DEFYING DEATH AT VICTORIA FALLS, LIVINGSTONE ISLAND, ZAMBIA

DAY 3 OF OUR AFRICAN ADVENTURE

I don’t even know where to begin with this one. We had an utterly extraordinary, magical day that exceeded our expectations on every level. Mainly because we did the job we were here to do today. We released our father’s ashes into that loud, roaring African Thunder and said our farewells. We brought him back to where he asked to be. Brought him home. It felt like an incredibly spiritual place. Thunderously loud and yet incredibly peaceful at the same time.

By 1910 a railway linked the mine at Kimberley in South Africa with the Victoria Falls and beyond, making long distance travel in the Subcontinent more practical. For my father as a young boy of 10, this was the way he got to and from school. It would take him three days to travel from Kimberley where he was at school to his parents in Lusaka. He would spend two days with them and another three days travelling back. He loved being on that train. Once, he actually managed to separate the carriages – unhooked the ones containing all the other boys going to the school and travelled off with the girls, leaving the others behind. My uncle recalls last being at the Falls back in 1959, travelling with my Grandmother and her friend Cecily Carr (sister of Norman Carr – a well known and much admired pioneer), when they were en route to the UK from Lusaka.

So. Our aim was to get him as close to the falls themselves as possible. We booked ourselves onto the Livingstone Island breakfast tour. Sounded lovely enough. All we knew of it was that we were going to have eggs benedict and scones and have a quick swim in a pool. En route, we decided we would release the ashes into the water. It all sounded very Disney. I brought my bikini (generally fit for nobody’s eyes only) just in case, but assumed that perhaps I would paddle just my feet in the water whilst eating a scone on the side. I hasten to add that you can’t do this all year round – only in the dry season.

So. To get to Livingstone Island (which you have to book through Tongabezi by the way because they have the concession from the National Park) you first enter the grounds of the very splendid five star Livingstone Hotel. All clipped grass and colonial style. A beautiful location overlooking the falls but not as close to the elements as we would have liked. They have an electric fence around the hotel to stop the hippos coming up to graze.

So. Here we are greeted with our first spectacular view of the falls in the distance, with the mist all rainbow colours:-

This photo didn’t really do it justice though – in reality, it looked more like this:-

Here I am, looking as you can see, entirely ill-equipped for the adventure that is about to unfold:-

We then get on to the boat you can see in the photo, put on life jackets and set off for the island. So far so good.

Ten minutes later we are met by a spectacular guide, with an even more spectacular name. My brother decided to change his name by deed poll on his return although I tell him he’s going to need more than a name change to get away with that one:-

The gorgeous “Alpha Omega”:-

Alpha Omega leads us along the path for another ten minutes. We arrive at a place to change – their “Loo with a view”. I don’t bother to change. Am thinking I will keep all my clothes on. Especially if I’m standing anywhere near Alpha Omega:-

and visit the site where we will be having our breakfast. So far still so good. Still all very Disney.

Then he leads us further on to have a look at the falls from the left side and we begin to get some understanding of the enormity of the place – although this of course is the dry season and there is far less water than during the wet season. Here you can see both the Zambian side on the left and Zimbabwean side on the right:-

We then turn to the right to be presented with the most beautiful rainbow. It starts to feel a little surreal:-

Then we stumble across the plaque to Dr Livingstone – who was the first European to provide a written description when he stood on the island and first observed the falls saying that “no one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England and the plaque quotes the next sentence he writes which is:-

“Scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight” and at this point we know we are in the right place:-

We walk a little further to the right and look down upon another part of the waterfall – this time with lots more noise and vapour – “Mosi oa Tunya” the local name for the falls meaning “the smoke that thunders”. I can’t get too close to the edge. It’s a little scary. We walk around some rock pools and onto a clearing where we are now told to strip. To leave our clothes in a pile, pass any camera equipment on to our guide, together with our shoes. “Are you all strong swimmers?” we are asked by another guide – “um, depends on what context – I probably can’t swim back up a waterfall” I told him. I do, at this point, remember that we are heading off to “The Devil’s Pool” and start mildly panicking to myself. No sign of an eske (sp?) containing gin and tonics and scones to eat in the pool.

