And, yes, I DO take it personally: Photoblogging

Friday, February 25, 2011

Photoblogging - Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Victoria Falls through clouds of mist

at sunrise this past wednesday morning, i walked to victoria falls, not knowing quite what to expect but prepared to be astounded... i wasn't disappointed...

the first glimpse was of a small cataract barely visible through the vegetation... it was apparent, however, from the volume of water rushing by and the incredible roar that there was a lot more to be seen...

the sheer volume of water and the precipitous drop creates boiling clouds of mist that rush up the sides of the gorge from the bottom and then are blown about by the breezes... the clouds of mist can be seen for miles across the what is a deceptively flat, densely vegetated landscape...

everything within several hundred yards of the downstream side of the falls is bathed in a more or less perpetual light rain and viewing the falls along the path constructed at the side of the gorge can't be comfortably done without a raincoat and umbrella.. glimpses of the main falls are intermittent through the constantly shifting clouds of mist...

it's an altogether amazing place as symbolically representative of africa as any place I could imagine... the photos and the youtube clip don't begin to do justice to the intense reality of the experience...

walking back, i fell in with a tourist "policeman" named welton... we had quite a talk... he told me about his family, his three children (11, 7 and 22 months) and how he had taught himself welding and tried to operate a small welding business without success in the ever-turbulent zimbabwean economy (unemployment in zimbabwe hovers around 85%)... at one point, he motioned me to be quiet as he pointed out three elephants in the bush... i was able to snap a long-distance shot just before they caught our scent and ambled off in the opposite direction...

i am sure there are many more amazing sights and wonderful people to be encountered in this area of the world and i will be sharing them regularly here...