Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

We arrived yesterday at Victoria Falls and went last night to the BOMA for dinner and a show. BOMA (meaning the British Officers Meal Area) is now an interesting buffet dinner with local game and a show after. Barbara and I tried the local delicacy, fried Mopani worms, called Macimbi. Crunchy for sure. These dancers put on an energetic show

Part of this event included face painting, a zebra for Barbara...

And an elephant for me

This afternoon we did the helicopter ride over the falls...fabulous

The water level is gettig higher. So much more water than out last visit here

We did an extended trip including travelling down to the gorges which were the sites of the falls before it worked its way up to its present location..
You see the spray of the Falls in the distance, looking like smoke from a huge forest fire

After the falls we headed up the Zambezie River to a wildlife preserve and were lucky enough to see many animals. A large herd of elephants

Many giraffes, including this resting mother with her baby nearby

One local hotel feeds the vultures at 1pm so we headed from the helicopter there to see the birds. This young Marabou stock was waiting his turn

Across the valley, all these vultures were also waiting

Barbara spotted this red headed bird from along way off

Turned out to be a very rare female Cardinal Quelea. They have only recently been sighted in the Victoria Falls area

The Hooded Vulture waits its turn while the much larger, more aggressive White-backed Vulture tucks in.

Marabou storks also were feeding along with White Backed Vulturres. The storks were the last to feed despite their size.

Nice view of the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia. The faint lines closer to us also crossing the gorge are from the zip lines. There also is an enormous swing here--the flying fox.

A view from the bridge with the shadow of the bridge and the rainbow.
People do bungy jump here... we did not

Through the gorge there is nothing to be seen but spray. Occasionally a gust of wind would clear an area and I could see the water of the falls quite clearly, but this never lasted long enough to photograph. So much water!

The spray is quite wonderful as seen from our hotel in the mornings. Once the sun is up, the cloud of spray barely shows.

There is a similar effect each evening as the nearly full moon rises.

Not clouds: spray from the falls.

Our main goal was to see a lunar rainbow, at the full moon. The moon co-operated but our camera did not. We got this shot before the camera got too wet (despite its purpose made plastic covering) and died for the night. But we did see the rainbow and that is the most important part. Another goal achieved. And quite magical too. There is no colour in the lunar rainbow, but the ghostly white arc in places came up from the depths of the gorge and continued to make a complete arc. The trick is to find a place where the full moon is behind, the mist is not so dense as to block the light and there is little ambient light, We came back from this guided walk absolutely drenched, but thoroughly delighted.