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Three of the five falls of Victoria Falls — the Devil’s Cataract in the foreground, and in the distance Main Falls and Horseshoe Falls — offer splendor in their gathering.
TEXT BY EILEEN STUKANE \ PHOTOS BY STUKANE & DAVID PUCHKOFF| Having already visited South Africa, our quest to see more of the continent of man’s origin led us to Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls — the world’s largest waterfalls, created by the journey of the Zambezi River through the dark, fine-grained basalt rock formed after the volcanic eruptions of the Jurassic Period 150–200 million years ago.
High on a ridge at the edge of Zambezi National Park, the terraced rooms of Victoria Falls Safari Lodge look out over an African landscape.
Hominids, primates that are precursors of modern man, existed near the Falls over two million years ago.
From our terrace at Victoria Falls Safari Lodge on the edge of Zambezi National Park, the expansiveness of the park’s almost 140,000 acres stretched before us, along with a favorite elephant waterhole.
After quenching their thirsts at the waterhole, elephant families returned to the forests and grasslands of the park. Our closeness felt remarkable. At this time, I did not know that we would have greater closeness to wildlife during our visit to Botswana, where we were able to hear the animals breathe.
The Bantu people, who still live around the Falls today, arrived in the first millennium A.D and called the 360 feet of crashing, pounding, rushing water Mosi-oa-Tunya (“The Smoke that Thunders”).
First it’s a walk through palm trees and a rainforest, then it’s a turn down a path like the one pictured here, with a low border of woven thorn tree branches. Each of the 16 pathways and stops on the two-hour walk brings you to a place where Victoria Falls stuns you.
The industrial world only heard about the Falls, however, when Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone “discovered” them in 1855 and named them after his Queen, Victoria.
We had heard that rainbows regularly appeared at Victoria Falls — but would we see any? That question was quickly answered at the Falls’ highest point, where the thunderous explosion of water between gorged rocks created a misty blanket and the arc of rainbow colors.
Five different falls form the whole of Victoria Falls — four in Zimbabwe and one in Zambia — as the Falls border these countries, and seeing them up-close requires a rain slicker and a two-hour walk through rainforest paths that have 16 stops along the way.
The 1,600 miles of the Zambezi River — the fourth largest river in Africa — run through six countries, beginning first in Zambia, through Angola, Namibia and Botswana, then back along the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe where the river powers the 5,603 feet wide Victoria Falls, then across Mozambique. From there, it finally flows into the Indian Ocean. At the river’s Zambia/Zimbabwe border, hippos disappeared as the sun settled near the horizon for this perfect African sunset.
