Victoria Falls

Ted. 

Considered by CNN to be one of the “Seven Natural Wonders of the World,” Victoria Falls is not on the way to anywhere. However, we really wanted to see it so we made a big detour from South Africa, flying from Johannesburg to the sleepy village of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Vic Falls, as it is know locally, is on the Zambezi River, which forms the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. Since we did not plan to return, we also chose to go through the extra hassle and expense to cross the border and see the falls from the Zambian side as well. 

There is a very definite dry season and wet season here and we arrived at the end of the wet season to find the Zambezi overflowing its banks and absolutely roaring over the falls. The resulting “mist” took the form of a torrential rain and from some of the viewpoints there were actual “white out” conditions. We would stand at an outlook for a few minutes in the downpour awaiting a 15 second pause when the “mist” would part to reveal the falls.

Try to imagine four Niagara Falls together because Vic is more than double the width and double the height of Niagara. At peak flow, we are talking 150,000,000 gallons per minute! This should give you some sense of what we saw, or rather felt. I don’t believe there is a single spot where you can see the entire falls. You just glimpse portions of it but that is enough. I’ve included a couple of my snapshots but please check the falls out on Youtube.

We have had an opportunity to see several remarkable manmade wonders on this trip but the Architect of Victoria Falls beats them all, hands down!

Wild animals roam through the towns of Africa just like squirrels in Atlanta. But, we are talking warthogs, monkeys, elephants and scarier things. So, when we stopped for a snack at a little cafe near the falls, we pretty much ignored the troop of baboons wandering around. As they started to come closer, Judy had decided to move from an outdoor table to an indoor one. Just as she stood up a baboon jumped up on the table and snatched both bags of potato chips out of her hand and ran off to peals of laughter from the the locals inside. This was one of the great photos I didn't get but I did snap a shot of the warning sign outside the cafe. 

I also feel compelled to comment briefly on what we saw in the little town of Vic Falls. Zimbabwe was once a fairly wealthy country but seeing up close the manmade natural disaster that has occurred over the past 37 years just broke our hearts. We haven’t seen this level of poverty since we visited Nicaragua. Floods, famine and natural disasters can bring an economy to its knees but the brutal political choices of Robert Mugabe have absolutely destroyed this once proud people. It is a lesson that is being discussed right now in South Africa where roughly three million illegal Zimbabwean refugees struggle to survive. A young black South African that we met said, “If President Zuma does to South Africa what Mugabe did to Zimbabwe, where will we go?”