Zambia- The Art of Racing in the Rain

Zambia · The Hero's Journey

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Victoria Falls, Bob the giraffe, wildlife at the hotel, and the moment Africa stopped feeling like a destination and started feeling fully alive.

Ordinary World The Call Answer the Call Foreign Land Trials The Elixir

Ordinary World

Alive on Arrival

“To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live… To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am.” Garth Stein

Some places wake you up. Zambia did something more immediate: we did not wake up—we came to.

Victoria Falls changes with the light, the angle, the season, and the country from which you see it.

The Call

The Smoke That Thunders

Another two days, and we were dazed by the power and majesty of the great Zambezi and Victoria Falls—a UNESCO World Heritage site and an über-waterfall on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia.

The power and majesty of the Zambezi at Victoria Falls.

Looking across the Zambezi River from the Royal Livingstone Hotel toward The Smoke That Thunders.

Also known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya—“The Smoke That Thunders”—this is not the highest or widest waterfall in the world. Its immense width and height combine to create the world’s largest sheet of falling water.

The first known European to gaze upon its splendour, Dr David Livingstone, wrote that scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.

Answer the Call

See It. Hear It. Feel It.

Like any piece of beautiful art, Victoria Falls can be admired at different times of day, in different light, seasons, years and angles—and, in this case, from two countries. Every viewpoint reveals another virtue: splendour, majesty, raw beauty and power. Today was no miraculous exception.

Foreign Land

The Wild Life

Zebras, baboons, monkeys, impala, elk—and a near head-butting from a giraffe the locals call Bob.

Despite his characteristic long neck, Bob has the same number of neck vertebrae as humans: just seven. Each individual vertebra is super-sized, measuring up to ten inches long. “Necking” is a ritualised display of dominance in which male giraffes swing their heads into one another’s bodies. We had a close call.

Male giraffes also test a female’s fertility by tasting her urine—which is something I now cannot un-know.

Bob the giraffe at the Zambezi Sun Resort—long-necked, local and unexpectedly close.

Trials

Power, Noise and Proximity

Beautiful, but oh so noisy. The videos let you hear what the still image cannot hold.

At Victoria Falls, distance disappears. Mist, sound and scale become the experience.

Surprise Visitor

Inonge Wina, then Vice President of Zambia, was at our hotel, the Zambezi Sun, and I was able to film her visit up close. The fanfare and traditional greetings were special. Roll video.

The Elixir

Awe Is a Form of Attention

Journey Equation

Proximity + Power + Attention = Awe

Victoria Falls does not merely reward attention; it overwhelms the senses until attention is the only available response. The water, wildlife and unexpected encounters transformed a visit into a reminder: being fully alive is less about adding more and more about noticing what is already thundering in front of you.

Companion Stories

Continue the Journey

From North to South

Alive on arrival in Cape Town, South Africa.

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Cape Town Chronicles

Returning to a city and discovering what time has changed.

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The Smoke That Thunders

Victoria Falls as art, force and changing perspective.

Read the Story

Victoria Falls: The Awe in Awesome

Putting the awe back into an overused word.

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Direction, Not Speed

Postcards from A to Z around the world.

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From Afghanistan to Zambia

An A-to-Z journey by land, sea and air.

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