Victoria Falls are one of the world’s most arresting
sights, and their surrounds combine the adrenalin capital of Africa, a history
lover’s haven and a hedonistic party zone. With so much on offer, we asked
Emma Gregg to see if it is feasible to take it all in in only three days. As
she reports, it was a tough call.
Day one:
Zimbabwe
Face to Face with
the Falls
“If you
make it all the way to Danger Point, just remember, at this time of year, you
won’t see much because of the spray. But your other senses will be up for
an almighty beating. Just close your eyes and feel the thunder.”
The words of a fellow visitor to Victoria Falls NP came back with resonance as
I battled my way through gusts of spray. He was right — approaching the
most exposed vantage point on the Zimbabwean side of the Falls, every nerve in
my body jangled with the smell, taste, sound and sheer vibration of the mighty
cataracts. The fact that I couldn’t actually see much didn’t matter.
I was suddenly very glad of the umbrella that had, till then, felt like an
absurd accessory on this bright, cloudless April morning. Initially I’d
thought him over-dramatic, but the spectacular power of Victoria Falls in full
flood does that to people. Visitors come away claiming to be cleansed,
spiritually elevated, even enlightened.
By the time the Zambezi River
reaches Victoria Falls it is over a mile wide, powerful but placid. Its sudden,
cataclysmic tumble over a sheer basalt cliff into a narrow gorge about 100m
deep changes its character entirely. Fuelled by energy from the plunge and
crammed into a narrow channel, the river becomes a raging torrent surging
through a steep-sided, zigzagging course.
When the river’s at its
highest, between March and May, over 500 million cubic metres of water cascade
into the gorge every minute, creating an immense updraught which sucks sheets
of water skyward as vapour and spray, only to rain down again in showers. From
30 miles away, the spray looks like a graceful line of smoke rising from a bush
fire. From 60m away, at Danger Point, it’s more like a monumental car
wash, and the bellow is deafening. It’s at this time of year that the
traditional Kololo name for the Falls, “Mosi-oa-Tunya”, or “the
Smoke that Thunders”, seems utterly apt.
The Victoria Falls NP
encloses the Zimbabwean part of the sheer cliff that faces the Falls. Spray
nurtures a pocket of lush green rainforest, a World Heritage Site, home to
bushbuck, Vervet monkeys, butterflies and birds. I followed tidy paths,
bordered by ferns and vine-draped ebonies, mahogonies and palms, between
cliff-top viewpoints with different, eye-level, grandstand views of the mass of
moving water. The section nearest Danger Point is called the Rainbow Falls, but
I soon lost count of the rainbows.
As for the pots of gold —
until recently, Victoria Falls had seemed strewn with them, gripping the
popular imagination since the mid-19th century, when David Livingstone re-named
the Falls after Queen Victoria and publicised them in his notes and
lectures.
Once it was connected by rail to Bulawayo, as part of Cecil
Rhodes’ grand plan for a Cape to Cairo route, the site became accessible
to travellers. A key moment came in 1905 with the completion of the bridge that
spans the Batoka Gorge, running so close to the Falls that the spray rained
down on trains as they crossed, in accordance with Rhodes’ specific
directions.
Visitor numbers grew steadily during the 20th century, but
it was the birth of the adventure sport industry in the early ’80s that
sent the tourist industry into orbit. By the 1990s Victoria Falls was a boom
town, fizzing with new hotels and tour companies. White-water rafting was
raging, punters queued up for what was then the world’s highest bungee
jump and new ideas for action-packed activities bounced from the drawing board
into reality.
But there was growing anxiety about the boom’s
impact on the natural environment. Noise pollution became a serious issue, as
commercial helicopters, microlights and fixed-wing planes competed for airspace
over the Zambezi. Boats began to crowd the river. Controversial schemes to
flout planning restrictions by building higher than tree height, and to start
developing the islands upstream from the Falls, were rumoured. The town’s
population doubled and its infrastructure struggled to keep pace.
The
last eighteen months have seen another radical change, as Zimbabwe’s
political disarray and negative public image have hit the tourist industry
hard. Visitor numbers have plummeted, and a vital source of foreign currency
has been lost. It’s become a time for new approaches and creative
strategic thinking.
