Located on the border of two Southern African countries Zambia and Zimbabwe the great natural structure of land-form of six individual gorges is by far the most impressive landscape in Africa. The Batoka gorge on which the Zambezi river flows, spans for about 1800 metres and to a depth of 128 metres.
As the water plunges on this gorge forming a curtain of waterfalls the largest in the world by combination of the length and depth it forms a series of rainbows and lunabows rare to see anywhere else under the sun. The sheer force of 625 million litres of water cascading over the edge every minute creates a rainstorm that appears to fall from below and the thunderous bellow echo is heard 30 miles away.
In his own words the Scottish missionary David Livingstone in 1855 had this to say:
“
The most wonderful sight I have witnessed in Africa. None can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It has never been seen before by European eyes, but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.”
— David Livingstone
And indeed most people could agree less.
The Victoria Falls national park entrance is a 7 mins walk from Town. On entrance you get entry tickets and at the visitors center you information about the geology behind the formation. A few metres towards the start of the falls there is a statue of David Livingstone. A few metres from the statue you are already at the second viewpoint and you still have 14 more viewpoints to see the falls. The view point number 2 is already the first gorge. One viewpoint up is the Devil’s cataract. The main view of the falls is at viewpoint 9 and 10 as you overlook the Livingstone Island behind the falls in Zambia.
On the Livingstone Island on the Zambian side is where the most impressive natural pool is located a few metres from the falls. Swimming in this pool is extraordinary; it’s in a natural pool, on the falls and the bellow of the falls right in your ears.
Next will be the Horseshoe Falls, the Rainbow Falls, the Armchair Falls and the Eastern cataract just before the bridge that crosses to Zambia. The Rainbow Falls is where you will see a rainbow no matter what time of the year you visit the Victoria Falls. On selected days every month during the full moon, you will see the moonbow or the lunar rainbow at night usually on viewpoint number 4 and 10. Water level is high from December to August and walking from viewpoint 13 all the way to Eastern cataract one gets really soaked by the rain from the Falls. You will definitely need waterproof pockets to secure your cameras and phones. It’s advisable as well to have a raincoat with you and to walk carefully as the ground here can be as slippery.
After you are done with the tour of the Falls from the Zimbabwean side that would take you about 2 hours or more if you are like me to take every picture for anything worthy. My advice will be to take a tour on the flip side of the Falls from the Zambian side. The Livingstone is just one island you can’t miss to visit. The swim in the Devil’s pool happens when the water level is low from August to December. Yet also during the high water level season you can swim in a replica pool called the Swim of Angels. It’s just as impressive.
