The fourth in the world and the width of the mighty African river Zambezi, willingly carrying its waves along the boundary of Zimbabwe and Zambia, he suddenly falls in a narrow and deep canyon. Strike the great mass of water on the stones so strong that it cock cloud of spray, visible at a distance of 40km and a column of white steam-like.
World famous Victoria Falls – a fascinating and picturesque place on the African continent, and attracts tourists from all over the world.
The thunder of the waterfall is heard so far that the hunters of the tribe Batoka called it Mosi-oa-Tunya, – “thundering smoke”. Matabele tribe that lives across the river, and gave him a poetic name – Chongue, ie “Place of the rainbow.” Rainbow shines here all the colors, the beauty indescribable!
Circular rainbows over the gorge are almost always a full moon you can sometimes see the amazing phenomenon – a lunar rainbow, which occurs only in a few places around the world, for example, a similar phenomenon can be seen at Niagara Falls. With three sides surrounded by wooded bluffs Victoria about 100 m in height. The forest that grows along the banks, called the rain, and a refreshing silver rain does come here year round, 24 hours a day, but not from the sky and from thundering gorge. If you swim to the waterfall on the river, it seems that across the flow suddenly grows third coast. It was here I saw Victoria David Livingstone – he was floating on the Zambezi to the island on the crest of a waterfall. Of the 300 soldiers of the local leader Selekta accompanying scientist, only two of them dared to approach the roaring water, where in the opinion of Aboriginal people lived terrible deity.
The first Europeans who saw the Victoria Falls, the missionary and explorer David Livingstone decided that this wonderful spectacle to admire the angels from heaven. Livingston came here in 1855. And since then a waterfall, named after the Queen of England, resulting in not only the admiration of angels, but people coming here from all over the world.
On the bank of the falls is a monument to David Livingstone, who besides the honor of opening of Victoria owns the enthusiastic descriptions of this wonder of nature. “The whole mass of water spills over the edge of the waterfall – wrote Livingstone, three feet below into a kind of monstrous curtain persecuted blizzard of snow. Water particles are separated from it in the form of comets with flowing tails, while all of this avalanche is not transformed into a myriad of small comets rushing in one direction, and each one leaves behind his tail from the nucleus of a white foam. ” Professor Livingston was so shocked by the beauty of what he saw that he immediately appropriated the name of the Queen falls. Brother traveler Charles Livingston noted that this phenomenon is not observed in any other falls, even Niagara Falls. Other eyewitnesses claim that the most amazing sight – a Pillars “thundering smoke” in the golden rays of sunset, like giant torches over the precipice.
In terms of geology of Victoria is a crack formed because of the proximity of rocks of different hardness – basalt and sandstone. The width of the waterfall – more than 1700 m, height of about 128M of Victoria Falls, islands divide it into several threads: Devil’s Falls, Main Falls, Horseshoe, Rainbow and East Falls.
