ZAMBIA: Mosi-oa-Tunya
The spiritual significance of Victoria Falls, the awesome cataract on
the Zambesi river in Southern Africa affects visitors in different ways though all are in agreement
that it is one of the most memorable places on earth. Early hunter-gatherers
knew the falls as Shungu Mumi [The Life Falls] but the most
descriptive name is the Makololo Mosi-oa-Tunya (The Smoke that
Thunders). The first European to visit the falls was the Scottish
missionary-explorer David Livingstone on his epic journey to Zambia from
Zanzibar in 1855. Naming them after Queen Victoria, he wrote of a scene ` so
lovely (they) must have been gazed upon by angels in flight`. Located midway
along the course of the Zambesi, Mosi-oa-Tunya forms the border at
this point between Zambia and Zimbabwe. The largest single curtain of
falling water in the world, roughly 1.7 km across,
it drops 108 metres at the central point where the current is so powerful
that any hippo caught in the torrent further upstream goes straight over the
top. During the wet season 500 million litres of water pours over the lip
every minute. The misty spray generated by this mighty natural phenomenon
rising to a height of 400 metres is visible from 20 kilometres distance. Part of
two national parks teeming with wildlife, the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park in
Zambia and the Victoria Falls National Park in Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls was
inscribed on the World Heritage list in 1989.