I am a native in this world And think in it as a native thinks

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The falls


We spent the afternoon at the Victoria Falls National Park.

The falls may not be the tallest in the world, or the widest, but they must be the most spectacular. It's all one vertical drop as the mighty Zambezi River has a sudden altitude shift, but islands in the river break up the curtain of water so as you walk along the paths on the Zimbabwe side, it looks like you're seeing a series of different waterfalls, each one more dramatic than the last. There are rapids pouring into the falls, and gorges carved by the river's exit, all of it festooned with rainbows from the mist.


















The rainbows are everywhere, not just over the falls. The mist on the path gets thicker and thicker until it's a drizzle, then a downpour, and everybody wears the provided rain slickers. The sun is shining while the "rain" pours down, so there are rainbows across the paths, and in the occasional grassy breaks in the foliage, and you could actually see them touch the ground, the legendary end of the rainbow. No pots of gold, alas.

And this, by the way, is the "guardrail," just some branches and vines twined around some stick posts in a makeshift fence. Avoiding the edges is pretty much up to you.


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