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Livingstone, ZM 24.5 km (15.2 mi) |
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Mwapona boonse!
I’m back on the mainland after my jaunt to Mauritius, and since Buzz has to work for a few days, I’m doing a side trip! Originally, I wanted to go to Namibia and see the famous trees of the Deadvlei, but I couldn’t find a tour that allowed solo bookings! Instead, I decided to head north to a place where everyone I knew who’d been to Africa recommended: Mosi Oa Tunya, “The Smoke That Thunders,” known to English speakers as Victoria Falls! After a short flight north from Johannesburg, I arrived in Zambia and caught a ride into dry, dusty Livingstone, where I settled into the Kaonde room at Fawlty Towers, a hotel inspired by a British sitcom with John Cleese! It was my first lodging ever with both a mosquito net around the bed and a complimentary can of bug spray, even though Livingstone claimed to be malaria-free!
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Wasting no time, I got right back in the same van for a southbound ride into the park. Along the way, I learned it was super dangerous to walk this road at night, because that’s where hippos would emerge from the Zambezi River to graze! But hippos weren’t the only hungry locals out and about. As I soon learned, the high season of the Zambezi was also the low season for tourists, which meant every artisan between parking and admission was keen to either sell me the same magnet, mask, or carved soap dish, or beg me for just enough money to take the bus home! At the gate, the ticket taker also warned me about the wandering “tour guides” who were going to offer their services for “free” then up-charge at the end. I’d encountered this in Jerusalem and planned to be on my guard!
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Another reason to be on my guard: baboons! They’d been clustered by the gate when I arrived, and they were huge! One ran past the van as we parked, and I’d bet it was three feet tall at the shoulder! While they weren’t likely to bite, these chacma baboons had a reputation for stealing things from folks, especially food, and they were omnivorous! I didn’t want them to think I was a snack, so I prepared myself to enact the Five Deadly Arts at a moment’s notice!
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Much of the international fame of Victoria Falls comes from its sighting on November 16, 1855 by Dr. David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary who spent 32 years exploring central Africa, pushing Christianity and looking for trade routes into the heart of the continent. Part of his goal was to find trade options that would undermine slavery, which he hated, and along the way, his writings introduced English-speaking audiences to a whole new world they’d never imagined, opening up paths for more explorers to enter this “Heart of Darkness!”
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I continued upstream from the Livingstone statue for a top-to-bottom survey of this natural wonder. While there are lots of waterfall superlatives, Mosi Oa Tunya’s combined height and width give it the largest curtain of water in the world! And I was here in high water season. From the top of the falls, the Zambezi River was rushing into what looked like a white wall of nothingness. Even with no wind up top and minimal clouds, I could tell that this mighty river was creating its own storms down below, and that’s where I was determined to head next!
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Before I even saw the falls as a whole, I headed directly to the Boiling Pot Trail that led to the low point of the Zambezi after it had dropped 354 feet to the bottom of the chasm. My main reason for doing this was that it was 3:00 PM and the trail closed to hikers at 4:00 PM! If I wanted to see the falls from all angles, this would be the time!
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With all breezes from the falls blocked by the canyon walls, it was one toasty descent, and to my great alarm, it was a descent down stairs, my old enemy! While there was shade, the humidity of the jungle kept that heat pretty consistent, which I suspected was going to be a mess on the way back up! I took a break to chat with a family from Spain on their way back up, and it was nice to practith my cathtellano! It also gave me some confidence as I heard baboons barking and rustling in the trees uphill to my left!
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I crossed a bridge over a stream, near where a power station was taking advantage of the Falls’ high season to generate power for Zambia, a process that’s tricky across southern Africa as different countries sell their generated power and “load shed” when the demand for it exceeds their supply! Fawlty Towers had warnings up about load shedding, and generators onsite, but I didn’t experience it. I suspect that was because the river was high and visitation was low. I was reminded of the low visitation as a local teenager stopped me on the bridge and tried to sell me a broken cowry shell he’d just found.
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On the other side of the bridge, the stairs became sunny trail, lined with bright orange flowers, which I learned were Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia rotundifolia). Mexican sunflowers in Zambia! Yes folks, while I was familiar with invasive African plants in California like cape weed and ice plants, exotic species have crossed the ocean in both directions. These pretty orange blooms reached Africa as a garden plant in the early 20th Century and have since become a widespread weed!
