Victoria Falls National Park

Before you see anything, you feel it. A fine, cool mist settles on your arms and drifts across the path. Beneath your feet, the ground carries a low vibration, and the air holds a deep, steady roar. Somewhere ahead, through wet leaves and dripping branches, one of the great rivers of Africa is falling off the edge of the earth.

This is Victoria Falls National Park, on the Zimbabwean bank of the Zambezi River. Across the gorge lies Zambia, with its own protected land on the far side. The two countries share this waterfall, and the border runs down the middle of the river. You are standing on one edge of a long crack in the rock, and the whole Zambezi pours into it.

Long before it had an English name, people here had their own. The Kololo name, still in common use, is Mosi-oa-Tunya. It is usually translated as the smoke that thunders. Stand still for a moment and you will understand it. The spray rises high above the gorge like white smoke. On clear days, people can see it from many kilometres away, long before they hear a sound.

The first European known to have seen the falls was the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone, in 1855. Local guides brought him by canoe to an island at the very lip of the drop. He named the falls after Queen Victoria. But people in this region had known them for centuries. A bronze statue of Livingstone stands on this side, near the eastern end of the trail, gazing out toward the water.

The numbers are easy to repeat, and hard to picture. The falls stretch for about 1,700 metres across the river. In places, the water drops more than one hundred metres into the gorge below. Together, that width and height make one of the largest sheets of falling water anywhere on the planet. It is not the tallest waterfall, and it is not the widest. It is the combination that makes it so overwhelming.

Here is something many visitors miss. The gorge in front of you is not the first one. Downstream, the river zigzags through a series of deep, angular gorges. Each of them was once the site of a waterfall. Over a very long time, the water has cut backward into the dark basalt rock, which formed from ancient lava flows. It follows weak lines in the stone. So the falls are slowly moving upstream, and the view you see today is only one stage in that journey.

As you walk the main path, you will pass a series of viewpoints. Each one shows a different section of the curtain. Near the western end is Devil's Cataract, a narrow, fierce channel that drops lower than the rest. Further along is the Main Falls, the broadest and heaviest part of the flow. Toward the eastern side come Rainbow Falls and the rocky outcrop known as Danger Point. The name is honest. Edges here are often slippery and unfenced.

Now look at the plants around you. This strip of land is a rainforest, and it exists only because of the falls. The spray falls on it like steady rain, almost all year round. Ferns, palms and large fig trees grow thick and green, even when the land a short walk away is dry and brown. It is a small, wet world created by the river itself. Step back from the edge and the air changes within a few paces.

The falls change a great deal through the year. After the rainy season, the Zambezi swells. In the months after the rains, the flow is often at its heaviest. Then the spray is so dense that you may see almost nothing but white cloud, and you will be soaked to the skin. Later in the dry season, the river drops. Parts of the rock face become bare, and the shape of the cliff becomes clear. Neither season is better. They simply show you two different places.

Watch for the rainbows. With the sun behind you and spray in front, rainbows form almost constantly, sometimes in full arcs across the gorge. And there is a second surprise. On some nights around the full moon, when the water is high, moonlight can create a faint lunar rainbow in the mist. It looks pale, almost silver, to the naked eye. The park sometimes offers special evening visits for this, so ask locally about dates.

Downstream, you can see the Victoria Falls Bridge, a steel arch crossing the gorge between Zimbabwe and Zambia. It was completed in the early twentieth century, as part of a colonial dream of a railway across Africa. According to a popular story, the bridge was placed close to the falls so that passing trains would catch the spray. Today, trains, cars and people on foot all cross it, and some brave visitors jump from it on a bungee cord.

The park is not only water and rock. Keep your eyes on the trees and the ground. Vervet monkeys and baboons move through the forest and watch visitors with great interest, especially anyone carrying food. Small antelope sometimes pass quietly through the undergrowth. Birds call from the canopy above the noise of the river. Keep your bags closed, and do not feed the animals. They are wild, even when they seem relaxed around people.

Before you leave, find a quiet viewpoint and stay there for a few minutes. Let your eyes follow one patch of water from the lip of the cliff all the way down into the mist. Notice how the sound never pauses, not for a second. Feel the spray on your face and the cool air coming up from the gorge. As you walk back through the dripping forest, listen to the roar slowly fade behind you... and remember that it has not stopped, and will not stop, long after you are gone.