The spectacular Victoria Falls is the largest sheet of continually falling water in the world and truly a sight to behold at full flow in the rainy season. This UNESCO world heritage site is the only waterfall that makes the cut on the Seven Natural Wonders Of The World, and we were fortunate enough to experience the grandeur of Victoria Falls during our Southern African journey.

Victoria Falls is situated about midway through the length of the 2500km Zambezi River as it flows to the Indian Ocean, and the falls help form a natural border separating the countries of Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is at this border that the deceptively calm meandering Zambezi River takes on a more violent alter ego as it plunges headlong over the knife edge basalt cliffs of Victoria Falls. The falls are over 1.7km wide and more than 100m high – and in the peak rainy season when almost 5 million cubic meters of water rush through the falls – the spray rises up 400m high and can be seen on a clear day from up to 40km away.

The local Makololo tribe that inhabited the area referred to the falls as Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means “The Smoke That Thunders”. The current name was bestowed on the falls by Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone, who was the first westerner to lay eyes on the falls in November 1855. Upon his discovery, Livingstone wrote of the falls: “It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.”

From our base in the town of Livingstone on the Zambian side, we started the morning by crossing the border to view Victoria falls from the Zimbabwe side. We didn’t have to wait too long – even from the border checkpoints we could feel the spray and hear the falls, a preview of what the morning had in store for us. Once at the main entrance on the Zimbabwe side of the falls we got outfitted in heavy duty raincoats and started a walking tour along the trails in Victoria Falls National Park – the only rainforest in the world that gets rainfall every day of the year, a result of the spray/mist that rises from the falls. Although the incessant spray from the falls obscured most of the viewpoints along the trail, the full impact of the spray and deafening sound were truly mind blowing – we certainly felt “the smoke that thunders” and got super drenched even with our raincoats on.

We wrapped up the day with a colorful sunset on the banks of the Zambezi at the Royal Livingstone Hotel, which is situated by the edge of the falls on the Zambian side. It seemed apt to close off our evening sipping cocktails and savoring the sunset from the banks of the Zambezi, with the enormous spray and deafening sounds of Victoria Falls from just meters away.