from the west...: Zambia! An action-packed day at Victoria Falls

At the end of October, Pete and I headed to Zambia for our one-year-delayed trip with our friends Andrew and Jenny. Five days before our flight, our plans became highly uncertain when Pete was told a 3.5 week-old bee sting may have turned into a joint infection or blood clot, both of which would preclude him from going anywhere. After some serious string-pulling by his PA, he managed to get a MRI, ultrasound, and multiple blood tests within 24 hours. Fortunately, it turned out to be "just" a tissue infection that required a strong dose of antibiotics. This was a frustrating turn of events because he had been to the doctor the week before for the same problem and they told him to take more ibuprofen. Sigh. With antibiotics in hand, details on the IV antibiotics that he could get at a Zambian hospital if the first course didn't work, and guidance on what to do in case of a suspected case of C. diff (which, or course presents itself exactly like travelers diarrhea), off we went.

Our flight route took us from San Francisco to Dubai on Emirates Airlines, which was fantastic. We had an overnight layover, and the airline provided us with dinner and a hotel. After a 15 hour flight, it was so nice to lay down before our next seven hour flight to Zambia. We were worried about Covid testing requirements if we left the airport, but the airline assured us it would not be a problem. Sure enough, we did not need to show new test results to go through security in Dubai since we already had our boarding passes and did not have to re-check in for our flight.

We arrived in the capital of Zambia, Lusaka, in the early afternoon and headed to a camp outside of town to recover from our long flights. We knew that we'd be sleeping in a tent for the next three weeks, so we opted for a proper bed to try to get over our jet lag as quickly as possible. After a good nights sleep and an enjoyable morning at Pioneer Camp, we headed back to the airport for our flight to Livingstone on the southern border of the country. My seat was in the sun for much of the flight, so I was nearly denied entrance to the airport because my skin temperature was too high. Fortunately, the health screener let me sit in the air conditioned room for a few minutes so I could cool down. Whew!

The plan was for us to have a day touring around Victoria Falls before meeting up with Jenny and Andrew. After we got settled in our tent cabin at the Victoria Falls Waterfront Lodge outside of Livingstone, we headed to the lodge to inquire about our dinner options. As we walked into the parking lot, we spotted a familiar looking Land Cruiser, but we were not completely sure it was our friends' truck until Andrew came around the side. Finding each other was a major success! We had not worked out a communication plan in case something went wrong, and plenty of things can go wrong, so seeing them was a relief. They had arrived a day earlier than planned, but we decided to stick with the original schedule anyway. They needed a day to rest and provision before we headed back out on the road, and we wanted to get a glimpse of the falls.

We started our day at Victoria Falls, or more appropriately - Mosi-oa-Tunya (smoke that thunders in the Kololo and Lozi languages) - with a short boat trip down the Zambezi River to Livingstone Island. The island sits on the edge of the falls, giving spectacular views up and down the gorge. Mosi-oa-Tunya is one of the seven wonders of the world and a World Heritage Site, so we knew it would be spectacular, but being that close to a 330 foot (100 meter) curtain of water was incredible. And we were there in the dry season! Although we were not seeing the full force of the falls, one of the advantages is that we could actually SEE the falls. During the rainy season, the spray from the waterfall is often so thick that you cannot see the falls (hence the name, smoke that thunders). We were greeted with lovely views and rainbows arching across the gorge. Another feature of visiting in the dry season is that you can swim in nature's version of an infinity pool at the very edge of the falls. After a short swim from the island, we were guided to the Devil's Pool, a deep basin with a broad ledge perfect for perching and looking over the edge of the falls. It was exhilarating! Pete and I were the first ones in our group of eight to be guided up to the ledge so we could look over the edge and have our picture taken 100 times. I was pretty happy to get my feet out of the deep pool where we were being bitten, often times quite hard, by some type of little fish. Lying on the rock ledge and looking over the falls was a bit surreal and pretty incredible (and felt completely safe, Mom). We had a lovely breakfast on the island before our boat trip back along the quiescent Zambezi. This was our first look at some of the water birds that we would become quite familiar with as our trip progressed.

Our first glimpse of the "Smoke that Thunders" from the boat

Standing on the edge of Livingstone Island and a

good look down the gorge that the water tumbles into

A double rainbow across the gorge

Looking over the edge into the abyss

Look, Mom! No hands! (the guide has my foot)

Pete flying out of the Devil's Pool

Post-swim breakfast

We knew Livingstone Island would likely be our best opportunity for getting a close-up glimpse of the falls, and it did not disappoint. During the dry season, it is recommended to view the falls from Zimbabwe rather than Zambia. Only about a quarter of the falls are visible from Zambia, much of which often has little flowing water during the dry season. Unlike most waterfalls I have seen, Mosi-oa-Tunya falls off the river plain into a wide horizontal gorge (instead of a vertical one), creating the largest falling curtain of water in the world (aka not the tallest or widest waterfall, but collectively the biggest). This gorge, which is closed on both ends, then funnels all the water into another gorge that is perpendicular to the first. The second gorge forms the border between Zim and Zam (imagine an offset "T" where the top bar is the falls and the vertical is the river gorge). Due to Covid-related border restrictions, however, it was going to be a bit of a hassle, if not impossible, to cross over to Zimbabwe for the day.

Back on dry land, our next stop was the Victoria Falls World Heritage Site just down the road. There are a number of walking paths that lead out to various vantage points within the park. After the reading I had done before our trip, I was expecting the falls to be completely dry on the Zambian side, so I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of water cascading into the gorge. There were also very few people in the park, so we mostly had the walking paths to ourselves. One of the other nice things about going to the falls in the dry season is that you can see the underlying geology of the basalt gorge that the river has been cutting into for thousands of years. In fact, downstream from the current gorge are seven other gorges that were the former sites of the waterfall. The river keeps cutting back successively through the basalt fault lines. It is a very clear reminder of how drastically water can alter a landscape.

Looking down the gorge from the dry side towards

Devil's Pool.The gorge running off to the left is

the gorge that takes the water downstream.

End of the gorge on the Zambian side of the falls

Our last activity for the day was an extra special one. Because we couldn't go to the Zimbabwe side, we decided to take a helicopter flight over the falls, though the series of gorges downstream of the falls, and over Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. It was my first flight, so Pete let me sit in the front. He has been in many helicopters doing water sampling in New Zealand or getting ferried around in the Antarctic. We were in a small helicopter that sits four people, so it was just the two of us and the pilot. When we arrived they wanted to confirm that we were doing the 17 minute flight, but I told them we wanted to do the 22 minute flight. They are so dialed into their fuel needs that they had to add fuel to the helicopter for that extra five minutes! The flight pattern took us over the falls multiple times, giving us a really great aerial view of the river, waterfall, and downstream gorges. The flight over the falls was amazing, but the gorge was even more incredible. We were feet above the surface of the river, pinned in by the rocky walls, and banking hard to the left and right as we made our way downstream through the seven gorges. Our pilot had clearly done that flight thousands of time (thankfully!). We circled the National Park a couple times, seeing buffalo, elephants crossing the river, and a few zebra before landing back at the hangar.