Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls : Uniting by Dividing Africa & Africans
The Kololo tribe used to call her Mosi-o-Tunya – The smoke that thunders. Her royal name came later, yet pride & love for the Victoria Falls cuts across language & cultures. Certainly, this towering curtain of water pre-dates the fancies & things of man.
I don’t know anyone of Africa who doesn’t regard the Victoria Falls as part of their own personal real estate – The water pulses through African veins & exists in that place where paradoxes live. From my vantage point, these falls uplift & unite the people they separate like nothing else ever has or ever could.
Brutally beautiful, chaotically melodious, savagely powerful but immensely fragile – The Victoria Falls mirrors the continent that they crown.
Railway lines & travel links transport hundreds of thousands of tourists & sightseers to & fro every year. Theme parks & other changes are bound to follow the sporting & leisure facilities that already exist. These things will generate feelings of loss & sadness & anger, but in a continent where only the tough or the wily survive, there are no free rides.
Andrew Woodley took a trip on & over the area in April & September this year. He brought back some pictures that I like because they lack the lustre of the tourist brochure & show the area the way it should be seen – Honest & through the human eye. I hope you enjoy them, too.
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Facts about the Victoria Falls
Located on the Zambezi River
Define the border between Zambia & Zimbabwe
Largest waterfall in the world, at 1700m wide & over 100m high
Can be heard 40kms away
Spray & mist can rise 400m, & visible up to 50kms away
Discovered by David Livingstone in 1855
Named after Queen Victoria
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Water level peaks in April, lowest in October/November
Supplies energy to Zambia & Zimbabwe
One of the seven natural wonders of the world
Man lived around the falls continuously for about two million years
Devil’s Pool is a natural pool, separated from the abyss by a bridge
In flood time, the largest sheet of falling water in the world
The forest topped basalt wall facing the falls is the only place in the world where it rains 24/7
Falls within falls
There are falls within the falls, namely the
Armchair Falls
Horseshoe Falls &
Main Falls
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Photographs used with kind permission of the photographer, Andrew Woodley. All rights reserved.