Victoria Falls - Thundering Smoke of Africa. Victoria Falls. Thundering Smoke of Africa Mysterious natural phenomenon - Thundering Smoke

Since then thanks Scottish explorer, the doctor and missionary Livingston, the world learned about the waterfall, which he named in honor of his Queen Victoria, guests from different countries. Agree, it would be strange to be next to the Thundering Smoke and refrain from visiting such a striking landmark of Africa? And we went there. I drove along and imagined how the Discovery was made... After a long drought, the river was low. But during the night nature recovered a little from the heat, and the warm, clean water smelled of freshness...

The first European on the Zambezi River at the waterfall

That's how it was. The water level has dropped significantly due to drought, but it is not for nothing that the name Zambezi means “great river” in the local dialect. Tropical dragonflies flew over the countless green islands dividing its vast expanse. Countless legions of waterfowl - gulls, waders, cormorants - fed on the rocky shallows; African skimmers silently maneuvered over the surface; fishing eagles scanned the depths in search of fish.

The hippopotamuses were serenely basking in the sun when a narrow, fidgety mokoro swam very close near two dark heads. The rower stood on back side dugout boat and deftly, in complete silence, steered it with a long pole. The punt maneuvered in the middle of the river between slippery and jagged black rocks, overcame the angry currents surrounding them, and slid through rare areas of relatively calm water.

She was heading towards the roaring abyss, where the entire mass of water was rushing. A white cloud of fog hung over the cliff, which continuously fluctuated, then falling, then rising again. Several more heads of hippopotamuses surfaced, which, as if seeing off, turned their small round ears after the boat...

Mysterious natural phenomenon - Thundering Smoke

In the mid-19th century, many believed that the center of the continent was a desert. And he, for many months now, listened to reverent conversations about “Mosi oa Tunya”. Thundering Smoke... And I thought about this phenomenon. What is this? Perhaps in an unexplored part inner Africa is there a large volcanic area? And he went to find this volcano and put it on the map.

But I found something much more remarkable. One day of the trip, suddenly, under a cloudless sky, a rainbow appeared on the horizon. Then distant thunder began to be heard in the hot midday atmosphere, and five columns of smoke became visible above the treetops, as if large areas of grass were burning in the savannah.

All this was incredibly strange; he had to encounter such phenomena for the first time in his life. It is noteworthy that in a district of sixty miles there was not a single local settlement, and this is not surprising: after all, people were convinced that Thundering Smoke was the possession of an evil and cruel Great Spirit.

The black faces of his native companions turned gray at the mere thought of approaching his abode. But he was not at all superstitious or fearful and considered it his duty to study this part of the continent before - after all, he was a missionary! - to bring the light of Christianity here.

Day after day he turned over in his mind possible reasons the emergence of these incomprehensible natural phenomena, until he found himself on the threshold of the greatest waterfall in the world. One of the five great rivers of Africa, the Zambezi, which spread across a spacious valley a good mile wide, interrupted its smooth flow here. A gigantic crack in the earth's crust ran across the riverbed. The water made its way to her through a fringe of small islands and rushed into the abyss with desperate madness.

In the footsteps of the great traveler

And so on November 16, 1855, with a pencil and notebook in his pocket, the greatest explorer in history, David Livingston, sails to one of these pieces of land. The island borders on one of its edges with a waterfall. What the restless European will see, lying flat on his stomach and looking with trepidation into the foamy abyss behind the sheer and inky-smooth ledge from which a thick curtain of water falls, will amaze him for life...

But these two ancient pictures of Victoria Falls, placed in the article, were made not by the hand of the great traveler, but by a completely different European - Thomas Baines, who reached Thundering Smoke on the Zambezi River a few years later than Livingstone.

Pay attention to the lower right corner of the photo with the monument; the same Mokoro boats are included in the composition.

Victoria Falls is included in the UNESCO list of natural sites World Heritage humanity. From national park Chobe, where we were, is not far from this wonder of the world. But the whole difficulty was that, according to the terms of renting our car, we could only drive it around Namibia and Botswana.

We had to arrange with the hotel for them to take us to the Rainbow Hotel in Victoria Falls Zimbabwe using their own transport, and then pick us up a day later.

