Victoria Falls – jewel of Africa

Peter and I are in love in waterfalls like forever, so we didn´t want to miss the opportunity to see Victoria Falls. It wasn´t cheap and it wasn´t easy but it was worth it. Once again my life mantra proves its right – the best things happen outside of comfort zone 🙂 .

Victoria Falls are waterfalls on Zambezi River, on border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Waterfalls are divided among two national parks: Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park in Zambia and Victoria Falls National Park in Zimbabwe.

Locals named them “smoke that thunders” (Mosi-oa-Tunya), the other name for them is “jewel of Africa”. It is said that they are one of seventh wonders of the world and definitely magnificent work of nature. Their characteristic is “water curtain” that falls in a crack or canyon and there is 2 km long path by that canyon which offers wonderful views on 1,7 km width waterfalls. Those waterfalls are “only” 120 m high, but are the biggest waterfalls on the world (at least in rainy season) because of their width and continuous line of water curtain.

The best time to visit Victoria Falls is beginning of our summer, which is their dry season. In rainy season (from November to May) there is enormous amount of water and they really are “smoke that thunders”. Because of amount of water and its thunder there is not a lot of seeing those waterfalls in that time – except for wow-effect. And in our autumn time (that is the end of their dry season) there is only a little amount of water and not the best time to see those waterfalls. By our opinion the best time is sometime in between, that is at the beginning of our summer. The amount of water is still enormous, but at the same time just enough to actually see and observe waterfalls. You get wet anyway, but who cares 🙂 .

About logistic of visiting Victoria Falls I wrote in article Namibia, Botswana and Victoria Falls – some logistics and practical advices; so I won’t repeat all that in this article. In recent times there are a lot of affordable plane tickets directly to Livingstone, which is starting point to see waterfalls for many travelers, so you can start and end your trip to Africa there – by spectacular Victoria Falls.

Travelers say that the only comparable or even more beautiful waterfalls are Iguacu waterfalls in South America. Well, we don´t want to just believe their words, we will have to go there and check ourselves 🙂 .