Monday, March 17, 2008

Mosi-oa-Tunya

In the local language Lozi, Victoria Falls is called Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means The Smoke that Thunders – and does it ever! When the courtesy bus from the hostel drops us off, the roar of the falls drowns out everything else. And the smoke part: the spray from the falls reaches so high, it is visible from Livingstone eleven kilometers away.

From Livingstone, just go towards the rising smoke, that's Victoria Falls


The river looks calm, but a little rumble and tumble is straight ahead


It is now the rainy season in southern Africa. It has been raining so much, many parts along the Zambezi River have been under flood water for the last couple of months. So the falls are now smokier and thunders louder than any other time of the year. Normally when one goes to visit a waterfall, he hopes there is a lot of water. But in the case of Victoria Falls, the full volume of water is producing a thick veil in front of the falls that obscures the view in most parts. The spray comes down as a heavy shower over most of the trail along a ridge a mere one hundred meters opposite the falls. I don the rental raingear and brave the drenching downpour, stopping here and there to wait for a view. The spray occasionally and briefly changes direction, offering glimpses of the mighty sheet of water.

Left of these rocks, the water goes straight down


View of the only visible part of the Falls


Another view

And one more

The Victoria Falls Bridge: Zambia on the left, Zimbabwe on the right


I next hike down the trail to the Boiling Pot, a part of the Zambezi just downstream from the falls where a giant whirlpool is formed by the swift water. Guided by a local villager, I pick my way through the part of the trail that has now become a swift river and arrive at the swirling cauldron just below the Victoria Falls Bridge that spans the Zambia-Zimbabwe border. I sit on a rock, just listen to the thundering falls and watch the spray roll down the gorge and people bungee-jump off the bridge.

The swirling Boiling Pot


After a filling lunch at the local market, I head back for a stroll along the trail on the other side of the gorge. Baboons sit along the trail, barely bat an eye while grooming each other as I walk by.

View of the Boiling Pot and the Bridge from top of the cliff


Baboons grooming each other

Striking a pose


I originally had wanted to go into Zimbabwe for a day, but the US$40 visa fee plus the US$20 fee to see the falls from the Zimbabwe side make it an expensive proposition. So I settle for just a walk across the bridge, which is free.

Part of Cecil Rhodes' master plan back in the colonial days, Victoria Falls Bridge is open to rail, vehicular, and pedestrian traffic


On the approach to Victoria Falls Bridge, I strike up a conversation with a local. He is a welder from Zimbabwe. Upon learning that I am American, he asks me about my opinion on the U.S. election later in the year. Like most people I talk to in Zambia, he is a big fan of Obama, but is also questioning the feasibility of him being elected president. I, in turn, start asking him about their upcoming election, which is in a little over a week. He says he supports Mugabe and hopes he wins another term. We are now walking past the sign that says “You Are Now Entering Zimbabwe” at the halfway point on the bridge. I start to ask him some pointed questions about Mugabe’s questionable leadership and mismanagement of the country’s economy. He brushes aside the dire economic meltdown, illustrated by the ridiculous price of 7 million Zim dollars for a loaf of bread, and points to sanctions by the West as the main cause for their inflation rate, the world’s highest. He concedes that Mugabe has done some bad things, but he thinks that Mugabe has done much more good for the people of the country. He is optimistic that Zimbabwe will get better soon and those who have fled the country will come back. Citing himself as an example, he tells me that he had gone to Australia to work before, but decided to return because he feels that he is Zimbabwean no matter where in the world he his. I suddenly realize that I am being critical of Mugabe as I am standing on Zimbabwean soil.

He continues his passionate defense of Mugabe and encourages me to go into the country to see for myself. I admire his optimism and I tell him that much. Maybe his is right in some ways. In the tradition of trial by the media in the West, Mugabe has already been convicted a million times over. But inside Zimbabwe, he is probably not universally despised like we’d like to think. And his supporters are not all his party cronies. I know that, on the March 29th election, at least this one vote for Mugabe will be cast in good faith.

We say goodbye, he then walks back toward Zimbabwe immigration; I turn around and go back to Zambia. The sun is starting to dip in the west. The gorge below is now cast in the advancing shadow. I take another look at the falls from the middle of the bridge and step back onto Zambian territory.

A plaque on the Zimbabwean side of the bridge commemorating the engineering landmark. Apparently the American Society of Civil Engineers had a part in it.

Crossing back into Zambia. This is the only No-man's Land between two countries where I can walk back and forth like this without being stopped by people with guns.



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