The Smoke that Thunders
Another truly inspiring experience on this Social Sabbatical was our visit to the Victoria Falls, in the second weekend.
For most of us, it was the first time that we saw these massive falls, which are one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1989. The water falls approximately 100 meters down from the Zambezi River on the Zambian side, and it is considered to be the largest waterfall curtain in the world.
This wall of water has also an indigenous name ‘Most-oa-Tunya’, which means ‘The Smoke that Thunders’. The name “Victoria Falls” was given by a Scottish explorer Dr. David Livingston, who was the first European to see the falls (in 1855), and named the falls after Queen Victoria, who was the queen at his time.
It was fortunate that were very early at the airport of Harare on Friday afternoon, because soon after our arrival we got the message that the morning flight had been cancelled and that the passengers of that flight were put on our flight of 4 pm (merging the two flights). As we were the first in line we were lucky that all of us got the last available seats on the airplane (only 1 left after our Group checked in) and all the other passengers probably had to wait for the next flight (the next morning).
After our arrival in Victoria Falls and check-in into our hotels, we had booked a dinner in the famous Livingstone room of the luxury Victoria Falls hotel. This dinner fulfilled a long wish of our Italian team member Caterina, who had been in Victoria Falls 9 years ago but by then did not have the chance to ‘experience’ the Livingstone room of this beautiful colonial hotel and wanted to do that ever since…
On Saturday morning after a relaxing breakfast in the ‘Elephants walk’, we went to see the falls. Although we are at the end of the dry season and therefore there was much less water thundering down, it was a real spectacular sight!
We really enjoyed the walk a long the curtain of water, and took our time to take many pictures and to enjoy the light fresh spray of water (cooling us down a bit in these warm temperatures).
In the late afternoon we were picked up for a sunset cruise on the Zambezi river. We enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere with drinks and snacks while watching the hippo’s swimming around us in the river. The sunset on the Zambezi river was another spectacular highlight.
The next morning a few of us went up early to view the falls at sunrise, which gave a completely different view on the Falls than during the day.
In the afternoon seven of us booked a ‘Flight of Angels’, a helicopter flight which is named after David Livingstone when he wrote on discovering The Falls “Scenes so lovely; they must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight”.
The flight was really amazing! After take-off, the helicopter turned out towards the Victoria Falls. The pilot flew 4 circuits over the Falls in both directions before it continued up river and back over the Zambezi National Park to complete our flight.
Although ‘The Smoke that Thunders’ was ‘s bit ‘dryer’ and less ‘smokey’ than a few months ago during the rain season, it was really an amazing experience to have the opportunity to visit this natural beauty on our Social Sabbatical journey…
