Victoria Falls - Day 1

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Victoria Falls

Chasing the Lunar Rainbow

20-12-2010

We had planned to be at Victoria Falls on my birthday, which falls on the ‘Datta Jayanti’ day according to the Hindu calendar, i.e. the full moon day in late December.

However, the more important reason was that there was a 50/50 chance of our being able to witness the ‘lunar rainbow’ at Victoria Falls, which is seen only on full moon nights. We decided to take the chance.

Boy! Am I glad that we did take a chance and planned our trip accordingly! We actually did see the Lunar Rainbow and that beautiful sight made up for all the discomfort of walking 8 kms in a day in the Rainforest, 4 kms in the morning and 4 kms at night.

There is no other way to see the Victoria Falls up, close and personal. No vehicles are allowed in the rainforest. Only footpaths traverse it.

You cannot see the whole width of falls at a glance (the whole 1708 meters/5604 feet of it) from the ground – neither from the Zimbabwe side nor from the Zambian side. The only way to see the whole width of falls is from the air – by helicopter or micro-light flights.

Victoria Falls is a very small town and its airport is also very primitive but the sight of the ‘mist’ over a horizontal line in the far distance as our plane descended was enough for us to forgive it.

We knew that the ‘mist’ was the spray from the falls. We were looking for it ever since the plane took off from Johannesburg.

Contrary to our usual practice, we had not booked any sightseeing tours beforehand because a ‘lunar rainbow tour’ is always dicey as it depends upon local atmospheric conditions. I mean it may be a cloudy or rainy night, and in that case, the rainforest remains closed during night. Only three nights in a month (full moon night, the night before and the night after.) the rainforest remains open for visitors from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM. provided it is a clear night.

So, we could not book a ‘lunar rainbow tour’ beforehand and because the timings of ‘sunset cruise’ clashed with ‘lunar rainbow’ tour, we could not book that either.

The only booking we had made was for two nights at the Victoria Falls hotel.

So, we had decided to book the tours after reaching Victoria Falls town.

When we asked the driver of the taxi about helicopter, (from airport to the hotel) he offered to take us to the Helicopter booking office in the town on the way to the hotel.

Accordingly, we booked our helicopter flight the same day and then went to the hotel to register and drop off our luggage. The same driver took us the helicopter landing site.

The helicopter ride over both the Zimbabwean and Zambian sides of the falls is highly recommended. The unforgettable sight of that wide sheet of water falling over the cliffs and the zigzag gorges beneath it, deserves the name ‘The Flight of the Angels’. No wonder, Dr Livingstone - the first European to see the Falls - wrote, “scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight”.

If you too want be in the company of Angels and gaze upon the Falls from the air, you can do so through Avi’s camera-lens here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/charuavi#p/u/7/oDPfRThKHBQ

http://www.youtube.com/user/charuavi#p/u/6/rjv078Nctdw

http://www.youtube.com/user/charuavi#p/u/5/4UQ3tIRCRbA

http://www.youtube.com/user/charuavi#p/u/4/lQjTSOcSv-k

http://www.youtube.com/user/charuavi#p/u/3/kAM_VGHMJZk

You can even feel the buffeting of the helicopter when you are watching the videos.

We came back from the helicopter ride, excited and happy and went to the Stanley Terrace of our hotel, where ‘high tea’ was being served. This English tradition is kept alive here though- I think - it is long dead in England. The view of the Victoria Bridge from the terrace is absolutely fabulous.

Seen from a distance, it is difficult to believe that the ‘gossamer’ bridge is made of steel girders and is a marvel of engineering. It looks so delicate that you wonder if it was meant to be walked upon by the fairies, the cousins of the aforementioned angels.

Victoria Falls hotel has that indefinable old-world charm about it. The grounds are extensive and well-kept. We were titillated to see mango trees, laden with ripe mangoes, because December is not the ‘mango season’ in India. Though we knew that the seasons are reversed in the South Hemisphere, we were not expecting such blatant proof of it.

I was always asking the hotel staff whether the rainforest would remain open that night but they could not tell us because the day was cloudy. So, we just took a taxi to the rainforest gates to ascertain ourselves.

There they categorically told us that the ‘lunar rainbow’ tour would not take place that night.

As we were very near the Victoria bridge border post, we decided to check whether we will get a second Zimbabwe visa, so that we could go on the bridge. (We had come to Zimbabwe with a ‘single entry’ visa, though we HAD applied for multiple-entry visa. Zambian consulate in India simply refused us visa, because we had not booked any hotel in Zambia. We had hoped that we would be able to get a ‘day-pass’ at the border.) The border-post official told us that they cannot issue a second visa there. When we complained about Zimbabwe consulate not giving us multiple-entry visa, he said with a tongue-in-cheek expression “perhaps you do not deserve it”. Charming rogue!

Now it was clear that there was no chance of us seeing the falls from the Zambian side or swimming in the “Devil’s pool”. (I am writing this BECAUSE there was no chance at all, of us swimming there.) As it says in the brochure, the ‘Devil’s Pool’ is not for the faint-hearted.

(Devil’s pool is a placid pool formed on the Livingstone Island very near the lip of the falls but perfectly safe. We did see people swimming in there the next morning from the opposite side and it looked absolutely scary.)

The Yellow Fever inoculation that we had taken because we expected to visit Zambia, was totally wasted.

I find solace in the thought, that in our helicopter flight, we did penetrate the Zambian airspace because the flight takes TWO turns, both over the Zimbabwe and the Zambian side.

I loved Victoria Falls so much that I have included maximum number of photos of it. (Avi was taking photos and shooting movies alternately from the helicopter window.) The photos of Victoria Falls Bridge were taken from our hotel.

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