Before leaving the park I visited David
Livingstone’s statue. I was alone and it was hard to believe that just two
years earlier, the rainforest was considered threatened by the sheer weight of
visitor traffic.
Despite plans to erect a marker to set the record
straight over the “discovery” of the Falls (after all, there is
evidence that the area has been populated since the late Stone Age),
Livingstone remains a popular historical figure locally, largely thanks to his
forthright stand against slavery. The statue depicts him striding gravely
forward, eyes on the horizon. In his left hand is his Bible, his fingers
clamped between the pages as if marking a suitably inspiring quote.
Livingstone first approached the Falls by dugout canoe in November 1855, the
season when they’re at their driest. Having landed on an island above them
that now bears his name, he walked right to the lip and peered over to see what
he later described as “the most wonderful sight I had witnessed in
Africa”. Lowering a bullet on a string into the gorge, he measured their
depth. Ironically, Livingstone’s discovery was, for him, a great
disappointment in practical terms, since it dashed his hopes of tracing a
navigable trade route from the Upper Zambezi to the coast in order to undercut
the slave trade.
Step Back in Time
The taxi drivers monitoring the National Park gates
knew I was staying at the Victoria Falls Hotel from the colour of my umbrella
and promised me a rock-bottom fare, but I felt like walking, trying to imagine
what it must have been like for the tourists who, from the 1920s to the 1950s,
travelled this route to and from the Falls on hand-pulled wooden trolleys. The
path to the hotel gardens is a pleasant one, through mopane woodland and scrub,
dotted with wild zinnia, like drops of flame.
The Victoria Falls Hotel
has been entertaining visitors in elegant style since 1904. Steeped in history,
it celebrates its past through old photographs, paintings, posters, press
cuttings and trophies lining the walls. Among the glut of memorabilia were a
Rhodesia Railways advert from 1939 (which quotes Lord Curzon’s
militaristic description of the Falls — “the shout of the cataract,
the thunder of the watery phalanxes... spray spumes whizzing upwards like a
battery of rockets into the air”) and photos of King George VI’s 1947
visit, when the royal party took over the entire hotel.
High tea on
the terrace is open to residents and non-residents alike, and is something of
an institution. I took a seat among a mixed assembly. A string quartet
wouldn’t have felt out of place in the genteel atmosphere; the only
intrusion on the calm was the whine of helicopters overhead. The tea itself was
a three-tier extravaganza of delicate sandwiches, scones with jam and cream,
and bite-sized chunks of cake. But nothing could have upstaged the glamour of
the view itself, across sweeping lawns shaded by mango and flamboyant trees to
the gorge beyond, where the stark geometry of the Falls Bridge was softened by
a curtain of spray.
Adrenalin High
Victoria Falls town is a good hunting ground for
textiles, crafts (recycled elephant dung paper a speciality), Shona sculpture,
ceremonial masks and artefacts from all over the continent. Browsing around the
many enticing shops and galleries in the afternoon, I sensed the local
hustlers, moneychangers, curio sellers and adventure activity scouts clocking
me as a newcomer. They’re omnipresent, but then so are security guards
(the security presence in the town has recently been stepped up). When Vic
Falls was full of adventure seekers, it was all too tempting for rogue
operators to try to corner the gullible few.
It seems appropriate
enough that a region whose defining feature is a roar of natural energy is
known as Africa’s adrenalin sports capital. The adventure activity
companies in town were advertising their products like succulent dishes on a
menu, neatly packaged to fill whole days, or longer. Discounts abounded. At the
epicentre of the activity business is Shearwater Adventures, the town’s
biggest and most high-profile operator.
Few visitors to Victoria Falls
are content to view this natural wonder from ground level alone. Aerial options
include a bird’s-eye view from a tethered helium balloon which promises to
“float over the Falls” (not strictly accurate, since it’s
located some distance away, but it’s a quiet ride, good for gentle
contemplation), and, of course, a heart-racing, inverted view, dangling under
the Falls bridge from the end of a bungee rope.