Without hesitation, I quickly put my things for two days into my bag, Sanya carefully prepared a photo backpack, and here we are on a safari car going to the border with Zimbabwe. It’s good that we left early: by 8 o’clock there was a huge line behind us at the border. We were lucky with the ranger who accompanied us: he spoke with the immigration officer, helped us quickly get a visa and handed us over to a Zimbabwean driver, who dropped us off in a rattling minivan two hours later at a hotel in the town of Victoria Falls.

How to convey the greatness of a waterfall? What art can do this? For more than a hundred years, poets, writers and artists have tried to pay tribute to the outstanding landmark of the black continent and, to the best of their talents, perpetuate it in their creations. But the time has come and digital cameras have appeared that are capable of capturing, down to the drop of precision, the grandeur and beauty of the water flying down.

Now Victoria Falls is captured in millions of photos. We intend to add our contribution to them by photographing sunset and sunrise, and to make these shots in all our skill - after all, he impressed us no less than his discoverer.

From heaven like one of the angels

Huge, powerful and unspeakably beautiful waterfall Victoria... - this is how its discoverer Livingston was convinced - even heavenly angels in flight stare at it! Indeed, to appreciate its scale and understand how it works, you need to look at the thundering smoke of Mosi-oa-Tunya from above. So, take-off command?

Victoria Falls is located approximately halfway between the source of the Zambezi and its mouth.

The river approaches this special section of its channel wide and calm. It flows slowly through flat terrain, forming wide floodplains. A complete idyll: long-legged herons catch pop-eyed frogs in the shallows, elephants knee-deep in water eat purple hyacinths and splash water on each other, eland antelopes graze on the shore...

And suddenly, absolutely unexpectedly, the river bed turns out to be cut by a narrow crack. As if someone had just slashed the living body of the Earth with a sharp knife and the edges of the cut had not yet separated. And a powerful avalanche of water poured into the gaping wound from the entire width of the river.

In a cloud of splashes, with a deafening noise and accompanied by a slight tremor of the earth's bowels, it falls into a deep abyss and seems to go into unknown depths. And this phenomenon of the sudden disappearance of a wide river is amazing.

Below the waterfall there is again almost flat terrain, which is cut through in sharp zigzags by several almost bottomless gorges, along which the Zambezi River runs furiously further. But more on that later.

Interesting facts: the height of Victoria Falls and more

So, a powerful water avalanche falls into a narrow abyss with steep walls, located at right angles to the upper channel. Let's hover right above the waterfall for a minute, but first a few numbers. Because statistics knows everything:

• The length of Victoria Falls (coinciding with the width of the Zambezi River at this place) is 1708 meters.
• The width of the gorge is from one side to the opposite from 50 to 120 meters.
• Depth earth fault at its western end - 80, in the middle - 108 meters. For clarity, my beloved’s bell tower would be hidden there along with the ball and cross crowning it.
• Just imagine: every minute, 500 million liters of water slide over the edge into the abyss during the rainy season. In dry conditions - much less, only 10 million liters. Compare - our standard bathtub holds about 200 liters of water.
• The creations of Victoria Falls are clouds of fog saturated with moisture. They envelop the seething gorge and stretch towards the sky; you can notice them even from a distance of 50 km.

More about Victoria Falls

How does he look compared to his brothers? Surprisingly and unexpectedly, it is not the tallest, nor the widest, nor even the deepest.

Waterfalls	Height (meters)	Width (meters)	Average consumption water (cub.m/sec)	Maximum water consumption (cub.m/sec)
Victoria	108	1708	1088	12800
Niagara	53	792	2400	5720
Iguazu	60-82	2700	1756	6000
Angel	979	107	300	?

And the peculiarity of this grandiose miracle of African nature is that, firstly, this waterfall is located not in the mountains, but in the middle of a flat area. Secondly, none of them have such a wide curtain of falling water. The mountain is falling like diamonds... It creates favorable conditions for numerous magnificent rainbows that connect the opposite edges of the gorge.

By the way, did you know, friends, that a rainbow is not an arc at all, but a circle?

What kind of rainbow is there?

It has been known since school that a rainbow is a special optical phenomenon that occurs when the rays of the sun are refracted in tiny drops of water. “The stream is swift and bright, rushes down in an alluring dance, Dozens of multi-colored rainbows lit up colorfully under the sun...” The beautiful sight of a double rainbow is not so a rare event. Many have seen it after heavy rain, when the air is oversaturated with water droplets and the sunlight is refracted again.

