Sawubona! (Greetings!) We visited the town of Victoria Falls (VFA), which was established in 1964, well after its Zambian counterpart, Livingstone, was established, which is why VFA is smaller than Livingstone. David Livingstone was a missionary from Scotland, who arrived in Zimbabwe in 1855. He saw the Falls, and was the one who made the Falls known to others. People started coming to see the Falls in 1876, but there was no road on which to access the Falls. As a result, in 1904, they started to build a train that would provide access. VFA is the only town situated within Victoria Falls National Park.
VFA, named after Queen Victoria, is twice as long and twice as deep as Niagara Falls in the USA, and is deeper than Iguazu Falls, which straddle Brazil and Argentina; however, Iguazu is wider. VFA is one big curtain of falls, and the native words for the falls (Mosi-Oa-Tunya) means “the smoke that thunders.” At its longest, VFA has a 320-foot drop, and the water is 50m deep. 80% of the Falls viewing is on the Zimbabwe side, and the path along which visitors walk to view the falls is about a mile long. On the Zimbabwe side is Devil’s Pool, which is a pool of water that is precariously perched on the edge of the Falls. Individuals who dare to get to it have to swim out to it, and it is closed when the water level is too high (which is usually during the rainy season). Angel’s pool is the equivalent on the Zambia side, and you can apparently get to it by walking on rocks, and it is less dangerous…apparently. We did meet some travelers in Zambia who had done Angel’s Pool the day before and had amazing photos and video from it. We did not do any of that…but I digress. There are 15 lookout points on the Zimbabwe side of the Falls. However, because it was raining the day that we toured the Falls, we did not get very many clear photos, as you can see here. However, it was still a pretty amazing sight! We were told that once every 10 years or so, VFA floods and creates an entire curtain of water such that you cannot see the land beneath. The water falls into the Zambezi River (zahm-beh-zee; the fourth largest river in the world, which flows through Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Zambia), the gorge of which eventually flows into the Indian Ocean.
Fun Fact: Zimbabwe means “houses of stones” (“zima bwe”). 16 million people live in the country, and there is a bridge from Zimbabwe to Zambia, which was built in 1905.
We left Zimbabwe via car, and we were driven one hour to the Kazungula border of Botswana, where we went to Zimbabwe customs, walked through a gate to another area that took us to Botswana customs, and then onto Kasane (15 minutes away)…