By Roxanne Reid
Quiz question: the sun is shining and the sky is blue, yet we’re sopping wet in spite of wearing bright yellow plastic macs. Where are we?
Quiz question: the sun is shining and the sky is blue, yet we’re sopping wet in spite of wearing bright yellow plastic macs. Where are we?
If you looked (sneakily) at the title of this blog post and answered Victoria Falls you’d be right. I’d been here once before, so this time when we were offered a chance to hire an umbrella I scoffed, ’Pah, who needs it?’
It was a mistake. What I failed to take into account was that last time, when I got only delicately damp from the spray rising from the Falls, it was the dry season. This time it’s the wet season and the level of the Zambezi River and the volume of water crashing over the chasm is much, much greater. Compare, say, your dripping bath tap and a torrential Highveld downpour and you’ll get the idea of the kind of difference I’m talking about here.
We browse the posters at the info kiosk for a few tips about what to expect. Although Vic Falls doesn’t even feature in the top 800 highest waterfalls around the world, it’s 10th largest by width and 13th largest by volume. Total width of its five separate falls is 1.7 kilometres, with Rainbow Falls the highest point at 108 metres. If you insist on looking for some kind of record, you could say that the Main Falls are the highest, widest sheet of continually falling water in the world.
It was a mistake. What I failed to take into account was that last time, when I got only delicately damp from the spray rising from the Falls, it was the dry season. This time it’s the wet season and the level of the Zambezi River and the volume of water crashing over the chasm is much, much greater. Compare, say, your dripping bath tap and a torrential Highveld downpour and you’ll get the idea of the kind of difference I’m talking about here.
We browse the posters at the info kiosk for a few tips about what to expect. Although Vic Falls doesn’t even feature in the top 800 highest waterfalls around the world, it’s 10th largest by width and 13th largest by volume. Total width of its five separate falls is 1.7 kilometres, with Rainbow Falls the highest point at 108 metres. If you insist on looking for some kind of record, you could say that the Main Falls are the highest, widest sheet of continually falling water in the world.
Statue of David Livingstone
Our walk starts sedately, past the statue of David Livingstone looking out over the Falls he was the first documented European to see. There are two important points in that sentence. First, he was by no means the first person to see this amazing sight – thousands of indigenous people knew it about it long before he did.
Second, notice that word ‘documented’. Watch the water thundering over the cliffs in the peak of the wet season (February to May/June), when the Zambezi is raging, and you may suspect that one or two earlier adventurers might have found themselves tipping over the edge, losing their lives before they could report their staggering find and get into the history books.
Victoria Falls actually comprises five separate waterfalls, the first of them being the Devil’s Cataract. It’s aptly named, a roiling cauldron that’s more than a little scary. If some 1100 cubic metres of water come rollicking over the edge of the Falls every second, you can imagine what a noise it makes. The entire annual consumption of New York City goes over the Falls in just three-and-a-half days during peak flood season (April/May).
Second, notice that word ‘documented’. Watch the water thundering over the cliffs in the peak of the wet season (February to May/June), when the Zambezi is raging, and you may suspect that one or two earlier adventurers might have found themselves tipping over the edge, losing their lives before they could report their staggering find and get into the history books.
Victoria Falls actually comprises five separate waterfalls, the first of them being the Devil’s Cataract. It’s aptly named, a roiling cauldron that’s more than a little scary. If some 1100 cubic metres of water come rollicking over the edge of the Falls every second, you can imagine what a noise it makes. The entire annual consumption of New York City goes over the Falls in just three-and-a-half days during peak flood season (April/May).
From the Devil's Cataract, the path flows on past the Main Falls, Horseshoe Falls, Rainbow Falls, Armchair Falls. We walk from one to the next, getting wetter and wetter until, mac or no mac, we’re squishing in our shoes, sleeves and pant-legs dripping. It feels like a torrential downpour, but it’s just spray from the Falls being thrown hundreds of metres in the air and settling on us like rain.
We try to console ourselves with the legend that a good soaking in the spray of the Zambezi gives you physical and spiritual purification. But we vow that if we ever do this walk again in the wet season, we’ll do it au naturel and Mother Grundy be damned.
Mpala Jena: superb addition to Zimbabwe safari lodges for a Victoria Falls safari
More about Zimbabwe
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
We try to console ourselves with the legend that a good soaking in the spray of the Zambezi gives you physical and spiritual purification. But we vow that if we ever do this walk again in the wet season, we’ll do it au naturel and Mother Grundy be damned.
Mpala Jena: superb addition to Zimbabwe safari lodges for a Victoria Falls safari
More about Zimbabwe
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
