Zimbabwe: Victoria Falls

Locals call Victoria Falls "Mosi-oa-Tunya" -- the smoke that thunders. All I know is that it's epic...and from the hike on the ground, very wet. We were issued ponchos and I carried an umbrella, but between the thunderous spewing of mists from the falls and my body's "glow" from the warmth and humidity, it was a WET experience on the ground. It's nearly impossible to keep camera lenses clear. Our guide said his dad was fond of saying: "We won't shrink and we won't change color." A rather double-edged comment in this land of racial divisions. The Falls are 1708 meters wide ... the largest curtain of water in the world. This is a World Heritage site and the surrounding national parks in Zimbabwe protectively span the Zambesi River to Zambia. The falls drop between 90 and 107 meters into the Zambezi Gorge. On average, 550,000 cubic meters of water plummet over the edge every minute, with the highest rate of flow from February through April. In just 9 hours, the water over the falls is the equivalent to annual water consujmption of Sydney, Australia with its population of more than four million. The spray reaches into the sky and is visible from 30 miles away.

Taking the helicopter flight over the Falls was breathtaking, giving a far more accurate sense of the magnitude of the Zambezi River, its channels and islands, its gorges, and the falls. Our local guide's family has been in Zimbabwe since the 1890s, his Afrikaner wife's since the 1600s. When farmlands were confiscated, his family lost 45,000 acres; his wife's family lost 85,000 acres.

The lodge water hole treated us to visits by kudu, warthogs, vultures, Marabou stork; along roadsides we saw virvet monkeys and baboons. From my balcony I could see the messy nests of the white brow sparrow weaver and at meals red-winged starlings came trotting up on the railings for our crumbs. During the hike along falls, I heard bird song like a pained baby crying and was told it was a horn-billed trumpeter, but I couldn't find it in the heavy vegetation. Drummers and dancers, landscaping, carved wooden railings, nyami-nyami amulets signifying protection of the Zambezi River god, an erudite and passionate lecturer on David Livingston, hippo and bird sightings, and a sunset cruise on the river -- all added to an awesome experience.