Lack of access to the sea does not upset at all local population of Zimbabwe, they have enough miracles in the rivers. And one of those miracles Victoria Falls, surpassing Niagara in height.
This miracle was discovered by the English explorer and missionary David Livingston. At first, the waterfall only annoyed him with its noise, but later the researcher saw all the beauty and power of the waterfall. And sheer delight resulted in a flattering name in honor of Queen Victoria.
The natives called him " thundering smoke» due to a noisy stream of water falling from a height of 108 km. Water dust, rising to a height of 400 meters, gives rise to huge extraordinary rainbows that you will not find anywhere else.
Organize viewing platforms very difficult because Zambezi river falls into a narrow crevice, which is not possible to approach. But a railway passes through this gorge, opening the inner world of a mighty waterfall.
During the rainy season, up to 500 million liters of water fall every minute, and during the drought, there are only a few streams. Zambezi from a full-flowing calm river can turn into an impassable and dangerous rivulet. This should not be forgotten by tourists who decide to raft down the river. The waterfall is reliably protected from all sides by nature reserves and is under the strict supervision of UNESCO.
One of the largest waterfalls in the world. It is located in South Africa on the river Zambezi. Water falls from a ledge 120 meters high into a deep and rather narrow basalt canyon, saturating the environment with giant columns of water dust that can be seen from a distance of 40 kilometers.
Victoria is the main attraction South Africa, located at the junction of the Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) and Thundering Smoke (Zambia) national parks, is also included in world heritage UNESCO.
It attracts tourists from all over the world and literally fascinates them with its uniqueness. The roar of the waterfall is heard so far away that the hunters from the tribe batoka They called him Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means "thundering smoke." Matabele- a tribe living on the other side of the river - also gave it a poetic name - "the place of the rainbow" (Chongue). sparkles here with all the colors, and it looks very beautiful!
Over the gorge, ring rainbows are almost constantly dazzling, and during the full moon you can sometimes see an amazing phenomenon here - moon rainbow, which can be found only in some places in the world, for example, at Niagara Falls.
Victoria is surrounded on three sides by wooded cliffs about 100 meters high. The forest that grows along the banks is called Dozhdev, and the silvery refreshing rain is really falling in these places all year round, the whole day, but it falls from a thundering gorge, and not from the sky.
If you swim along the river to the waterfall, it will seem that a third shore suddenly appears across the current. This is how the missionary saw Victoria David Livingston- Discoverer of Victoria. Livingston was so amazed by the beauty that he immediately gave it a name in honor of the Queen of Britain. A monument to this great explorer was erected on the bank of the waterfall.
Many eyewitnesses say that the most striking sight at the waterfall is the pillars of “thundering smoke” that look like huge torches over the abyss, in harmony with the golden rays of the sunset.
From a geological point of view, Victoria Falls is a crack formed due to the occurrence of rocks of different hardness in the neighborhood - basalts and sandstones. The width of this waterfall exceeds 1700 meters, the height is approximately 128 meters. The islets divide Victoria into five streams: Main Falls, Devil's Falls, Horseshoe, East and Rainbow Falls.
The world-famous Victoria Falls, which the locals call “Mosi-oa-Tunya” (“thundering smoke”), is one of the most picturesque and enchanting sights on the African continent.
Victoria Falls is a legendary attraction that attracts tourists from all over the world. Here the mighty Zambezi River falls down, forming a water curtain almost 2 kilometers long. Such a spectacle meets tourists who come here in the spring, when the river is filled with water to the maximum, so that every second 5 million liters of water fall down 100 meters and 30 km from the waterfall you can see clouds of steam rising above the water.
The waterfall is only the beginning of a picturesque section of the riverbed, because the river, shrouded in a cloud of spray, immediately rushes with a roar into a narrow gorge, along which it winds in zigzags for almost 70 km. These intricate twists and dizzying turns are caused by cracks in the rock, widened over millennia by the sheer force of water. The Zambezi River meanders over a plateau formed from layers of sandstone and basalt; at the meeting points of these two different rocks, cracks form.
Indeed, water spray rising from the waterfall forms a cloud that looks like smoke from afar. The waterfall owes its name to David Livingston, the discoverer and the first white man who saw it in 1885 and decided to name it in honor of the English Queen Victoria. When the local natives escorted him to the waterfall and showed him 546 million liters of water, which every minute crashed into a 100-meter abyss, David Livingston was so shocked by what he saw that he immediately dubbed it the name of the queen.
At the waterfall, the width of the Zambezi River reaches 1.6 km. With a roar, water falls into a 106-meter opening formed in its path.
