THE MOONBOW

VICTORIA FALLS

For touring purposes the Zambezi River can conveniently be subdivided into two sections, the division between them being a magnificent waterfall named Victoria Falls by David Livingstone, the first European to see them, in 1855, and report back to the outer world. The only other waterfall to rival it, in my limited experience, is the Iguazu Falls, in South America–the plural nouns are entirely appropriate in both cases since there are many torrents of water pouring over the cliffs. I suspect that Iguazu, which I visited slightly over a year before Victoria, is actually the greater spectacle physically, but because of the history surrounding Victoria, I found it vastly more exciting; there is also a beautiful starkness and cleanness to it, a comparative simplicity, that Iguazu loses in the surrounding jungle. Reminders of Livingstone’s contributions are everywhere, and only the plaque at the base of his statue asserting the he “discovered” these falls seems a bit tasteless. My first night at the Victoria Falls Hotel, I started to read Thomas Pakenham's The Scramble for Africa, a highly regarded treatment of Africa's exploitation by European powers from 1876-1912. Beginning its study here seemed particularly poignant, since the book's prologue is a brief summary of the life, and death, of Livingstone.

Another important reason for my preference is the very different legacy left by the British to their colonies compared to what the Latin countries of Europe did. A working infrastructure, a pride in providing service to visitors, and a genuine human friendliness characterize the community surrounding one but not the other. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the two hotels where I stayed, each one bearing the name of its respective falls. In Argentina the staff was indifferent to the point of refusing to acknowledge a cheery greeting in its own language; the main purpose of the entire population in the vicinity seemed to be to rip off the tourist. I shall not return.

In Zimbabwe, on the other hand, the staff was unusually friendly and helpful; they did have the advantage of working in a historic building at a historically significant site. The third and last night I was there, when Edwin came in to turn down the bed, he asked my name, told me he was Zambian and went home to Stanley during work breaks, and he was obviously very proud of his twenty-three years with the hotel. Still, he joined the staff much too late to have seen those marvelous rail carriages–the one on display in the inner courtyard gardens is so reminiscent of San Francisco's cable cars–transporting hotel guests to a location for viewing the falls. I've been told that the hotel is not yet back to what it was, but I was pleased; it rivals Nairobi's Norfolk in many ways, and I'm eager to return.

Below the falls themselves the water drops quickly in a deep narrow gorge through a set of numbered, fatuously named, and graded rapids; this part of the river is rated grade five overall in the parlance of river rafting. Rafters can enter the river just below the east cataract and begin their descent at the first rapids. I noticed this the next morning when I forced my stiffened quadriceps to make the ten-minute walk down the hill from the hotel to the Victoria Falls National Park so I could view the rainbows–one double!–in the early morning sunlight, the only time the weather cooperated during my three-day stay. When I looked down into the narrow gorge where the river resumes its less abrupt descent, I saw a raft on the opposite, the Zambian bank. Then I noticed a host of yellow-helmeted, orange-life-jacketed would-be rafters hanging onto a rope suspended from spikes driven into the steep rock wall. It appeared they were each to man an oar, thus becoming “paddle boaters,” whereas we just floated with our guides doing all the work. I would have stayed to watch the beginning of their adventure, which would carry them under that lovely old railroad bridge I could see so well from the hotel, but I had to rush back up the hill for a bird-watching cruise on the other part of the river.

Above the falls the river looks almost like a lake. It is lined by reed banks and trees and is filled with crocs and hippos and rocks; my boat was essentially a platform on two pontoons, with a canopy overhead, powered by an outboard engine. My guide, Stuart Shaw, is a Zimbabwean, born in Victoria Falls of English parents, who is totally committed to spending his life here, particularly now that the rebuilt Elephant Hills Hotel has a golf course with country-club arrangements for local residents. His golf clubs are always in the car, I noticed. The three hours we shared were most enjoyable to me, for his company, the cruise, and the birds we saw. Of the nine species new to me, the lesser jacana, African finfoot, and black-crowned night heron were most exciting.

Back at my own hotel, fighting off the combined effects of fatigue and much perspiration with a gin and tonic, I looked a second futile time through my bird field guides trying to identify three birds I had seen on the rocks just upstream from rapid 15, I think it was. I later discovered they were rock pratincoles. We had paused by the shore there to allow our flotilla of about ten rafts to reassemble and more importantly to get our three kayakers into position to retrieve any “long swimmers” who detached from the rafts. I could claim that a serenity of soul allowed this interest in ornithology just upstream from a monster whirlpool, but I might equally correctly attribute it to incipient senility. I should also admit we had already traversed the only class five rapid on our descent, and we had walked around the one rated class six; it was described as “commercially unrunnable,” and the guides took the rafts through it on their own, although I noticed one was carried around–a raft that is, not a guide.

I had made no plans in advance for any particular activities at the Falls, but while looking through tourist literature on the drive from the airport to the hotel, I had decided to “run the river.” On looking at the trip videotape that evening, I realized the enormity of my mistake. The waves were huge, and I had been in mortal danger many times. The descent to the river was bad enough in itself, requiring one to use trees and vines for handholds while sliding off the slippery, mud-covered stones. Farther down, where the stones became large rocks, a variety of ungraceful, semi-seated positions facilitated safely lowering one's body to the next obstacle. Ultimately the rocks became cliffs, and we then climbed down steep, slippery, steel ladders that seemed somewhat securely attached to the rock faces. The entire operation reminded me of a sign seen one week earlier at the entrance to South Africa's Otter Trail: “not for the unfit.”