We are all accustomed to thinking that a rainbow has the shape of an arc, since this is how people see it when standing on the surface of the earth. But if you observe this phenomenon at altitude, for example, from an airplane, then the viewer will see a full circle of a series of colors - the outside is red, orange, and so on, ending with the inner purple.

It’s rare to see something like this, and even rarer to photograph it. On the AirPano website, Russian photographers proudly present a photograph of a round rainbow at Victoria Falls, taken by them while filming panoramas for the project.

Victoria Falls is famous not only for its bright and juicy double and triple daytime rainbows, it is one of the few places on earth where there is a high chance of catching and filming such a rare and amazing natural phenomenon like a lunar rainbow.

Are you surprised? How can you see a rainbow at night, because it is the result of refraction of the sun's rays? Friends, correction – not sun rays, but light rays! This effect is possible when the full moon provides enough light and the sky is dark and clear. Moon Rainbow the human eye is perceived as pale and white, although in fact it is just as colorful.

There are even misty rainbows here. They are very faintly colored and appear on columns of suspended water.

In the First Gorge along the ridge of the waterfall

Follow me, reader! Look: the river bed breaks in such a way that the front of the waterfall looks almost like a straight wall. During low water, only isolated streams fall along the rocky surface of the wall. The exposed areas of basalt dry out and stretch almost to the very bottom of the gorge. At this time, it becomes possible (though not entirely safe) to walk along the crest of the waterfall, crossing exposed shallows, treacherous rocks and sections of the river that are so deceptively calm before the sharp fall.

The structure of Victoria Falls from west to east looks like this:

• The first stream - 35 meters wide and 61 meters high - is called the Devil's Falls (or Cataract).
• It is followed by the island of Boaruka (Cataract), three hundred meters wide, where the natives worshiped the evil deity of the waterfall and brought him gifts.
• Behind the island begins the main cascade of the waterfall, called Main Falls. Its width is 460 and height is 83 meters.
• Next comes Livingston Island, overgrown with trees and bushes. It was here that the mokoro of the outstanding African explorer moored.
• The third, horseshoe-shaped stream that disappears during the dry season is the Horseshoe.
• Next comes the place of the most beautiful rainbows - the 99-meter Rainbow Falls.
• The last one is Eastern Cataract - an eastern waterfall, 98m high.

Zimbabwe or Zambia?

Oh, how we wanted to see this amazing natural phenomenon from above! But the helicopter flight cost so much that, tormented by this amount, we overcame our passionate desire. With legs, legs - closer to nature, we decided. And, having caught a taxi, we left the hotel to see the waterfall from our Zimbabwean side, because there was still time before sunset.

Victoria Falls is divided between two countries, Zambia and Zimbabwe, so it is part of two national parks- “Mosi-oa-Tunya” and “Victoria Falls” with an area of ​​66 square meters. km and 23 sq. km respectively. You can cross over to the Zambian side via a bridge, but we were afraid that without a yellow fever vaccination they wouldn’t let us in, so our dreams didn’t extend to the Zambian side.

However, looking ahead, I will say that we were wrong and this time we managed to visit Zambia without much difficulty and with minor financial losses. But the rules for obtaining a visa, unfortunately, often change and the next year we did not cross the Zambian border: one-day visas were abolished, and it would be stupid to buy a monthly one, which costs $50 per person for a couple of hours of stay in the country.

Watch Victoria Falls

We walked in the small Victoria Falls park for almost four hours, until dusk arrived. Of course, we took a souvenir photo with the bronze figure of Livingston, who did not take his eyes off his discovery. We were in Victoria Falls at the beginning of May, when the power of the waterfall was just beginning to decline, and it was incomparable!

On the shore opposite the water curtain, there is a tropical rain forest - dense bushes and groves of mahogany, fig and date palms, walking paths with many viewing platforms from which different points of view of the waterfall. The water of the Zambezi River rumbled, we did not take our eyes off the huge rushing streams. Clouds of water dust either completely covered the waterfall, or, like clouds, spread to the sides. Hundreds of small sparks danced around and played the brightest rainbows I have ever seen.

