Victoria Falls is a deep gash
in the slab of Jurassic basalt
under Zimbabwe and Zambia.
The cracks began forming when
supercontinent Gondwanaland
splintered. The present falls
are the eighth manifestation.
The gorges downstream are the
remains of the previous seven.
Mosi-oa-Tunya, the name in the
Lozi and Kololo languages means:
“the smoke that thunders”
The Zambezi River spills as a
mile-wide curtain at full flood,
two million gallons per second.
The British explorer, Livingston,
with imperial presumptuous
prerogative, christened the falls
after his monarch, Queen Victoria.
As if no one had been living there.
Actually there is archeologic evidence
that ancestral human species dwelt
in the area two million years ago.
With crocodiles, elephants, and hippos.
Now we are the visitors. After filling
out visas and paying the thirty dollar
visa fees, we met our driver, Romeo.
He welcomed us to Zimbabwe and
brought us to the lodge where we
would stay for two nights. The land
is nearly flat, the road to the falls
is ruler straight with dry season bush
on each side and the occaisional
building. Some billboards welcoming
visitors or promoting local businesses,
services, and attractions like helicopter
flights over the falls. And one mysterious
sign welcoming the COP 15 Conference.
I didn’t know what that was -yet.
The town of Victoria Falls exists
because of the falls, the engine
of the economy is tourism.
And the tertiary businesses
and services, administrative
functions that it requires.
There is only one traffic light. At the
intersection of the two main roads.
The locals call it the Robot, which they
find very amusing. As we passed some
buildings with a neatly trimmed green
lawn next to the road, two warthogs
charged each other, shoving and grunting.
Romeo said “big fight, little fight, ugly fight,
which one was that?” Depends on your
opinion about the beauty of warthogs
I suppose, but those three categories
have stuck in my mind ever since.
Insika Lodge is beautiful, with an airy
open-sided reception area, lounge, bar,
and restaurant. A swimming pool.
If it had been warm enough, but not
particularly appealing on a sunny
and mildly cool winter afternoon.
An hour or so before sunset we took
the brief shuttle to the Zambezi River and
boarded a double decker dinner cruise boat.
The Zambezi is quite broad upstream from
the falls with a barely perceptual current in this
season. We motored across to the other shore,
Zambia, where a crocodile basked on a sand bar
and a bull elephant charged out from the trees
stamping his feet and shaking his head.
I wondered if he angry at us or the crocodile?
Then the dinner boat headed down river to
an area with many low islands. Two hippos
stood on one island while a few others were
out in the river. One of the ones in the river
disappeared underwater. The captain said
hippos don’t swim, they walk on the bottom of the
river. They can hold their breath for a few minutes.
We waited for its nose, eyes, and ears to reappear.
One of the guests asked him if people were
often killed by hippos or eaten by crocodiles.
He laughed and said, no they prefer white meat.
The sunset was an vivid red band stretching across
the width of the horizon. Why did it look so exotic?
We are all on the same planet after all, and
that’s the same sun. As it faded to darkness
it was time for the dinner to begin. We could see
lights on the eastern shore a kilometer away
and hear the grunts of unseen hippos.
The night had cooled, we were in the tropics
but this vast flat bulge on the continent
is at 3,200 feet above sea level and it is
mid winter. In the morning our guide for
the Falls walk, Martin, arrived with the van
to take us to the busy entrance of the overlook
trail. There were market stalls with carvings,
T-shirts, totes, and trinkets. Eager vendors.
Six men in traditional clothing dancing
and singing, accompanied by drums.
We donned hooded ankle length raincoats.
The spray from the falls was as heavy
as rain along the trail and overlooks. Even
hundreds of feet away we could hear the roar.
There were many groups of school children,
of various ages laughing and bouncing around
and off of each other. They were on field trips.
Some had been on twelve-hour bus journeys
from the capital, Harare. Local schools help
to feed and accommodate some of them.
We approached the head of the falls, the far
edge where it pours into the gorge. In the spray
swirling up shone a rainbow. We were glad to have
long raincoats with hoods. The trail parallels
the edge of gorge. The trees and shrubs there
were still lush, well-watered even in the midst
of the dry season. Strangler figs twined
and climbed the larger trees. Short paths
lead out to the brink from the main trail.
The paths are paved with pebbled concrete,
a little wet, a little slippery, gleaming in the sun.
At the midpoint of the main falls,
a curtain of dazzling white water and thick mist
stretched a quarter mile in each direction.
Mosi-oa-Tunya, “the smoke that thunders”.
There’s a statue of David Livingston
near the head of the falls. One of the
visiting schoolchildren groups gathered
in front of it for a photo. I was somewhat
puzzled by why they would want a photo
with a British explorer, wasn’t he a colonialist?
