Victoria Falls: There’s lots of water there

Anyone who knows me has known that I’ve wanted to go to Victoria Falls for a really long time – probably since I first went to Niagara Falls with Mom, Dad and Molly on my way out to Grinnell in 1999. There is something so powerful and majestic about water falls that seeing Victoria Falls made sense. Plus, it’s considered one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World AND it’s nicknamed “The Smoke That Thunders”. Who wouldn’t want to check that out?

I decided that I wanted to go when the water was low enough that I could raft all the rapids (21) of the Zambezi River and during the full moon, so that I could see the moonbow – or the lunar rainbow as some like to call it. What is a moonbow, you might ask? A moonbow is a rainbow produced by light reflected off the surface of the moon rather from sunlight – so during the full moon, the light reflects off the spray from Victoria Falls and you can see a moonbow. It’s one of the few places in the entire world where you can see one! Sounds pretty awesome, right? Yes, well it sounds awesome. I wouldn’t know if it is actually awesome since it was cloudy when I was there. Sigh.

Anyway…Mosi-oa-Tunya (the indigenous name for Victoria Falls) may not be the highest falls in the world nor is it the widest – but it is the largest because it forms the largest sheet of water in the world.

I only went to Vic Falls for about two days. I spent the first day getting there. My plane was delayed five hours and upon arrival in Livingstone, one must pay an entrance visa to Zambia. I stayed on the Zimbabwe side, so I also had to stop and pay a visa entrance fee there. By the time I arrived at my hostel, Shoestrings, it was about 5pm. The park closes at 6pm, and all adventure activities were finishing up for the day, so I decided to set myself up at the hostel and hang out with the people there.

The next day, I rafted the Zambezi River. Of the 21 rapids we faced, we only flipped once. This was my first time flipping while rafting and given the horror stories shared to me by Mariah, I was terrified at the prospect. But, I am alive and well with only a few bruises to show for it. On Sunday, I got up at about 5am to make it over to the Falls before heading back to Jozi at 9am.

Check out the photos below!

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I promise I don’t just like to take pictures of myself – I just went to Vic Falls alone so there was no one else to take pictures of! Plus, I know that my Mom misses me, so those are really for her.