Dateline Discovery

Years after an old photograph of the waterfall sparked a childhood dream, a visit left me overwhelmed by its might and grandeur.

As I stand awestruck in the comforting shroud of a blinding mist, I recline my head, throw my arms out to the side and, with no idea of how else to react, unleash an overwhelmed cackle.

I just have to soak it all in.

There are few things on Earth as naturally powerful as a waterfall, and from the relative isolation of this rocky bluff, the magnificent splendor of Victoria Falls at high season rages around me.

Everything, from the tall grasses surrounding the outcrop to the wooden barriers framing it, has been baptized by the spray — and it doesn’t take long until I feel the moisture pinning the dry-fit T-shirt underneath my rain jacket onto my chest.

Somewhere, 300 feet below me, water from the Horseshoe Falls, one of the wonder’s five cataracts, begins pooling before flowing along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe toward the Batoka Gorge.

More than 250,000 gallons of water rage every second down the Zambezi river and over the falls. The mist, known as a cataractagenitus, can waft to heights of nearly half a mile.

Although I can hear the roar of the falls just beyond, and what feels like a steady rain falls dishonestly from a blue sky, that cloud is all I can see.

It feels like heaven.

***

My family did not take vacations when I was growing up. Two week-long trips to a nearby beach and a disastrous few days at an out-of-state amusement park are all I remember, so my wanderlust was often satisfied by a pair of old atlases my parents had lying around the house.

One, which smelled of damp attic, had a worn blue cover that crackled as it opened and 1948, the year it was published, stamped in gold foil. Enthralled by primarily modern-day geography, my young self was captivated by the unfamiliar industrial boundaries on the maps published inside — especially those of Africa, which boasted of places such as Tanganyika, the Gold Coast and something called Bechuanaland.

More than just maps, though, the atlas included photographs, including one of the most wonderful images I had ever seen. Victoria Falls, in all its glory, had not welcomed many visitors at the time, and the atlas described it as one of the most fascinating and enchanting places in the world.

It had, in fact, not been seen by any European travelers until David Livingstone’s expedition in 1855. In the ensuing decades, as the colonial powers carved up the continent for their own purposes, it remained virtually unspoiled until Cecil Rhodes’ plans for a railway from Cairo to Cape Town took him through the area in the 1890s.

While that project was never realized, it did yield the Victoria Falls Bridge, a distinctly foreign span of the second gorge erected more than 400 feet above the water level. Rhodes chose the site because he wanted the spray from the falls to glisten on the windows of the trains passing through — and, upon completion in 1905, it did just that, as journeys through southern Africa that once took months were cut to a matter of days, geography once again subjugated to engineering.

Today, trains still lurch over the century-old structure, though a combination of its upkeep and low demand have greatly reduced services. That was fine with me. It was the falls, not the bridge, that I really wanted to see.

***

“What about a detour to Victoria Falls?”

My wife and I began planning our two-week trek across South Africa more than half a year before we were set to depart, and thinking about the time spent staring at that old atlas, I blurted out the suggestion.

Livingstone wanted to share the falls with the world. His journals envisioned riverboats ferrying streams of adventurers up the Zambezi to take in their magnificence, and the sprawling Victoria Falls Hotel opened in anticipation of their arrivals in 1904, a year before the rail link was completed.

We indulged, tempted by the knowledge that in late May, when the water levels were at their highest, the falls would be at their utmost brilliance.

A first glimpse came through the window of the A330, the spray a cotton-like mass rising through the surrounding rainforest more than 20 miles away. On the drive into town, Gideon, our taxi driver, maintained with every turn that they were over there, but the trees provided fleeting sightlines of the mist. Even the late-autumn sunset obscured an evening cruise on the Zambezi that would have surely whetted my palate.

The next morning, though, it was time. With the raincoats we had purchased to hike through the Costa Rican rainforest years earlier zipped over our fast-drying clothing, and our essentials protected deep inside a waterproof bag, we entered the national park and sought a route to the first of 16 viewpoints.

The feistiness of the Devil’s Cataract steadily grew louder, and as we approached, we were greeted by the original Livingstone statue — another was commissioned later for the Zambian side — surveying his discovery. Suddenly, mere yards in front of us, the falls’ formidability was on full display: emerald water, whipped into whitecaps, gushing into the gorge; the mist glistening above the churn.

Successive viewpoints offered additional pleasure. The Chain Walk, tucked away down 38 vertigo-inducing stairs, exposed the Devil’s Cataract and, through the distant haze, introduced the Main Falls. Rainbows, seemingly rooted in the treetops, dazzled among the droplets before vanishing into the sky. The world below left wonder in its wake.

More than an hour into the visit, visibility had winnowed to nothing. The spray, at first a modest veil, steadily lowered the curtain on the featured attraction. That image of Victoria Falls had been indelibly etched into my childhood mind, yet here I was, standing amid its majesty, trying to conjure it. The falls I had dreamed about was out there somewhere. My ears and my skin would have to be my guide.

I stood back, spread my arms and close my eyes. I let the mist carry me to the photograph in the atlas.

It will never leave. I will have to come back.

Want to go? I visited Victoria Falls in May 2018, flew on South African Airways from Johannesburg to Victoria Falls and stayed two nights at the Cresta Sprayview Hotel.

Disclaimers: All products, services and experiences were paid for and arranged by the author and the vendors named herein had no editorial oversight of this piece. All photographs were taken by and remain the property of the author; contact for republication rights.