Well apparently not. He was a missionary
whose devout religious beliefs had made
him a dedicated anti-slavery campaigner.
He believed the African peoples posessed
great dignity and deserved respect and that
the development of African commerce
and Christianity would lead to the abolition
of the slave trade. The exploration of the
interior of southern Africa did however
contribute to the scramble by the Europeans
for colonies and control even if that was not
his intention. Always the consequences, yes?
When he died, seventy of his African companions
spent nine months transporting his body to the
coast so that it could be sent home to England.
We had lunch at a big restaurant overlooking
the gorge just downstream from the falls.
With a view of the zipline and giant swing
concession that launched people out over
the raging river hundreds of feet below. Sam,
Keenan’s grandson had crocodile kebabs.
I ordered spinach spanakopita; we had
reservations for a thirty-minute helicopter
flight over the Falls and I had never been
in a helicopter, so playing it safe with the lunch
menu seemed prudent. Didn’t really matter
as it turned out, the motion didn’t upset me.
At all! what a amazing view, to have such birdlike
freedom of yaw, pitch and axis of movement.
And to see that smoke that thunders from above,
or an elephant walking around a waterhole,
a giraffe out in the scruffy trees; yes, now I saw
why people like helicopter sightseeing so much.
That was the last of our African adventure,
all that remained was the 30-hour series
of flights to get home. Beginning the next day.
Waiting in the boarding area at the Victoria Falls
airport, a few minutes before boarding, an
airline staff person stood at the gate and called
out some names. One of them was mine.
I thought, did I make a mistake? Is something
wrong with my visa, have I been to some
place that evokes suspicion? No, they had one empty
seat in business class and I was chosen at random
to get it. Lucky me! It’s only a two hour flight
to Johannesburg, but I could look out the window.
So as I was getting settled two passengers stopped
in the aisle next to me, a man in a business suit
and a woman in hijab and chador. He asked me
in broken English if he could sit by the window so that
he could take photos. I looked at my boarding pass
and he said, no, no, you are correct, but do you mind if I sit
in that seat? No problem, I’ve seen the view from a helicopter.
And he thanked me and his companion went to economy.
He narrated a brief video while we waited to take off
with his phone pointed out the window. Then we attempted
a brief conversation. I don’t speak Farsi but he had a good
good translation app on his phone and some knowledge
of English. Things like where are you from, here on holiday?
work? He was there for the COP15 conference. He is Deputy
of the Wetlands and Marine division of his country’s
Department of the Environment. I sensed that we were
kindred spirits. The plane began to taxi and the woman
in the chador came up to see if we were all settled.
Yes, everything was fine. She spoke perfect unaccented
English and after he introduced her as his colleague,
she said, nice to meet you, smiled knowingly and said
“He’s my boss.” Just like home, I thought, my boss
usually flew business class and staff got economy.
She went back to her seat and Ahmad and I shared
photos and curiosity about places we’d been and home,
our impressions of Africa, what we did here, and so on.
It was going really nicely. He typed something on his phone
and the translation read “What is up with Trump?”
I made the finger circling the side of my head gesture
which needs no translation. Held both hands
palms up and shrugged, made a sour face, shook
my head sadly. I said, we don’t like or support him.
No need to continue on that subject, we were both
happy to share photos and what we had seen
and done on this trip to Africa. I had lots of photos
of animals, he had photos of a village and the people
who live there, farmers and crops. Things related
to the COP15 conference. Which is the 15th Meeting
of the Conference of Contracting Parties
for the Convention on Wetlands. This is part of
the ongoing United Nations Biodiversity Conference
which is focused on finding ways to address
the global biodiversity crisis. Wetlands in particular
at the Victoria Falls meeting. I have made many maps
that show sensitive species and habitats in my
three decades as a cartographer for a urban
and regional planning consultancy firm.
I have thousands of photos on my phone from
all over the West, especially around our home
in the Bay Area. Corte Madera Marsh is a favorite.
We both had lots of photos of Victoria Falls, and
marveled at their size, power, and beauty. He asked
if I could send some of my African wildlife photos
to him on WhatsApp, since we both have that, but it
doesn’t work when the phone is in airplane mode so
we just exchanged phone numbers and later
on were able to connect. I had told him about
pictures I had seen of an ancient Persian city with
a very elaborate hydraulic system but I couldn’t
remember the name of it. I found it when I got
home, it’s the city of Shushtar and the waterworks
are almost 2,500 years old. It is a beautiful place.
So I sent him some photos and said now I know
the name of the city and he said that’s where
his parents were born. And invited me to visit.
I wrote that I hoped to be able to visit someday.
I remembered what Romeo, our driver had said about
the warthogs, “big fight, little fight, or ugly fight?”
How about no fight.
