“No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.”
-David Livingstone

I kind of forgot to tell you about our flight into Livingstone from Johannesburg. It was delayed by about two hours due to a mechanical issue- but even as we sat at the gate and waited for engine equipment to be changed out, the pilot kept promising us how worth it the wait was going to be once we saw the Falls for ourselves. 

As we were nearly on top of Livingstone, this was the view I had out my window. The pilot was right to be so enthusiastic.

Behold the first of many “Wow” moments that I would experience over the next 48 hours.

Preparing to land, I could see our aircraft shadowing the ground; this scene always gives me flashbacks to the opening scene of The English Patient. Except- well- yeah…it really isn’t quite the same thing at all. Nevermind.

 Once installed at our very fancy backpacker’s accommodation, we kicked back and partook in some local refreshment.

I opted for the cider route- I took a liking to this stuff during my visit to Hwange with another good friend earlier this year.

As soon as you arrive in the park, you see these a-holes ambling about. I’m no lover of simian anything– so I clutched my bag and continued on the trail that lead to the Falls.

And when we saw got to the clearing, I was absolutely gobsmacked.

Maybe I didn’t give the Falls enough credit, but we really believed that we’d just show up, take this happy snap photo and then be ferried off again. Little did we know that there’d be so much more to experience. And I wouldn’t stay this dry after another ten minutes…

A little further on down the path, we crossed folks who were absolutely drenched. It was time for me to shell out 5,000 kwacha for a rain slicker.

Function before fashion- we want to play in the rain!

Oh yes, a change in the weather is forecasted for this exact spot. Would you believe that it’s really a sunny day?

Okay, we know what we’re getting ourselves into, so it’s time for one last “dry photo” before descending into the fresh water washdown.

Here this bridge spanning a massive air gap transformed into a rushing mini river of water. People saw what they were up against and surrendered their shoes from the get go- instead opting to walk barefoot across to the other side.

This is the last photo I took before I realized that I would need to put my camera away if I ever had any hope of using it again.

And after that experience, my Toms are cleaner than they have ever been. My poncho left my upper half remarkable dry.

Just to the side of the Bridge of Perpetual Rain, you come across a clearing that yields yet another breathtaking view.

The glory of all this gentle misting? Rainbows. Lots of ’em.

And a closer inspection of the bridge allows you to make out out the damn fools in the center who are queuing up to pay and bungee jump into the chasm.

There are lots of trails in the park, and after shedding our ponchos we walked towards to top of the Zambezi to see how the river rushes to the edge.

I took a couple of videos of the Falls- many of which I will probably never watch. I think what I was really aiming to catch was the thundeirng noise that can be heard long before you can even seen the furious sheets of water rushing over the edge.

It’s amazing how close you can get- in fact…

I’m not going to be running for the 2012 Darwin Award. Instead, I opted to sit on the bank and air out my water-logged toes.

The relative calm from this vantage point is so deceptive.

Most of the rocks in the park bear signs that are largely worn away. On this one you could only make out enough so that you knew to Beware of…something. Nice.

Here is Jan my fearless travel companion as we negotiate The Boiling Pot.

As you make your way down, you get a sense of the depth and change in vegetation. Absolutely amazing when you consider the arid trees that were visible from 35,000 feet on the aircraft.

It’s gorgeous here! One of those trips where you take a zillion photos of the same thing in a feeble attempt to capture it all. The sad truth is that you can’t- you just have to figure out a way to experience it yourself. I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel to be here.

The other cool thing about making your way down is feeling the gentle spray that wafts through the air.

When we finally made it to the bottom and were not disappointed in the slightest.

One last victory shot of us standing next to The Boiling Pot- the swirling thing behind us.

Besides…I got some more of these things. We’ve got more things to do while in town, and that means more blog entries to write up…