Downtown Africa
You cannot list the most beautiful places in Africa and leave out its largest waterfall. Victoria Falls or ‘Mosi-oa-Tunya’ (‘Smoke that Thunders’) as per the local dialect defines the Zimbabwean and Zambian borders.
This waterfall is the crowning glory of the great Zambezi River, the fourth largest African river. And the spectacular falls make the world’s widest curtain of falling water.
On its hundred meter-long journey to the gorge below, the falls literally thunder and boom–its roar is audible from a distance of 40 kilometers (~25 miles)! Mosi-oa-Tunya not only thunders, but sends off a massive amount of mist and spray, which can rise to heights upwards of 400 meters. In fact, the idyllic rainbow tints of the spray are visible from up to 50 kilometers (31 miles) away.
The River Zambezi flows over a basalt sheet into a valley filled with low hills and many forested islands, which congregate near the falls. It then plummets off the plateau into a chasm. The falls’ sheer power carves out several deep gorges on its way.