Although the point of entry to the river seemed serene enough, as we listened to all the safety instructions for what seemed the third time, I began to suspect this would be somewhat more exciting than a typical ferryboat crossing of Puget Sound. I briefly considered retreating back up the cliff, but it seemed like a long, hard hike. The arduous alternative, the ascent up the cliff on the far side of rapid 19, seemed too remote to contemplate now. And so, assuming that all the obvious strength and claimed experience of the young river guides manning our rafts would save me from disaster, I took my assigned seat, quietly and with feigned confidence, at the end of the raft intended to go through the rapids last. Seated next to me was a very pleasant young woman whom I know only as das Mädchen von München, and up front an expatriate from Harrare, accompanied by two teen-aged boys, one his son, the other a friend. Two days later he gave me a splendid tour of his city and lunch at his home while I was between flights from the Falls to Nairobi,

Midway through our first rapid–it's numbered 4 and named Morning Glory, I think–I realized that white-water rafting is indeed a sport. A great wall of water slammed into me, filling my mouth and one ear and leaving me sputtering and hanging on to the rope with both hands. And then, almost immediately it seemed, we were serenely floating toward rapid 5, exclaiming to each other how much fun that had been. I got the water out of my ear with little difficulty, but it took some time for me to realize that the first wave had also knocked off my glasses. I seldom have the foresight to take action that will prevent problems–my career in physics education involved more problem solution than prevention, I suppose–but this day was truly exceptional. During the first review of safety instructions at the hotel where we assembled, I had somewhat sleepily observed that one staff member was preparing a set of strings with a loop tied in one end; he then dropped them onto a pile on the table in front of him without comment. When I noticed that other rafters were picking them up, I decided that I should have one too. Its intended purpose was not obvious to me, and for some time I simply attached it to the cap, emblazoned Peace Corps Tanzania in front, that I usually take along to protect me from unusually intense sunshine. But in that last moment of rational thought before boarding the raft, I decided instead to tie its loose end to my glass frames and to secure the loop to a buckle on my life jacket. And so it was, when I began to wonder where my glasses had gone, that I found them dangling from a string in front of me.

My memory of successive rapids is much the same. Their intricacies of structure, fanciful names, and the various escape routes to follow if detached were carefully explained in advance of each run. One particularly devilish whirlpool was named the Washing Machine, and the first one after lunch, number 11, looked especially suicidal to me. We passed it quite easily, however, so I suppose I had just gotten overadjusted to horizontal, stationary surfaces during the break. Several times our raft seemed hung up atop a wave, with its center higher than either end, and then finally it surged forward and flattened out again; that was fun.

Only once did I come through a rapid without my whole body being buried in white water, although still tightly attached to the raft; for a week afterward I carried three skinned knuckles that demonstrated the strength of the bonding between us. That time I was riding high and dry, enjoying the sunshine, and admiring the cliffs towering above me, when I suddenly realized that das Mädchen von München was in the water. She swam back quickly and easily, however, and with a smile remarked that she had jumped in, thinking the raft was capsizing. That event was caught on the video, and when viewing it, I concluded she was right; her exodus plus the extra holiday mass I had carried north from South Africa provided just the needed restoring torque to right the raft.

Many rafts did flip over during the day, some more than once, but ours did not, to the stated regret of my four companions. Evidently one has not white-water rafted until one has flipped. Well okay, I haven't white-water rafted, but my sore muscles and sunburned skin reminded me for several days that I'd had some kind of adventure. It is likely that those friends who know my totally cowardly nature are absolutely incredulous of the veracity of the preceding narrative and believe it to be totally fictitious. It is suggested that any doubters among you contact Shearwater Adventures, P. O. Box 125, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to purchase a videotape of the full-day rafting trip on January 7, 1993; the head-and-shoulders shot of me that concludes the introductory segment is alone well worth the sixty bucks it will cost you.

I left Victoria Falls with many things undone. There are several different, interesting tourist flights over various features in the vicinity–for a moment in the gorge I fully expected a helicopter hovering above us to come down on the raft–a night game drive sounds attractive, and of course the moonbow, that elusive rainbow in moonlight is every visitor's dream. For me the moonbow remains just that, an elusive dream. It rained every night I was there, so neither the drive nor the bow could be experienced.

The people who were first to live here probably found the falls equally awesome; they called the spectacle Mosi oa Tunga, the smoke that thunders. Livingstone wrote of it, “Scenes so lovely must have been gazed on by angels in their flight,” and there is no record of his having ever seen the moonbow either. While reading about the rock pratincoles, the birds I did see in the gorge, I discovered there is an even rarer bird, the Taita falcon that inhabits only this region, that I missed. Perhaps on another visit it too will appear among the cliffs.

So I didn't flip, and I didn't see the moonbow. Hamna shida. I'll come back and look for the bow, and the falcon, but not the flip. Next time I'm looking at the Zambezi from up on top. Kweli.

W. Vance Johnson

16 Feb 93