Despite my misgivings
about noise pollution, the “Flight of Angels” helicopter ride seemed
a natural choice. The fifteen minute flight threw the whole landscape into
stunning, three-dimensional focus. A fellow-passenger, who clearly regarded
himself as something of a waterfalls connoisseur, wanted to see how the Falls
measured up against his memories of Niagara and Iguazú. He gave Victoria
Falls top marks for sheer drama.
Sundowners and beyond
I started the evening with a G&T,
watching the hotel’s nightly short but energetic tribal dancing show. One
Shangaan warrior-dancer picked up a chunk of railway track in his teeth,
impressing some nearby Germans so much that they decided there and then to
catch the main show at the Falls Crafts Village the next day. “This is
just the kind of thing that we came to Africa to see,” they explained.
Later, I met up with some rafting guides at Explorers bar in town.
It’s a dog-eared drinking hole with up-for-it slogans like “It
doesn’t get crazier than this!” emblazoned on the walls and, I’m
assured, when the crowds pile back here after a day on the river, wild is the
word. The river was in flood and off-limits for rafts, so the rafters were
fizzing with spare energy. Their sharp haircuts and sharper repartee, pristine
Nike trainers and easy street cred marked them out as a group; plus they had
the kind of muscle tone you’d expect from people who wrestle through grade
five rapids for a living. The sheer-sided, high-velocity zigzag run of the
Batoka Gorge is world-famous in rafting circles. “Some people who come
here aren’t bothered whether they see the Falls or not,” explained
one of the rafters. “They just want to hit the white water. This is one of
the best stretches of commercially run river anywhere, and we have clients who
keep coming back for a fix. The adrenalin is unbeatable.”
At the
peak of the tourist boom, 50,000 people a year paid US$95 to be tossed around
like rag dolls in the teeth of the Zambezi. The price has dropped with the
decline in visitor numbers, and despite an average of two deaths per year, the
course is considered extremely safe, given the difficulty of its rapids.
A couple of bars later I was at the Croc and Paddle, another
thrill-seekers’ hangout, where adventure sports companies show rafting
videos to punters flushed with lager-fuelled bravado. Two young Australian
women took a break from their game of pool to describe their day’s
adventure: bungee jumping off the Falls Bridge. At 111m this is no longer the
world’s highest jump but it’s still one of the most dramatic.
“Awesome” was the general verdict. Their sentences tumbled out and
they had the slightly crazed, dilated pupils of people who had dared and won.
When I asked them why they thought it might be that far more women than men
wanted to try bungee jumping, they didn’t hesitate before coming out with
“It takes guts!”
We headed over to The Kingdom, the heavily
themed hotel complex based on Great Zimbabwe ruins. From the wrought-iron
Ndebele warriors that dominate the entrance to the imitation elephants’
tusks that top the roof domes, the atmosphere is unashamedly commercial.
Skirting the glitzy casino we hit the club, where an upbeat tourist crowd was
dancing to a set that hopped cheerfully between ’50s and ’90s, with a
dose of thumping South African jive thrown in.
Last stop of the night
was the sports club, where Andy Brown and the Storm were playing an open-air
gig on a makeshift stage under myriad stars. As my friends headed off in search
of sadza, chicken and another round of Castle beers, I asked someone if the
band would play on after midnight. “This is Vic Falls, Cinderella!”
was the answer. “They’ll be playing till dawn!”
Day Two: Zambia
Livingstone town, a laid-back
alternative?
The Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park on the Zambian side of the
Zambezi boasts some of the most dramatic views of the Falls. The viewpoints are
a little more rickety and exposed and the Falls feel close enough to touch.
Strictly for the sure-footed is the walk across along the slippery footbridge
that leads to the vertiginous Knife Edge.
I descended the path into
the gorge to face a furious whirlpool known as the Boiling Pot at close range.
Once again, spray fell in thick torrents and I steeled myself for a complete
soaking.
While the tourist industry in Zimbabwe treads water
frantically, just over the border in Zambia, it’s poised for a great
forward surge. The South African hotel giant Sun International is close to
opening a spectacular new US$60 million hotel complex, expected to give a badly
needed shot of energy to both sides of the border. Livingstone airport is
preparing to receive international flights and road improvement plans are in
the pipeline. Border controls are being relaxed to smooth tourist traffic
between the two countries.