Friends, remember: the stones on the cliffs are wet, which means they are slippery at the edges observation platforms There are branches and thorns scattered throughout, so it is advisable to choose shoes for the excursion with a secure fit and a hard sole. Hiking sandals that fasten at the ankle are great and will be quite comfortable.

Clothing here should be worn that you don’t mind getting wet; it’s even better if it dries quickly. My option with denim breeches turned out to be far from the best. But I want to note that a raincoat with a hood, usually recommended for tourists for such a walk, is completely pointless. Yes, it will protect you from splashes. But, since it’s forty degrees outside, you’ll sweat under it as if you were just wet. From my point of view, honestly getting wet is preferable.

A major bonus of the dry season: at this time, another rare opportunity is available on the Zimbabwean side - a view of the Victoria Falls from the lower part of the gorge, from where the water usually boils.

Where should we sail?

A huge mass of water, compressed in a narrow canyon, seeks a way out and finds it in one single narrow and short gap leading to the second gorge. Entering it, the powerful stream turns sharply, forming a so-called boiling cauldron with whirlpools.

From here begins a zigzag cascade of narrow gorges with steep, 120–240 meter walls. Together with Victoria Falls itself, there are now eight of them. Did you notice the word “now”?

Various secrets of the Mosi-oa-Tunya waterfall

It's all about secrets - that's where it all begins. For me, my acquaintance with Victoria Falls began at school age with an exciting search for treasures that were safely hidden by the Kaffir kings in a hiding place behind the falling streams. How many unforgettable adventures I had to experience together with Boussenard’s heroes...

Many adults are attracted by the veil of mystery hidden in ancient legends about a giant black snake with a gray-blue head. Chipik, a dangerous and fat monster lives in Mosi-oa-Tunya and drags people into its depths with the help of an unknown force. Well, yes, of course, they saw him.

No, it was not only Africans with fervent imaginations who saw it. Here, for example, is a testimony from 1925 of a certain Mr. V. Pare, who, in shallow water, went down the rocks into the canyon. Suddenly, a snake-like monster shot up from the water in front of him, literally standing on its tail. Several long seconds passed before the terrible creature disappeared into the depths of the cave at the foot of the Devil's cataract...

God knows who this man was and why no one allows himself to doubt the veracity of his story, but there were too many cases of this kind to simply give up on them. There's definitely something going on here.

But the real mystery of Mosi oa Tunya lies in the origins of this geological formation, consisting of a waterfall and seven surrounding steep gorges.

How Victoria Falls came to be

Now geologists adhere to this theory. During the Jurassic period, a huge stream of fiery lava splashed out through cracks in the earth's crust. He created the basalt plateau through which the Zambezi River now flows. But before this, many millions of years still had to pass. As it cooled, the basalt burst, and the cracks were slowly filled with sandstone, a much less durable material than basalt.

And when the powerful Zambezi flow flowed over the sandstone-filled fractures, the river began its endless work of washing away rocks, gradually, over thousands of years, forming a deep gorge with a wide waterfall tumbling into it. The earliest version of Victoria Falls formed about 5 million years ago and was much lower downstream than the modern one. Then the water fell from a cliff 140 m high, and its length was 3.3 km - a much larger formation.

The work of the water continued - it eroded the sandstone in the next crack upstream, and the waterfall moved in a zigzag. This is the eighth waterfall in the last 100,000 years. And not the last. The Devil's Cataract is the starting point for the formation of his next position. The satellite image shows two existing, not yet eroded, but very suitable cracks in the basalt.

Devil's Font and other entertainments

As soon as we checked into the hotel, we went to see what they were breathing in the town. What he saw made me think. It turned out that after the economic crisis in Zimbabwe they live quietly without a national currency. For a hang glider, a helicopter, a bungee jump, a visit to a park with a waterfall - all prices are not only in dollars, but they also really bite.

Zimbabweans are resourceful. To empty the pockets of tourists at Victoria Falls, they offer a lot of exciting opportunities - canoeing and watching the sunset, fishing on the Zambezi, white water rafting on the Zambezi River... But many of the offers are very dangerous.

For example, swimming in a small pool at the very edge of the waterfall at Livingston Island. It is unknown when and who was the first to discover this oddity in the riverbed, but it attracts tourists with hypnotic force. The Devil's Font is a three-meter hole of water, a natural stone barrier separates it from the roaring abyss. The Devil's Pool area is not fenced off in any way from the fast and furious currents that surround it, and, of course, tragic incidents happen here!

