Standing on the Zimbabwean side of Batoka Gorge, the power of the water tumbling down the cliffs is astonishing. The spray drenches us and rainbows light up the mist. No matter how many times you’ve seen it, Victoria Falls always takes your breath away.
I’m part of a small media group that flew in from Cape Town and Joburg. We’re here to see how the Vic Falls community has weathered the Covid storm and pulled together despite tough times.
Across the 60m chasm, on the Zambian bank, is Livingstone Island. In November 1855, the missionary-explorer David Livingstone became the first European to see this spectacle. Paddling down the Zambezi River, his party could see the columns of spray from miles away. Livingstone got out of his canoe and crept to the edge of the gorge. The water exploding into a fine spray “gave the idea of snow”, he noted in awe.
A statue of Livingstone looks out from the western end of the gorge. “The most wonderful sight I had seen in Africa” is how he described the view.
Our guide Tinashe Sithole explains how the waterfall was formed by geological upheaval millions of years ago, and how the constant spray has helped grow a rainforest – a biodiversity hotspot alive with monkeys, bushbuck, trumpeter