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At last, I arrived at the Boiling Pot, which was not actually full of boiling water but sure looked like it! Here, the cliffs have eroded in such a way that they catch the rapidly flowing water and cause it to swirl around. It was here that Nyaminyami, the serpentine river god of the BaTonga was long rumored to live, and it was his pendant that would be offered and explained to me again and again in Zambian markets! It’s widely believed that the region’s regular flooding is because the Kariba Dam cut Nyaminyami off from his wife in 1957!
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Disaster struck on my way back up the trail! Even though I was hustling to reach the top before the gates closed, I wasn’t fast enough. With a whoosh and a whoop, a baby baboon soared over my head, snatched off my kente kufi and disappeared! Oh no! I was too shocked and too scared to talk to her parents and ascended the trail feeling very glum. I had nothing else to wear for the rest of the trip! I was in such a bad mood while I strolled from viewpoint to majestic viewpoint that when a fellow named Ibbwe (“but you can call me Chris”) offered to take my photo and give me a tour… and sell me copper bracelets, I crankily told him I wasn’t going to buy anything from him and walked away!
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Annoyed as I was, I was still determined to experience the Falls to the Fallest, and that meant I had one more spot to check out: the Knife Edge Bridge! Before setting foot on the bridge, I had a single peek through the mist at the mighty Zambezi roaring over the edge! While it didn’t give much of a view of the sheer width of those Falls, the power was unmissable, with a roar impossible to convey in writing!
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And then I set forth, bypassing the raincoat shop because they didn’t have any in my size, and entered not a mist cloud but a monsoon! Oh yes, the force of the falls sending up so much mist into the air that it was coming back down as rain, all over me. I was soaked!!!
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Here’s a video to give you an idea of just how intense that downpour was!
Well, after a while, I realized I wasn’t going to get any more soaked than I already was, and once I realized that, I sure started to have a nice time! On what had been a very hot day, the water was super refreshing, and it was funny watching each different person on the bridge react differently to being drenched! Oh, and by the time I crossed, I was able to look back and see a magnificent Zambian rainbow!
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And here it is at another angle! Isn’t it amazing how the Falls create their own climate? Looking back, it may as well have been a deluge, but right here, it was the exact line between storm and sun, tied together by a band of color. Even though I was one wet beaver, the sight sure made me happy!
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From Danger Point, I was able to view the historic Victoria Falls Bridge, which has connected the Zambia side of the Falls with the Zimbabwe side since 1905! Back then, what are now two separate countries were wrapped up in one called Rhodesia, named for British mining magnate, John Cecil Rhodes, who was also the namesake of the Rhodes Scholarship! Mr. Rhodes was a big proponent of building a railway to connect Cape Town to Cairo, and while this bridge was the result of that project, the railway was never completed! Today, cars and trucks cross the bridge, and thrill seekers can bungee jump off of it! After my hat, I’d had enough thrill seeking for the day. I headed back across the bridge for another drenching and set to figuring out a way back to the hotel!
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Sometimes, it’s good to chat with folks who are trying to sell you things, because they just might have what you’re looking for! In particular, I was looking for a piece of scrap chitenge cloth I could tailor into a new hat, and sure enough, one of the stall keepers was willing to sell me some! And then they helped me get a ride, not from a taxi, but from—gulp—Chris, the guy who had tried to sweet-talk me into buying his bracelets at the Falls! I only had 250 kwacha left (about $14), but that was enough to get in with Chris and his buddy. It sure made me nervous, because I was expecting to be scammed or worse, but nope! Just like in Bodh Gaya, Chris and his pal dropped me off at Fawlty Towers without a hitch, tapping their chests as a sign of respect, which I mirrored, and then they were off. I ordered a pizza (the only thing on the menu at Fawlty Towers, and returned to my room, mosquito-free, to work on my new hat!
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Livingstone is a living stone’s throw from three other African countries, and I had it on good authority that if I were to set foot in this part of the world, I’d be a fool not to visit Botswana’s Chobe National Park! So first thing tomorrow morning, with my new hat, I’ll be catching a ride across international lines for a full day of jeeping and boating through the wild habitat of the Chobe River, which branches off the Zambezi at the border! Maybe I’ll see a leopard and complete my Big Five checklist!
Atwende!
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Total Ground Covered: 607.2 km (438.4 mi) |
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