I am exhausted – awake in the early pre-dawn hours – but too excited to think of sleep. Speeding along the road to the airport, I’m on my way to a place I’ve only seen on postcards – Victoria Falls – just on the other side of so many travel hoops: boarding pass, luggage check, security clearance, seat belts buckled. Finally we take off and the landscape changes from coastal to farmland, then great expanses of green, obscured by puffy thunderclouds casting long shadows on the ground below them.
Descending into Zambia I get my first glimpse of Victoria Falls – a series of dramatic cracks in the earth, switchbacks from one hairpin turn to the next, the base of each one hidden in the shadow of its depth. Then finally the mother of them all – the place where the Zambezi launches itself droplet by droplet off the ledge of a 100-metre cliff to explode at the bottom and rise again as vapour as thick as rain, creating what is called mosi-o-tunya – the ‘smoke that thunders’.
The plane continues its descent and the landscape is scrubby and speckled with trees that remind me of a Dr. Seuss book, like massive broccoli stalks – thin at the base, expanding up to a thick canopy. A graceful touchdown and we are here, in the place of Dr. Livingstone, of tales of historic exploration – the ones that sent shivers of excitement down the backs of upstanding citizens across Europe’s urban landscape centuries ago – of malaria and dysentery, of poverty and potholes, of lions, elephants and the wild beauty that comes with unspoken danger.
Stepping out of the comfort of the plane the heat of the place is oppressive and the sweltering sun makes my backpack feel twice as heavy. Finally, the last stretch of road before Victoria Falls. We arrive and I open the car door to an all-encompassing noice. The vapour rises and fills the air with a mist as thick as rain in some places. I take the afternoon to explore the area along the various walks and viewpoints, watching the river rafters below navigate the white water. Along the top people are actually wading through the water, just before the falls, some even lying down on exposed rocks to see the falls stream past them and the land below. Occasionally I hear a frenzied scream, not from the waders losing their footing but from the bungee jumpers above. This is slightly disconcerting above the roar of the water.
I hike down to the bottom of the falls along a trail to the edge of the ‘Boiling Pot’ the place where the rough water passes through the canyon walls, where the river resumes its course. Trekking down is a near vertical descent into a tropical zone of tall palm trees, vines and greenery, the sound of the falls is graced by calling birds and gurgling streams. Once at the water’s edge it is amazing to look back up at the wonder of the falls (that I’ve seen from all the other angles) and get a final perspective. Taking a last look, I turn to go and just then the sun peaks through the afternoon clouds and the entire view warms in an array of golden, shimmering light. It’s just enough to showcase the falls in all her wonder – in all her beauty – the glorious Victoria Falls.
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