Dr. Livingstone, I Presume

I'm in Zimbabwe at the moment, visiting one of the seven wonders of the natural world and UNESCO World Heritage Site, Victoria Falls. The falls are the largest in the world, the water plunging from a cliff down to a gorge 300 feet below. Impressive, for sure. But, the visit kind of reaffirmed my previous guiding principle about waterfalls: that is, they are fine to see, but don't go out of your way to do so.

I mean, the falls are great. But it takes about an hour to see them from every which angle. And then you are done. And there is nothing else really here. And my travel agent booked me here for three nights.

Still, it's a big draw and there are many, many tourists here. Interestingly, more than half of the travelers that I have seen are over 50 years old, many seeming to be from the US. (By contrast, when I was on safari, Americans were overwhelmingly in the minority, and there were a number of younger people, too.) A surprising number of the tourists here sport khaki safari vest/jackets while walking around. Sure, it's Africa, but about the hardest thing people are doing here is trying to track down bottled water from the porters at the fancy hotel. It's funny, though, because in the vests everyone looks like either an AP photographer read to go on assignment on Beirut, or Dick Cheney on a fishing trip.

Given the demographics of the visitors, you can imagine my surprise at how many adventure companies there are that offer the chance to bungee jump from the bridge near the falls, or to raft through Class 5 rapids. I can't see that appealing to the over-60 set. But that's the main thing to do around here, apart from viewing the falls. However, you couldn't convince me to partake even in the US, where there are tons of safety measures and liability concerns. (You can sense the huge difference between the American legal system and the Zimbabwe system by the number of people that are freely allowed to walk out into the water maybe a half dozen feet from falling -- to their deaths -- into the LARGEST WATERFALL IN THE WHOLE FREAKING WORLD.)

Deciding to pass on the bungee jumping, I took a trip this afternoon into Zambia, which is on the other side of the falls. Not much to see there, either, except for the falls, at a slightly different angle. Oh -- and there seemed to be more 8 foot high wooden giraffes available for purchase, which I secretly kind of want, although I have no idea how I'd get it home or what I'd do with it in the US.

Oh -- I forgot to mention what Dr. Livingstone has to do with any of this. For some inexplicable reason, that phrase popped into my head several times since arriving in Africa, and I had to fight an urge to say it. I must have read it in my guidebooks before I left. Apparently the infamous Dr. Livingstone was a British missionary/explorer who "discovered" the falls in the 1800's when he came to Africa. Years later, he went missing and a reporter for the New York Times tracked Livingstone down to a town farther north in Zambia, supposedly muttering the now famous phrase when he encountered Livingstone.

And with that exciting history lesson, I'm off to head back from town to my hotel. Tomorrow morning I leave for Botswana, where I'll be spending another couple days on safari. (Yay safari!) They say Botswana has some of the most beautiful and undisturbed landscapes in southern africa, so I'm really looking forward to the trip.