On a bridge full of adrenaline

Through the Second Gorge, diagonally to the waterfall, thrown arch bridge, its length is 198 meters and its height is 128 meters above the Zambezi level. This engineering structure is part of the ambitious plan of Cecil John Rhodes - a politician, industrialist, financier and simply an extraordinary person who always wore an old shirt and trousers, although he was the diamond king and founder of the De Beers corporation.

The bridge was built as an element of a strategically important railway, which began in Cape Town, went across the Zambezi River and, according to plans, was supposed to end in Cairo. Fortune turned its back on Rhodes, the grandiose plan did not come true, but the railroad bridge still works great.

Additionally, it is used for pedestrian and vehicular travel. We stopped to take a few photos as heavy trucks transited the bridge and rumbled past the breathtaking views of Victoria Falls.

So, not only can you cross the bridge to the other side, it offers a cool opportunity to jump headfirst on a rope. I wonder why the majority of bungee jumpers are women?

One day, 22-year-old Australian Erin Langworthy succumbed to the temptation to swing on such a giant swing, but it didn’t work out. While bungee jumping from a bridge, her holding rubber rope broke. The free fall began at an altitude of 110 meters. Poor Erin - head down and her legs tied - flew straight into a river infested with crocodiles. The reptiles, who were clearly bored before, immediately became interested...

Fortunately, they managed to save the girl; she escaped with only fright, a broken collarbone, severe bruises and numerous bruises. But... is it worth the risk? Here's the incident on video:

We didn’t take any risks, but just stood on this bridge for a while. Livingston dedicated his remarkable discovery to Queen Victoria, but although she lived for a long century, she never saw this impressive waterfall. But in April 1947, her great-grandson George VI came here along with his wife and two daughters.

One of the princesses - then still very young Lilibet - would become Elizabeth II in the future. From this bridge, the royal family looked for a long time at the Zambezi River, on which two islands received new names in honor of the royal daughters. Now Princess Elizabeth Island belongs to Zimbabwe, and Princess Margaret Island is the territory of sovereign Zambia.

View from the Zambian side of the Thundering Smoke

They don’t say “Zimbabwe” or “Zambia” here; the names of the countries are shortened to Zim and Zam. There is a hot, almost hot sun in the dark blue sky; it sets behind us. It's time to leave Zim and get to Zambia. We walk across the bridge, past the line for the bungee, past the line of cars heading to border control.

“How long will you stay? Are you planning to spend the night in Zimbabwe? We answer: “Yes”, they stamp our passports, then a standard wet rag, we pay for entrance to the park. “And it’s cheaper here,” we rejoice, we receive a piece of paper with route options and walk along Zambian soil.

We are the only white people here – also a kind of attraction. We, as wedding generals, are constantly asked to stand in the center of laughing groups to enliven the composition. Here the park is called “Thundering Smoke”, there is also a monument to Livingston, here is the same waterfall of stunning beauty, the same splashes and sparks.

Only there is not fog here, but a wall of water dust through which you have to walk. How right are those who say that the miracle of Victoria Falls must be seen from both Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Oooh! A gust of wind, a second of tropical downpour and we are wet as mice, not a single dry thread. Having waited until the next flock of visitors passed us, I pulled off my jeans and T-shirt, Sanya wrung them out and I pulled everything back on. I made it on time - another group of also wet and happy Chinese walked past.

Near the park there is a small souvenir market. Everything that was offered to us in Zimbabwe cannot be compared with the local assortment of elephants, hippos, and ebony wood figurines. It was more difficult to walk back across the bridge; my hands were pulling away souvenirs. We were among the last to cross the border, when the sun was almost at the horizon.

Who wants to be a trillionaire?

The town of Victoria Falls greeted us with the hubbub of street beggars and vendors. Seeing the pile of packages and bundles in our hands, they became two, no, three times more persistent. Buy this... Buy that, sir! Very cheap... But in Zim, one of the poorest countries in Africa, everything is shockingly expensive. However, Sanya could not resist and became the owner of a trillion dollars. True, Zimbabwean and out of circulation after the default, but still TRILLION - on the stunning banknote the zeros barely fit on one line.

