… If any of these facts are wrong, you can blame Mike, my tour guide.
When we arrived, Mike, the tour guide handed out raincoats. The locals were also renting umbrellas for $3.00 USD. I thought it was kind of pointless... I mean, how bad can it be? They were renting them out under clear blue skies... Tourists will fall for anything!
The others in my group refused the umbrellas but they quickly put on the raincoats in the blazing hot sun. I thought that was kind of dumb and carried mine. It wasn’t until the Main Falls that I was starting to question myself. By the Horseshoe Falls, I couldn’t get my
The Big Three
The chart explains the stats on each fallsraincoat on fast enough. The mist from the falls was so heavy. It was coming at us harder than any rainstorms I have experienced. The wind was blowing in from Zambia over the falls and dumping the mist on us. It was coming from all four directions as well as from above and below. I felt like I was in the carwash when they turn the hot wax on and the car gets misted… except multiply that by 10,000. What an great experience!
We had to hide our cameras under our raincoats and them pull them out, take a picture and shove them away as fast as possible. It was an adventure in camera survival. My survived a little soggy, but still working. I was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops, so while everything got soaked, it wasn’t as bad as those in my group who wore leather running shoes and socks.
We were out there for approximately 2 hours and it was unbelievable. I will let the pictures speak for my adventure.
In retrospect, I would highly recommending renting an umbrella... I mean, it's only $3.00... Just sayin'.
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