“RIGHT” says our guide. “You must do exactly as I say. When we get in the water to swim, you need to swim UP UP UP very hard and fast before swimming across. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”.

“NO” I wanted to shout. “WHERE IS MY HELMET, ARMBANDS AND HARNESS?”.

But I didn’t.

Instead. I did everything he told me to. “Hold hands and follow me”. So, I hold hands with my two brothers and we carefully walk single file across the rocks. We haven’t all held hands since we were three. If I hadn’t been shitting myself at this point it would have been quite a sweet moment.

“NOW. GET IN THE WATER AND SWIM!!!!! HARDER. UP. UP. UP. FASTER. HURRY UP”

FFS. I am terrified.

We follow him across the top of the raging torrent and drop further down into a shallow area where we can clamber out. By this time my bikini top is somewhere around my shoulders and the bottoms have mostly disappeared up my bottom. I don’t care. Poor old Alpha Omega must have got a real eyeful at this stage. I am more concerned with staying alive at this point. As I crawl out I realise there is no going back. We are on a mission. We have a further stretch to get across, but my legs are refusing to co-operate. They are shaking furiously and not from the cold water. We have little bags of our father upon our persons. Given that I don’t have much packing space in my appallingly inappropriate outfit, my brother is carrying my precious package in his pocket. My other brother is carrying his father under his hat. Just like Epaminondas (my FAVOURITE childhood book which suddenly came back to us in a flash).

The Falls are 1,688m wide and average just over 108m in height – part of a great fault system in the continental plate. Around 750 million litres of water cascade over the tip every minute and we are about to stand at the tip and probably do the same. Alpha Omega is in a pair of trunks and I am too consumed with fear to admire the view.

We finally get to the plunge pool. I kid you not, it is at the top of the falls and then Alpha Omega does a somersault into the pool. We are given a thirty second safely chat about jumping directly into the middle – not too far to the right because you’ll hit a rock, not too far forward because you’ll miss and accidentally jump over the edge instead.

No fucking way I’m jumping in.

Here is my brother in the pool. He disappeared as he jumped in. Losing his hat in the process:-

Here I am clambering in. I think I am passing my sunglasses back to my brother and telling him to leave them to my children in my will. Look at the bloody edge!!:-

After getting in you are pulled pretty quickly to the edge, where you then cling on for dear life. I was hoping that there weren’t any fault lines but it felt pretty solid at least. Once we were all in they got us to actually sit on the edge. We have photographic evidence. Sadly I am banned from showing you. Partly because my bikini is a little wonky and partly because my brother has only given me permission to show photos where his moobs are smaller than mine – and there aren’t any……anyway, my daughter was unimpressed – “couldn’t you have at least sucked in your stomach for the photo?” she asked, aghast – “SUCKED IN?? ARE YOU KIDDING ME – I WAS MORE CONCERNED WITH STAYING ALIVE – if I’d sucked in I’d have fallen backwards over the edge for sure”.

We used a rope to pull ourselves out and I dragged myself out like a drowned cat from a well. Bloody Alpha Omega was still enjoying his paparazzi moment – OK why don’t you all stand here, squat down there and I was thinking this is the worst moment ever not to have had a bikini wax. So unprepared. Again. On that basis. Sorry. I will spare your eyes the horror of the evidence. Just trust me on this one.

We went back across the rocks, admiring the now double rainbow. We were sitting in the pool at the furthest cascade you can see in the photo – just to give it another perspective:-

We get back to our delicious Disney eggs benedict which I can barely eat because I am so shocked, thrilled, excited, amazed, stunned….:-

We are reluctant to leave. Much as we couldn’t have done a better job of leaving him exactly where he wanted to be without dying in the process (which wouldn’t have been great for my mother), it was incredibly emotional. “Don’t worry Pa, we’ll be back when we’ve been to the gym” we said.

“Totseins” we say. Which was something he used to say a lot – it means “till I see you again; goodbye”.

“Zikomo For Everything”

….and as we were heading back on the boat we saw these three elephants walking together through the rock pools and everything felt right:-