Despite much media speculation that the new
arrival will suck even more life out of Zimbabwe’s tourist industry,
Victoria Falls hoteliers are taking a positive, pragmatic stand. Mark
Sonenscher, General Manager of the Victoria Falls Hotel, summed up the mood:
“Sun International are superb marketeers and will publicise the Falls as
never before. This can only benefit us all.” Shepherd Chinhoyi of
A’Zambezi, the large, long-established thatched river lodge on the
Zimbabwean side of the Upper Zambezi, agreed that the whole region badly needs
a revamped publicity drive.
Livingstone is a haven for independent
travellers who have felt priced out of Vic Falls town, or alienated by its
unremitting commercialism, and aren’t put off by the relative shortcomings
of Zambia’s infrastructure. As Graham Nel of the Waterfront, a campsite
and lodge gloriously situated on the riverbank, put it, “At the height of
the tourist boom, it was all too easy for lodges on the Zimbabwean side to
become complacent. Rates were so high, it’s no wonder that clients sought
alternatives.”
Livingstone is far from untainted by tourism.
“Book your activities here and get free beer!” screams the shop front
of one of the adventure agents dotted around town, while posters advertised
events coinciding with the June 21st eclipse. But even now the town has
retained the relaxed atmosphere of an unspoilt community going about its daily
business. Its low-key charm seems a pleasant antidote to the freneticism of
Victoria Falls. Corrugated roofs shade the verandahs of Indian-owned shops
selling everything from shoelaces to bicycle saddles, and there are glimpses of
art deco architecture. In an interesting museum, I found (among taxidermy,
fetishes and reconstructions of village life) a satisfying collection of
memorabilia of David Livingstone himself, including a replica of the
lion-damaged arm bone by which doctors identified his remains after his
death.
Jonathan Gill, who has chosen the Zambian Upper Zambezi as the
base for Victoria Falls River Safaris, his innovative river tour company, is
enthusiastic about Livingstone: “In time, the town itself will become an
attraction, with visible colonial remnants. I find being part of the
‘Livingstone Renaissance’ very exciting.”
Day three:
Zimbabwe
Swing Out
Sister
Ready for some adventure, I joined up with The Zambezi Swing, a groundbreaking
outfit who three years ago set up an abseiling route down the sheer rock face
into the gorge, then installed the world’s first commercial “flying
fox” high wire, followed by the world’s only cable gorge swing. Try
everything as much as you like in a day, for as long as your stamina holds.
The flying fox felt like a playground ride, and everybody loved it.
Spanning the top of the 75m-high gorge is a 135m horizontal cable, with a
sliding pulley system hanging from it. Once firmly attached, you take a running
jump from a wooden platform and then coast smoothly across the wide open space.
One Canadian teenager pronounced it “better than any roller coaster”.
We were soon competing to see who could fly furthest.
The gorge swing
is much more death-defying, requiring a full body harness attached by a rope
system to another gorge-spanning cable. After a couple of long seconds of
gut-curdling free fall as you plunge for 50m, you cruise into a graceful
Tarzanesque swing. When it was my turn, the jungle yodel that I’d hoped to
summon on the descent came out as a terrified squawk. Still, the horror of the
drop was worth it for the chance to swing like a pendulum over the
treetops.
The only way out of the gorge is to climb on wobbly legs.
The path isn’t impossibly steep, but I was still astonished when our guide
Paul told me that it’s not unusual for hyper-charged, adrenalin-crazed
enthusiasts to do ten gorge swings in succession and still have energy for
more.
A sunset cruise on the glossy Upper Zambezi seemed like the
perfect way to unwind. Most of my companions aboard the MV Makumbi were
twenty-something overlanders, high on the thrill of an afternoon carving up the
gorges in a jet boat. The combination of marimba band, onboard barbecue,
free-flowing alcohol and a flawless golden sunset made a hard party
inevitable.