In 1857, David Livingstone wrote that in England no one can even imagine the beauty of this spectacle: “No one can imagine the beauty of the spectacle in comparison with anything seen in England. The eyes of a European had never seen such a thing before, but the angels in their flight must have admired such a beautiful sight!
Professor Livingston described the falls as the most beautiful sight he had seen in Africa: “Crawling with fear to the cliff, I looked down into a huge crack that stretched from coast to coast of the wide Zambezi, and saw how a stream thousands of yards wide rushed down to a hundred feet and then suddenly shrinking in a space of fifteen to twenty yards... I witnessed the most wonderful sight in Africa!”
The waterfall is extremely wide, approximately 1800 meters wide, the height of the water fall varies from 80 meters at the right bank of the waterfall to 108 meters in the center. Victoria Falls is about twice as high Niagara Falls and more than twice as wide as its main part ("Horseshoe"). Falling water creates spray and fog that can rise to a height of 400 meters or more. The fog created by the waterfall is visible at a distance of up to 50 kilometers. During the rainy season, more than 500 million liters of water per minute pass through the waterfall, due to the enormous force of the falling water, the spray rises hundreds of meters into the air. In 1958, during the Zambezi flood, a record level of flow was recorded - more than 770 million liters per minute.
Access to the waterfall From the side of Zimbabwe, the entrance to national park Victoria Falls paid (25 USD). The hotels are located in the town of Victoria Falls. The closest to the waterfall are Victoria Falls Hotel 5*, The Kingdom at Victoria Falls 4* and Ilala Lodge 5*. From the Zambian side, everything is much more interesting. If you live in one of the hotels of the Sun International group (Zambezi Sun 3 * or The Royal Livingstone 5 *, then the entrance to the waterfall is free for you and unlimited directly from the territory of the hotels. For those who live in other hotels and lodges, the entrance is paid - USD 30. Plus, you have to drive every time, as the rest of the hotels are located upstream of the Zambezi.
The waterfall, in some respects, is largest waterfall in the world, and is also one of the most unusual in form (the waterfall is an extraordinary sight - a narrow abyss into which water falls), and having perhaps the most diverse and easily observed wildlife any section of the waterfall.
Although Victoria Falls is neither the tallest nor the widest waterfall in the world, its status as the largest is based on a width of 1708 meters and a height of 108 meters, forming the largest sheet of falling water in the world. Numerous islands on the crest of the waterfall divide the water current into several branches. The dense fog and thunderous roar produced by the waterfall can be perceived from a distance of about 40 km.
A few meters ahead and you fall down with the waterfall.
The world-famous Victoria Falls, which the locals call “Mosi-oa-Tunya” (“thundering smoke”), is one of the most picturesque and enchanting sights on the African continent!
A legendary attraction that attracts tourists from all over the world. Here the mighty Zambezi River falls down, forming a water curtain almost 2 kilometers long. Such a spectacle meets tourists who come here in the spring, when the river is filled with water to the maximum, so that every second 5 million liters of water fall down 100 meters and 30 km from the waterfall you can see clouds of steam rising above the water
Indeed, water spray rising from the waterfall forms a cloud that looks like smoke from afar. The waterfall owes its name to David Livingston, the discoverer and the first white man who saw it in 1885 and decided to name it in honor of the English Queen Victoria. When the local natives escorted him to the waterfall and showed him 546 million liters of water, which every minute crashed into a 100-meter abyss, David Livingston was so shocked by what he saw that he immediately dubbed it the name of the queen
At the waterfall, the width of the Zambezi River reaches 1.6 km. Water falls with a roar into a 106-meter opening formed in its path
In 1857, David Livingstone wrote that in England no one can even imagine the beauty of this spectacle: “No one can imagine the beauty of the spectacle in comparison with anything seen in England. The eyes of a European had never seen such a thing before, but the angels in their flight must have admired such a beautiful sight!
Professor Livingston described the falls as the most beautiful sight he had seen in Africa: “Crawling with fear to the cliff, I looked down into a huge crack that stretched from coast to coast of the wide Zambezi, and saw how a stream thousands of yards wide rushed down to a hundred feet and then suddenly shrinking in a space of fifteen to twenty yards... I witnessed the most wonderful sight in Africa!”
The waterfall is, by some measures, the largest waterfall in the world, and is also one of the most unusual in form (the waterfall is an extraordinary sight - a narrow abyss into which water falls), and has perhaps the most diverse and easily observed wildlife of any section of the waterfall.
