Mosi-Oa-Tunya
“People need wild places. Whether or not we think we do, we do. We must be able to taste grace and know once again that we desire it.” — Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia.
Titles, names, labels — whatever you want to call them — fabricate a variety of emotions. Imagine a random place like Sunnyvale, California. I have never been and probably will never have any reason to go, but what do you picture? I see a comfortable, untroubled life that exudes warmth. Sounds lovely. What do you think when you hear the name Devil’s Pool? Pretty terrifying. Located on the very edge of Victoria Falls in Zambia, a natural pool that, at certain times of the year, turns into a swimmable tourist spot that genuinely lives up to its nerve-shattering title.
I was clinging to a hollowed-out piece of eroded wood posing as a boat. One arm was wrapped around a rusty piece of wood, and the other was free, with fingers outstretched in the water, dancing against the current of the Zambezi River. This river, a lifeline in Sub-Saharan Africa, resembles, from high above, one of Mother Earth’s pulsating veins sustaining Africa’s heart.
The boat began to wane, and the river current became more vigorous. In front of me on the horizon was mist rising 100 feet in the sky, clouding over the falls from the raging uproar of water, which was freefalling 355ft down to imminent death. As National Geographic illuminates in their article on the falls, “Scottish explorer David Livingstone may have named the falls after his reigning queen in 1855, but the Kalolo-Lozi people had their name for it — Mosi-oa-Tunya, ‘the smoke that thunders.’ And you immediately know why after seeing the plumes of mist that hover around the largest waterfall in the world as it roars,” creating an awe-inspiring spectacle.
Getting to the pool was a challenging task. We had to walk over moist, slippery rocks and swim over a river, holding onto a rope line; if we let go, we would meet our demise over the falls. Thankfully, we had guides to bring us along the way who had done this trek probably hundreds of times. The guides’ daily routine of trekking the edge of the waterfall and swimming in the natural pool several times a day seemed insane. But they did it with composure and even smiled as they cannonballed into the water. That’s what nature does for people; you feel an indescribable taste of freedom; it’s like a butterfly landing in your hand, and once you have it, you do not want it to leave you. Still, eventually, it does, and you try to run after it again, trying to grasp it.
The time had come, as my arm had let go of the rock and, in an instant, submerged myself in the water under tow and pushed me to the edge of the falls where the natural stone wall blocked me from plummeting. When I swam up to the edge, I felt as if I were flying over the falls; the rushing of the water engineered its own cloudburst, with rain droplets coming from above the cavern below where hiding in the condensation was a rainbow between the cliffs of the waterfall. What I remember most wildly, though, was the jolting pain of the tiger fish that would constantly bite you, scraping away at your dead skin cells; sometimes, if I remember about it for too long, it feels like they’re still there; it was too painful. Still, to say it didn’t hurt would be an understatement. It felt like a sudden electricity zap whenever you touched a metal object.
I can’t express the unparalleled feeling of freedom the natural world gives us. Yvon Chouinard’s words perfectly evoke the unmatched desire to taste grace once more. Victoria Falls was the match that started a fire in me to run after a passionate desire to seek adventure once more. A friend reminded me of this by saying, “Go on a trip, get home, and start planning the next. That is how we were made: to always have new experiences and learn from them. Life is too beautiful to experience only 80 years of it.” So I tell you, the reader, to go out there and explore. Due to unavoidable circumstances and responsibilities, many people can’t go off on a global journey. Travel means wandering in the unknown; it doesn’t say how far. Explore your town, city, state, or country; just go out there and see what this world offers.