“Scenes so lovely…”
Experiencing first-hand
the kind of fluttery anticipation that David Livingstone must have felt as he
approached the Falls for the first time, I paddled south down the Upper
Zambezi. My canoe, unlike Livingstone’s, was a silver-grey inflatable
“croc boat”, designed for maximum stability but still easy enough for
a hippo to capsize. Quentino, my guide, had already run through the drill in
such cases — abandon boat and swim like hell for the shore.
Canoe
guides spend six months training before they can take tourists out on the river
— twice as long as rafting guides. They acquire a detailed knowledge of
river flora and fauna. Quentino pointed out medicinal trees and fruit among the
ilala palms, wild date palms and fig trees lining the banks. Perhaps I looked
under the weather.
It was about this stretch of the Zambezi, rather
than the Falls themselves, that Livingstone coined the much-quoted phrase
“scenes so lovely must have been gazed on by angels in their flight”.
It seemed fitting, then, that shortly after dawn, I’d flown over this same
broad ribbon of river in a microlight, piloted by Kevin Kinton of Batoka
Sky.
As different from a helicopter flight as riding pillion on a
motorbike is from travelling by minibus, I’d loved every second. Without
the obstruction of walls or windows, my connection with the elements was total.
Thanks to our headsets I could chat to the pilot, and, flimsy though these
engine-driven kites look, I felt completely safe.
We circled the
Falls, dipping into their musky, misty breath, then headed upriver above
oblivious elephant, long-shadowed zebra and impala, searching in vain for
rhino.
Now, down at river level, the canoe cut an easy course through
the fast-flowing water and Quentino aimed deftly for the middle of the
“baby rapids” he had promised me. A wave of brown water hit the bows,
drenching me, and Quentino whooped like a banshee.
A Whole-Earth
Approach
Back in Zimbabwe, I visited the Africa Centre for Holistic
Management, well off the beaten track. Here, Huggins Matanga, Roger Parry and
their team run an organic farm and research centre, and mastermind community
outreach projects, including microcredit systems and permaculture gardening
training for local village women. One of their key goals is to encourage
“planned grazing”, whereby the movement of cattle is strictly
controlled, to minimise soil degradation and allow livestock to co-exist
comfortably with wildlife.
The centre has accommodation and is
developing a programme of game walks and drives, bush skills awareness courses
and elephant-back safaris. Soon, the team hopes to establish a Wildlife
Training Institute to give community members skills that will enable them to
tap into the growing interest in eco-tourism. “At present,” Roger
Parry explains, “the Vic Falls tourist industry obtains most of its key
personnel from elsewhere, and the prosperity that tourism brings bypasses huge
sections of the local community.”
Tough though the decline in
tourism has been, there’s general agreement that this is the ideal time to
re-evaluate its impact on the environment. Namo Chuma of Environment 2000, an
NGO actively involved in promoting environmental awareness in the area,
remarks, “Our greatest challenges lie in ensuring that development is
handled responsibly and in finding constructive methods of eliminating
poaching, both of wildlife and of hardwoods for carvings and fuel.”
The preservation of the Falls themselves depends on efficient
collaboration between Zimbabwe and Zambia. Chuma is optimistic on this point.
“The environment knows no political boundaries,” he points out.
“Zimbabwe and Zambia have a shared interest in the health of the Zambezi
River and every new development proposal is subjected to an Environmental
Impact Assessment. There is already strategic liaison between planning
committees on both sides. We just need to strengthen these
relationships.”
Into the Safari Zone
Later I dropped in at Spencer’s
Creek Crocodile Ranch and Wildlife Sanctuary (home to 15,000 Nile crocodiles)
with Lloyd Herschel of Landela Safaris. Lloyd introduced me to three sibling
lions, orphaned as tiny cubs, which he’d hand-reared while he worked at
the ranch. It was a labour of love — to begin with, the cubs had to be
bottle-fed every four hours. They’re now four years old and sleek —
“Overweight,” tutted Lloyd with avuncular concern. Docile and
affectionate, they even consented to his showing me their huge teeth and
claws.
This was my only encounter with lion, yet the Victoria Falls
area is surprisingly rich in game. Game drives, birding walks, horseback and
elephant-back safaris are all available.
