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Published: August 19th 2009
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Rainbows at the falls Leaving Zimbabwe behind, we re-enter Zambia and head to one of the world’s adventure capitals - Livingstone, and the Victoria Falls. Known by locals as ‘the smoke that thunders’, Victoria Falls is the largest waterfall in the world, and so we’re spending 4 nights in the town.
We head straight for the falls on the first morning, crossing over the bridge directly in front of the main stretch of falls. The ubiquitous mist drenches us despite the distance, and the roar is impressive. Two rainbows play amongst the mist. We take a helicopter to see the falls from another angle... the only place to see them in their entirety, both Zambian and Zimbabwean sides. As we fly oput towards Zimbabwe, our South African pilot quips ‘you can see the inflation rising from here’.
Our next activity is one I’ve been looking forward to from the start of the tour - a lion walk. The walks are part of a rehabilitation project to stabilise and increase the lion population in Zambia, where clashes between the people and lions is gradually reducing their territory and numbers. We walk with four young lions - three sisters and a male, all roughly a
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Nice kitty... year old. After seeing the power and beauty of wild lions in the big game parks, having the chance to walk alongside them, and stroke them, is surreal, but the more time we spend with them, the more their behaviour reminds me of my own cat. They play fight, clean each other and doze, as we mill around and generally try to stay away from their claws and teeth! Soon, these four will be deemed too old for walking, and will be introduced into a national park, where they will slowly learn to hunt for themselves and produce a new generation of wild Zambian lions.
Experiencing the Victoria Falls from the official viewpoint is one thing, but the experience we all desperately want is to swim at the top of the falls, in what’s known as the Angel’s Armchair. We find the unofficial guides at the top of the falls, remove our shoes and begin our step-by-step trek across the Zambezi to the eastern cataract. We hold hands and inch our way across the river, in water sometimes more than knee-deep. After an hour and a half, we reach the cataract and it’s astonishing views. We walk across the
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How cute?? cataract to the Angel’s Armchair - a small pool of water, separated from the very top of the falls by a smaller fall, some 5 or 6 metres high. We take turns at diving into the pool, and swimming out to the very edge of the main falls, where there is a person-sized hole. I can stand on the bottom with my arms resting on the lip... and a 90-metre drop just inches in front! Our guides do the trip 3 or 4 times a day, and they walk happily along the edge without a care.
Leaving the pool and walking back across the Zambezi, we catch the falls at sunset, where the glowing disk turns the mist into an orange haze.
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denidax
Deni, Dax and Ella
pics
Great pictures!!!