You know about the annual Ig Nobel Prize, which is a parody of the Nobel Prize? It is always funny and is awarded for useless and meaningless discoveries. A worthy reward for its laureates is a hammer in a glass box or a similar wonderful bill - the original one hundred trillion Zimbabwean dollars in one piece of paper.

What could Zimbabweans get for their fabulous money? Almost nothing, you couldn’t even buy chocolates with such a bill. The Central Bank of Zimbabwe, conducting a currency exchange in the country for $250 trillion in national currency sparingly measured out one good old American dollar. The glory days for those who dreamed of being a billionaire ended after dollarization, and the number of millionaires itself began to decline sharply - after all, the average wage in the country is about $253 per month.

The adventure comes to an end

Dusk came, for a billion people throughout Africa, another day with its joys and difficulties was ending... We had dinner at the hotel at a table by the pool. A local ethnic ensemble performed here this evening. Seeing us as the only and interested spectators, the artists gradually concentrated around us, which allowed us to record their inspired songs and dances on the phone.

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The world famous Victoria Falls, which local residents called “Mosi-oa-Tunya” (“thundering smoke”) - one of the most picturesque and enchanting sights on the African continent.

Victoria Falls is a legendary landmark that attracts tourists from all over the world. Here the mighty Zambezi River falls down, forming a curtain of water almost 2 kilometers long. Such a spectacle greets tourists who come here in the spring, when the river is filled with water to its maximum, so that every second 5 million liters of water fall down 100 meters and 30 km from the waterfall you can see clouds of steam rising above the water.

The waterfall is only the beginning of a picturesque stretch of the river bed, for the river, shrouded in a cloud of spray, immediately rushes with a roar into a narrow gorge, along which it zigzags for almost 70 km. These intricate twists and dizzying turns are caused by cracks in the rock, widened over millennia by the sheer force of water. The Zambezi River meanders across a plateau formed from layers of sandstone and basalt; Where these two different rocks meet, cracks form.

Indeed, the water spray rising from the waterfall forms a cloud that looks like smoke from afar. The waterfall owes its name to David Livingstone, the discoverer and first white man, who saw it in 1885 and decided to name it in honor of the English Queen Victoria. When local natives took him to the waterfall and showed him 546 million liters of water, which every minute crashes into a 100-meter abyss, David Livingston was so shocked by what he saw that he immediately christened it with the name of the queen.

At the waterfall, the width of the Zambezi River reaches 1.6 km. The water falls with a roar into the 106-meter opening formed in its path.

In 1857, David Livingstone wrote that in England no one could even imagine the beauty of this spectacle: “No one can imagine the beauty of the spectacle in comparison with anything seen in England. The eyes of a European had never seen such a thing before, but such a beautiful sight must have been admired by angels in their flight!”

Professor Livingstone described the falls as the most beautiful sight he had seen in Africa: “Crawling fearfully to the precipice, I looked down into the great fissure that stretched from bank to bank of the broad Zambezi, and saw a stream thousands of yards wide tumbling down the hundred feet and then suddenly contracted into a space of fifteen to twenty yards... I witnessed the most wonderful spectacle in Africa!”

The waterfall is extremely wide, approximately 1800 meters wide, the height of the waterfall varies from 80 meters at the right bank of the waterfall to 108 meters in the center. Victoria Falls is about twice as tall Niagara Falls and more than twice as wide as its main part (“Horseshoe”). Falling water creates spray and mist that can rise to a height of 400 meters and above. The fog created by the waterfall is visible at a distance of up to 50 kilometers. During the rainy season, more than 500 million liters of water per minute flow through the falls, and due to the enormous force of the falling water, the spray rises hundreds of meters into the air. In 1958, during the Zambezi flood, a record level of flow was recorded - more than 770 million liters per minute.

Access to the waterfall From the Zimbabwean side, entrance to national park Victoria Falls is paid (25 USD). The hotels are located in the town of Victoria Falls. The closest ones to the waterfall are Victoria Falls Hotel 5*, The Kingdom at Victoria Falls 4* and Ilala Lodge 5*. From the Zambian side everything is much more interesting. If you live in one of the hotels of the Sun International group (Zambezi Sun 3* or The Royal Livingstone 5*, then entrance to the waterfall is free and unlimited directly from the hotel premises. For those who live in other hotels and lodges, entrance is paid - 30 USD In addition, you will have to travel each time, since the rest of the hotels are located upstream of the Zambezi.