Although Victoria Falls is neither the tallest nor the widest waterfall in the world, its status as the largest is based on a width of 1708 and a height of 108 meters, forming the largest sheet of falling water in the world. Numerous islands on the crest of the waterfall divide the water current into several branches. The dense fog and thunderous roar produced by the waterfall can be perceived from a distance of approximately 40 km.
A boiling cauldron at the beginning of a winding gorge 80 km long, through which streams rush from the waterfall, is crossed by a bridge 198 meters long and 94 meters high
At the top of the 120-meter Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, there is a natural mountain pool called Devil's Pool where the water is relatively calm. From September to December, when the water level is low, Devil's Pond turns into one of the world's largest swimming pools. The surrounding view will certainly make you a little nervous.
Or get really nervous
Victoria Falls is often compared to the Argentine-Brazilian Iguazu Falls, because if you do not take into account the discontinuity of the Iguazu water wall, it would be the widest waterfall in the world!
There are hardly any metaphors that have not yet been applied to this magnificent natural wonder of the world; it's just hard to describe in words. The waterfall and its immediate surroundings are so vast that it is difficult to capture their true splendor with the eye, and for this reason they are perhaps best seen from the air.
A few more photos Victoria Falls bird's-eye
Thundering Smoke Waterfall
Mighty Zambezi, and with it Victoria Falls discovered by the famous Scottish traveler and explorer of Africa David Livingston. “This is the hammer of the gods,” the leader of the local tribe told him when, on November 16, 1855, Livingston, during one of his many expeditions, unexpectedly saw a giant waterfall. "Mosi-oa-Tunya" - "Thundering smoke" - that's what the locals call it.
Among the great rivers of Africa, the Zambezi ranks fourth, behind only the Nile, the Congo and the Niger. It originates on the stone plateaus of Central Africa and carries its waters into Indian Ocean. What adventures await on its almost three thousand kilometers from the source to the ocean. And rapids, and swamps, and lakes. But the main thing among these adventures is, of course, Victoria Falls!
Connecting with the Kwando River, becoming full-flowing and overflowing almost two kilometers wide, Zambezi runs to the ocean - and suddenly ... Its channel is crossed by a narrow, zigzag crack in the rock, a hundred and twenty-meter cliff, on the very edge of which, by some miracle, several rocks are kept densely overgrown with trees! And Zambezi, foaming, rushes into this abyss with noise and roar. Huge columns of spray are visible thirty kilometers from the waterfall.
This is the most famous and significant natural monument in southern Africa.
On the whole, the lands along the sides of the Zambezi, Africa's largest "fish river", are still largely virgin. Since there are no barriers or fences near Victoria Falls, the intrepid visitor can venture very close to this creation of nature. In the middle of roaring water streams, which for millions of years have been falling into a crack only fifty meters wide, state border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, with two-thirds of the falls located on the territory of the latter.
The water mass of the Thundering Smoke is divided into five separate waterfalls over a stretch of almost two kilometers, each of which has its own and sometimes amusing name. From the eastern ledge, one after another, the Rainbow waterfall, then the Horseshoe, and then, after the main waterfalls, the Devil's ledge opens, next to which a monument to the glorious Livingston has long been erected.
From the Zambian side, you can go through a small tropical forest to the Knife Blade, a narrow pass between the first and second ledges. From there, a breathtaking panorama of the Boiling Cauldron, the Peak of Danger and a two-hundred-meter road-rail-road bridge opens up, which passes over the river at a height of almost one hundred meters. This bold structure was erected in 1904 as part of railway linking Cape Town in South Africa and Lubumbashi in Zaire.
The most beautiful in terms of landscape sections of the Victoria Falls, which does not allow the use of the Zambezi in the lower reaches as an international waterway are located in Zimbabwe. There are also majestic clefts, which a powerful stream has formed over time from a system of narrow cracks. National park The "Victoria Falls" in Zimbabwe corresponds on the Zambian side to the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park.
Through the shallow delta, the Zambezi flows into the Mozambique Channel. Geological finds associated with the formation of the waterfall are kept in a museum next to the Mosi-oa-Tunya Intercontinental Hotel on the east side. In the characteristics of Victoria Falls, which is located in the highlands of the tropical belt in southern Central Africa, dotted with rivers, swamps and lakes, almost all the figures claim to be a record.
The highest fall height - one hundred and seven meters - the river reaches at the Rainbow waterfall. At the end of the rainy season, three hundred and forty million liters of water per minute fall from the ledges. At the beginning of November, when the dry period ends, eighteen million liters of water rush down into a crevasse at right angles to the former direction of flow.
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