Livingstone

Livingstone is the Zambian shore of the wonder the Lozi and Tonga named first and best: Mosi-oa-Tunya, the smoke that thunders — a kilometer and a half of the Zambezi stepping calmly off a basalt edge, throwing its spray so high the column announces the falls from twenty miles out. The town, named for the doctor who wrote the sight home in 1855, keeps a frontier ease: railway-era facades, curio carvers, and the river running wide and confident just before its great mistake.

The Zambian side is the intimate side: paths that put you close enough to share the falls' weather, and — in low water from about September — the walk across the lip to Livingstone Island and the Devil's Pool, where a rock ledge lets the brave swim to the very edge of the drop, an experience this Guide files under 'once, and with a licensed guide, and never alone.' Add a sunset cruise among hippos upstream, the microlight if the heart allows, and the full-moon nights when the spray raises a lunar rainbow.

The Guide's practical counsel: the two shores are one wonder with two passports — the KAZA univisa, when running, covers both, and the bridge walk between them is itself a pilgrimage past bungee jumpers and baboons —; high water hides the face in its own applause (February to May you feel the falls more than see them), low water bares the rock and opens the pools: neither is wrong, they are different chapters; and the spray soaks cameras democratically — bring the dry bag.