The waterfall, according to some parameters, is the largest waterfall in the world, and is also one of the most unusual in shape (the waterfall is an extraordinary sight - a narrow chasm into which the water falls), and has perhaps the most diverse and easily observed wildlife of any section of the falls.

Although Victoria Falls is neither the tallest nor the widest waterfall in the world, its status as the largest is based on its width of 1708 and height of 108 meters, forming the largest sheet of falling water in the world. Numerous islands on the ridge of the waterfall divide the water flow into several branches. The dense fog and thunderous roar produced by the waterfall can be perceived from a distance of approximately 40 km.

A few meters ahead and you fall down along with the waterfall.

Victoria Falls got its name in honor of the English Queen Victoria. In 1855, it was discovered by the famous Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone. In the local dialect, the waterfall is called "Mosi-oa-Tunya", which means "Thundering Smoke". That's what the Makololo people called it, who came to these places in the 19th century. Neither the Makololo tribe nor Livingston were the discoverers of these places - stone artifacts indicate that the first people appeared here more than 3 million years ago.
Livingston became the first European to see this waterfall on November 16, 1855. In his diary he wrote: “Angels in flight looked at places so beautiful.” The waterfall is surrounded by the world's largest curtain of water, the width of which is 1688 m, and maximum depth- more than 100 m. The roar of falling water and splashes flying high into the sky indicate the proximity of the waterfall long before you see it with your own eyes. Water rushes off the cliff into a narrow crevice, the width of which is different time year from 60 to 120 m. The waterfall looks most spectacular in April and May, after which the volume of water gradually decreases until December, when the rains begin to fall again, filling the Zambezi bed.
Lush a tropical forest along the banks of the river is also included in the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park in Zambia and the Victoria Falls and River Park in Zimbabwe. Together, these parks cover an area of ​​56 thousand hectares.
The parks also include sections of the river 5 km downstream and 35 km upstream from the waterfall.
The rainforest surrounding the river contains a number of endemic plants, most notably ferns, which are extremely rarely found elsewhere in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Clouds of spray covering the entire area adjacent to the waterfall create high humidity here, which promotes vegetation. Among the trees found here are teak, phytelephas (matte palm), golden ficus and ebony. Further from the river and waterfall, the typical Kalahari forest begins, covering most terrain. About 30 species of large mammals live here, including elephants, monkeys and baboons.
The river is home to crocodiles and hippos, and the riverside forests are home to more than 400 species of birds, including the rare bright green-breasted Livingstone's turaco, the trumpeter rhinoceros and several species of sunbirds.
During the rainy season, many flowers bloom in the coastal forests, such as red lilies, wild yellow gladioli, palm flowers and a number of other representatives of the local flora.

From a geological point of view, Victoria Falls is very young education. Scientists believe that about 1 million years ago the course of the Zambezi River ran along a wide valley along a plateau to the middle threshold of the Zambezi, where today the mouth of the Matetsi River is located. At this fracture point in the earth's crust, the river falls from a height of 250 m along a vertical slope of exposed rock. The fast current erodes the edge of the waterfall, cutting an increasingly deeper channel into the basalt plateau.
The basalt was formed by large layers of lava that erupted before the Zambezi River appeared. A volcanic eruption occurred here between 100 and 50 million years ago. Lava streams flowed along cracks in the earth's crust, gradually cooling and solidifying. Inside, basalt consists of soft rocks that are easily washed away by water.
By the middle of the Pleistocene period - 35,000 - 40,000 years ago - erosion gradually formed the Batoka Gorge, cutting it approximately 90 km from the current waterfall. Gradually, the falling water eroded the edge of the falls, and the valley began to turn north until it was almost at right angles to the basalt fault lines running from east to west.
Over time, the water carved out the cracks, turning them into stone walls. The river found itself sandwiched inside narrow faults, the walls of which continued to collapse under the pressure of water. Since the faults run from east to west, the formation of a waterfall is only possible when.

Over thousands of years, the water continued to erode the stone until a weak point was discovered, at which, under the pressure of water, the stone layers collapsed, and a new fault was formed, which became a wall for the falling water.

