Zambia Geography

Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls is where the Zambezi River opens out into an extravaganza of roaring, spray-tumbled water - known to locals as "Mosi-oa-Tunya" (the smoke that thunders). Standing before the brooding statue of David Livingstone, who in 1855 named the Falls after Queen Victoria, part of the raging river is compressed into a massive surge of green-white water known as the Devil's Cataract. Few sights are as awe-inspiring, and the ground shakes and rumbles with the force of the water. The walk through the rain forest, a tangle of liana, fig trees and riverine jungle perched on the lip of the chasm, is a fairy tale experience. The path winds in and out of rainbows to a dozen viewpoints through the billowing upsurge of the spray, which created the rain forest.

Zambezi River

The Zambezi River, mysterious and majestic, starts its unseen journey in the remote northwest of Zambia, not far from where that other great African waterway, the Congo, has its source. Six hundred and twenty miles downstream, the now mile-wide Zambezi hurtles over the Victoria Falls, then fills the massive Kariba and Cahora Bassa lakes, and seventeen hundred miles later flows into the Indian Ocean.

The fourth longest river in Africa, the Zambezi is wild -- its rapids and islands, lush banks, forests and swirling reaches are largely uninhabited except by snorting hippos and sandbanks of crocodiles. The great mammals of Africa: buffalo, elephant, lion, and leopard all rely on the Zambezi for their source of life, water, and the best way to see them is afloat by canoe--an exhilarating and non-intrusive way to experience the river.