«The Smoke that Thunders» - The Victoria Falls – Zambia

June 2024 · 4 min read · Livingstone

Our planet does have so much beauty and wonderful places to visit. One of them is definitly Victoria Falls. This huge and powerful waterfall is located on the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. Both countries offer amazing views of the fall, so one should visit both sides. We stayed on the Zimbabwe side and visited the Victoria Falls National Park on this side first. Two days later we went to the Zambian side. Besides a walk along the falls, we also went to Livingstone. This rather small town is only a 10 kilometers drive from the border. The falls, named after Queen Victoria, has another name – « Mosi-oa-Tunya«. This name means «the smoke that thunders». The name probably derives from the fact that you are able to see the spray and hear the sound of water from far away. This waterfall was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2007.

What we did, was a guided tour to the Zambian side. We booked with a company in the Victoria Falls town (Zimbabwe). A driver took us to the border where we then met our local Zambian guide. He took us on a walk along the falls towards the «end» - the Zambezi River. We could look to the Zimbabwe side and saw some people standing on the ending point on that side. He made many stops to give us information about the falls.

At the entrance to the park there is a model showing how it has developed. During thousand of years, the currents of the Zambezi River has changes the landscape, by carving out deep canyons. We learned that the Zambezi River has a length of 2736 kilometer. This makes it the fourth largest river on the African continent. We were told it originates in Congo and runs through several countries before it reaches the sea in Mosambic. The river forms the Victoria Falls, with a vertical drop of some 100 meters. This curtain of water is approximately 1700 meters wide. An impressive, wet and noicy experience that does sound like thunder. The amount of water does vary. This depends on the different seasons. When we were here it was not at it highest level, but we did need our raincoats.

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Now we are as far as we get. This place is calles Gorilla head View Point. The river is beneath us. From this point we can look to the Zimbabwe side and the Victoria Falls brigde between the two countries. We return along the same trail back across the Knife Edge Bridge.

Knife Edge Bridge

After this walk we had a couple of hours in Livingstone town. The guide took us for a drive along the main road to see the many beautiful Edwardian buildings. While driving, pointing out important colonial buildings, he made sure to give us some historical background. This town is named after the Dr. Livingstone, who were the first European to see the falls in 1855. Livingstone was important during the colonial period. It became the capital of the British Protectorate of what was then Rhodesia (1911 – 1935). Except for the colonial buildings, we also passed the Maramba Market and drove through recidential areas. Unfortunatly I didn't get a chance to get any good photos while driving.

After an hour of driving we were dropped at a real nice restaurant to have lunch. To sit outside in the garden was a good way to end the visit. My lunch concisted of a pizza with crocodile and a cup of coffee. We could have spend more time in Livingstone. There are interesting markets and museum. But the point was to «see» this town, which is very different from the Victoria Falls town where we were staying.