The Scot who discovered Victoria Falls for Europeans was a missionary who spent most of his life traveling in Africa. Following from west coast Africa to the east, he reached the Zambezi River at Sesheka in 1851, but did not see the waterfall until November 16, 1855 and wrote in his diary: “... I saw three or five large columns of water vapor rising to a height of a hundred or more feet " Livingston was so wary of exaggerating the size of the falls that he seriously underestimated its true length and height.
Livingston returned to Africa again in 1865, hoping to discover the sources of the Nile, after which he disappeared. The New York Herald newspaper sent journalist and traveler Henry Stanley to search for him, who in 1871 managed to find the Scot.
Soon after this, Livingston again set out in search of the sources of the Nile, although he was weakened by malaria. He died in the village of Chitambo, in modern Zambia in 1873, without achieving his goal. His remains were transported to England and buried in Westminster Abbey in London.

GUIDE

1. The Victoria Falls Bridge was built in 1905. This 198m long bridge spans the river near the waterfall and offers magnificent views. The bridge is open to trains, cars and pedestrians. The bridge connects Zambia and Zimbabwe.
2. Knife Blade ledge - opens from here best view to the waterfall from the Zambian side. The path leads down along a bridge shrouded in spray to an island surrounded on all sides by water.
3. "Devil's Threshold", the westernmost point of the waterfall, where erosion of the stone currently continues. Nearby there is a monument to David Livingstone, the first European to see the waterfall.
4. The Field Museum, built on an archaeological site. Some of the items found during the excavations are on display here, including evidence that the first people appeared in these places about 3 million years ago.
5. The path along the Zambezi River passes through the rainforest, which gives the opportunity to observe wild animals: baboons, monkeys, crocodiles and elephants, as well as different kinds birds and plants.
6. “Boiling Cauldron” - the point at which the flows river water merge, beginning their fall down into the Batoka gorge.
7. River cruise provides an excellent opportunity to observe life wildlife and feel the calm that reigns on the river above the waterfall.
8. White Water crossing - this risky journey can only be made accompanied by an experienced guide who knows the river rapids. The Zambezi is one of the ten largest timber rivers in the world.

Curious facts

■ Surrounded by coastal rainforest, Victoria Falls on the Zambia-Zimbabwe border is considered one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world. The Zambezi River, which reaches a width of 2 km in this place, thunders its waters from basalt cliffs, raising a curtain of water into the air that can be seen from a distance of more than 20 km.
■ The waters of the Zambezi River rush off the cliff, forming a cloud of spray that can be seen for many kilometers. During floods, about 500 million liters fall down from the cliff every minute. water.
■ “Big Tree,” a type of baobab, grows near the spot where the discoverers of the falls set up camp before crossing the river. According to scientists, the age of this tree exceeds 1500 years.

■ Great amount The spray and water vapor generated when the waters of the Zambezi River fall from the basalt cliffs lead to the formation of small cumulus clouds. Above the waterfall, crocodiles sometimes appear from the river, wanting to bask in the sun in the coastal mud.
■ More than 400 species of birds live around the falls, including weaver birds, which build their amazing nests from blades of grass or other plant material. The Victoria Falls Bridge was built in 1905. It connected the copper and coal mines around Nwange to the railway line. With the advent of the railroad, people began to settle in what would become the city of Livingston.

Lack of access to the sea is not at all frustrating local population Zimbabwe, they have enough miracles in rivers. And one of these miracles is Victoria Falls, surpassing Niagara in height.

I discovered this miracle English explorer and missionary David Livingston. At first, the waterfall only irritated him with its noise, but later the researcher saw all the beauty and power of the waterfall. AND sheer delight resulted in a flattering name in honor of Queen Victoria.

The indigenous population called it " thundering smoke"due to the noisy stream of water falling from a height of 108 km. Water dust rising to a height of up to 400 meters gives birth to huge, extraordinary rainbows that you will not find anywhere else.

Organize observation decks very difficult because Zambezi River flows into a narrow crevice, which is not possible to approach. But through this gorge passes Railway, revealing the inner world of a powerful waterfall.

During the rainy season, up to 500 million liters of water fall every minute, and during drought there are only a few streams. The Zambezi can turn from a deep, calm river into a difficult and dangerous river. Tourists who decide to raft on the river should not forget about this. The waterfall is reliably protected on all sides by nature reserves and is under the strict supervision of UNESCO.