I enjoyed a peaceful ramble
aboard a teenage elephant called Lundi through the 2000-acre Nakavango Estate.
Under the gentle encouragement of her induna (carer), Lundi was a patient
guide, pausing only occasionally to graze succulent greenery, and rumbling
contentedly with that distinctive elephant noise that sounds like
indigestion.
That evening I enjoyed a fabulous dinner with a party of
gregarious Americans at Sekuti’s Drift, a charming colonial-style lodge
situated in open bush outside Victoria Falls town. For some, the trip was their
first taste of Africa and the realisation of a great dream. Aware of
Zimbabwe’s troubles, but undeterred, they were glad to have been able to
form first-hand opinions. Everything fascinated them, and they had quickly
concluded that with so much to enjoy around the Falls, two or three days is
barely enough time to scratch the surface.
I had to agree. Sipping my
after-dinner Amarula beneath the moon, I couldn’t help thinking that if I
were staying a little longer, I might even have tried the gorge swing
again.
Victoria falls
factfile
Getting there
If you want to travel direct to the Falls your best bet is
Air Zimbabwe’s new flight from Gatwick (London). However there are bucket
shop and discount tickets for some flights from European centres to
Johannesburg, Windhoek, Harare and Lusaka. There are links from these African
centres, and Botswana, to Livingstone and/or Victoria Falls airports –
daily between Harare and the Falls. Connections from Mozambique, Madagascar,
Mauritius and Malawi to Harare enable you to get to the Falls fairly easily
from those countries too.
Several tour companies operate road
transfers or excursions from Kasane (Chobe) in Botswana to the Falls. If
you’re driving, the Falls are about 80km from Kasane, 440km from Bulawayo
(on excellent roads) and 480km from Lusaka over not such good surfaces.
Holders of American and many European passports will require visas for
entering Zambia but not Zimbabwe. In both countries, however, a return air
ticket, or proof of sufficient funds for those driving, may be asked for.
Where to
Stay
On the Zimbabwean side
there are three camping areas (one with basic rest huts) and four backpacker
establishments catering for budget tourists. Two hotels, seven lodges and a
block of flats accommodate middle price range tourists whilst those seeking
upmarket hotels or lodges will find seven of them in the municipal area and
numerous safari camps a short drive from town. In town there takeaways and
cafés, two steakhouses and restaurants in the hotels.
On the
Zambian side backpackers will find three campsites and, in Livingstone, some
basic accommodation. Along the riverbank are half a dozen, mainly upmarket,
lodges. The three star Zambezi Sun Hotel and the five star Royal Livingstone
Hotel, both operated by Sun International, opened in April and May
respectively.
When to go
This depends on what you want. Between April and June the water flow is
greatest, the gorge heavily misted, the rainforest wet and rainbows appear
overhead. The volume is lowest from September to November and the view of the
Falls very clear. However from October onwards it can get very hot and humid,
particularly during the rains (November and March).
Water volume also
determines the type of rafting experience you will have. During low water times
some of the rapids get quite cheeky (Class 4 or 5 on a 6-point scale) and
they’re a bit more friendly when the waters are high. There are half day,
full day and 3 – 8 day rafting trips. They start and finish at different
points and the climb out on the shorter runs is demandingly steep. Establish
what you want before booking.
What to do
About fifteen different companies, based in Victoria Falls and Livingstone,
offer activities including: guided tours of the Falls; scenic light plane,
helicopter and microlight flights; balloon rides; horse, elephant and mountain
bike riding; parachuting, bungee jumping; white water rafting, canoeing,
kayaking, riverboarding; abseiling, gorge swinging, fishing, jet-ski and boat
cruises on the river; game drives and visits to the curio markets, snake and
crocodile parks.
A Closing Note
Because of the drop in the number of visitors to Zimbabwe some establishments
and operators on this side may have shut down. However the problems afflicting
other areas in the country have not impacted on the resort other than perhaps
fuel shortages. If anything visitors are now better off, for the crowds have
disappeared and the competition for their patronage intensified.
London-based Emma Gregg has travelled extensively throughout
Africa and has contributed to numerous travel guides including West Africa
– The Rough Guide and Kenya – The Rough Guide.
