Victoria Falls – the smoke that thunders

About 500 km north of Bulawayo is the Zambezi - Africa's fourth largest river. This astonishing river has many features of unique interest along its 2 700 km journey through several countries to the Indian Ocean. But none is as spectacular as the place where aeons of driving, rushing waters have gouged out several zigzag gorges in the solid, volcanic rock. The last of these gorges has created the most awe-inspiring, larger-than-life waterfall in the world. Named Mosi-oa-Tunya by the Lozi people ('the smoke that throbs' or more evocatively 'the smoke that thunders') it has become known worldwide as Victoria Falls.

Victoria Falls is the greatest curtain of cascading water on earth, one of the Natural Wonders of the World and a World Heritage Site. This is one of the most spectacular geographic features on earth and a prominent landmark on the world's tourist map. And it is in Matabeleland, just a half-day’s drive or less than an hour’s flight from Bulawayo.

Despite its worldwide fame and popularity Victoria Falls ranks as one of the world's most unspoilt and undeveloped tourist destinations. The falls, the rainforest and the river upstream remain much as they were when an intrepid missionary, David Livingstone, made his discovery over 150 years ago. 

You can walk almost the full width of the mile-wide falls through the rainforest. With frequent detours from the main path to the edge of the chasm your views of the falls at close quarters will heighten your visual senses to the maximum. But, there is also an audio dimension to your stroll through the rainforest. Unlike the silence of most rainforests, this one thunders and hisses ceaselessly as the spray rises out of the gorge, sometimes swirls sideways into the trees and undergrowth, or cascades vertically from the sky. Peaceful, but never silent, this is nature at its noisiest and most powerful.