Victoria Falls on the Zambian and Zimbabwean border has always been known to local people as ‘The Smoke that Thunders’. The mighty Zambezi River suddenly tumbles into a 1.7-kilometre wide rent in the earth and the ensuing torrent of water hammers 108 metres downwards with such force that it vaporises on impact.
This ‘smoke’ saturates visitors and throws gorgeous rainbows and moonbows into the air. The raw power of the falls is spectacular and has inspired all manner of daredevil activities, meaning that the town of Livingstone in Zambia is now one of the adventure capitals of the world.
I took a day just to get to grips with the falls themselves. The best way to see them is on the metal walkways that hang, suspended, right above the cavernous drop, which is roughly twice the height of Niagara Falls. The spray was blinding, the noise of the falls deafening and the whole experience totally energising.
It’s also possible to view the top of the waterfall from the banks of the river and in the dry season, if you have a death wish, you can even walk out along the lip.
Spurred on by a companion, I came face to face with my own mortality while attempting this. We planned to walk across the river to swim in ‘The Devil’s Pool’, a natural hollow with a rock wall which stops you going over the edge with the current.
At the halfway point, I lost my nerve. I became horribly aware that one single slip would propel me to my doom in the boiling water below. I looked back – it was an awfully long way to the bank – and when I turned again, my companion had disappeared.
The blood seemed to coalesce in my veins. I stood utterly frozen with fright, convinced he’d slipped over the edge and into oblivion, before he emerged from the plunge pool a few seconds later, his head hanging over the edge of the falls, laughing and urging me in.
What I wanted to do was run, screaming, for the bank. Instead, with a blanched face that he later photographed with glee, I tottered mechanically round on a stone and tried to walk back. Unfortunately, from this direction, the sun was shining right on the water and it was impossible to gauge the depth of each rock pool. Every movement was fraught with the possibility of imminent death. The few hundred metres to the shore seemed to take an hour and I was roundly mocked by my companion afterwards.
Two days later, someone doing exactly the same thing slipped and went over. The poor man managed to hang onto a tree while his friends scrambled off to get a rope. They weren’t quick enough and he fell to his death. My friend went a bit quiet after that.
So it was lucky that I was already near the end of my trip to Livingstone before this rather sobering experience, or I would no doubt have backed out of the other adrenaline activities on offer.
Two things are obligatory for the thrill seeker; the bungee jump and the river rafting.
The bungee is one of the best in the world, consisting of a 111-metre freefall from the bridge that joins Zambia to Zimbabwe. Shuffling towards the edge of the platform with your legs tied together with a big bungee cuff is not for the fainthearted, but once you get there, the only honourable option is to go for it.
The headfirst fall lasts a nauseating, endless, blurry few seconds before the bungee reaches its maximum stretch and yanks you back upwards again, only to fall, bounce and eventually end up hanging upside down above the Zambezi River.
It’s the sort of experience which is much more fun in retrospect. While bungee jumping might look like you are courting death, they in fact have a 100 per cent safety record.
Sadly, the same cannot be said for the white water river rafting; the rapids are not called ‘Stairway to Heaven’ or ‘Oblivion’ for nothing.
Rafting here includes Grade Five rapids, classified as “extremely difficult, long and violent rapids, big drops and pressure areas”. The first rapids were scary; the Grade Fives were way beyond that.
As our amateur crew rowed for their lives, the boat careened past huge boulders, the water was whipped into a frenzy and our pathetic plastic paddles proved no match for the power of the river.
A huge wave wall rose up ahead of us. We hit it badly, the boat catapulted into the air and we were dunked violently under the water.
Despite the lifejacket, currents held me down as I was swept into rocks, trying desperately to surface to breathe. I finished the rapid underwater, panicking wildly.
When I finally washed up in a shallow lagoon, surrounded by my ashen faced companions, I was retching water and wanted to go home. This is not an option.
Once you start to raft, there is no exit point from the steep cliffs of the river until you reach the end of the trip. There was nothing for it but to climb back in and hang on for dear life. Our guide tried to reassure me by explaining that they rarely lose a client. This did not help.
With three near death experiences safely out of the way, it was time for something theoretically a little more sedate; a safari.
Our driver to the Livingstone National Park had a long white beard which was stained a smoky green from his rumoured consumption of illegal substances.
We set off in his open-back jeep with some misgivings. After half an hour, we tracked down the park’s famous white rhinos, but they were less than pleased at being disturbed. There was a brief hiatus while the rhinos regarded us angrily – and then one charged.
Old White Beard reactions seemed to have been fatally slowed by his smoking. “Arhhhhh,” he muttered, moving sloth-like to put the car in reverse.
The thundering of rhino hooves was now alarmingly close and the rhino wasn’t stopping.
Eventually the message reached our driver’s inert limbs and he hit the accelerator. We reversed at top speed for about 200 metres, bouncing over boulders and splintering small trees, before the rhino felt it had made its point and retreated.
After that, we contented ourselves with some birdwatching, a bit of shopping for six-feet-tall wooden giraffes and a few Mosi beers in the comfortable surroundings of our hostel.
The adrenaline capital had done its worst and we’d survived... but it felt like a close thing.