Highway to heaven: Following in Dr Livingstone's wake in captivating Zambia

By Joanna Eede

Published: 14:36 EDT, 15 March 2013 | Updated: 16:06 EDT, 15 March 2013

'Look, it’s easy,’ said the guide. ‘All you have to do is hang your head over the edge, and I’ll hold your feet to make sure you don’t fall.’

I was sitting in Devil’s Pool, a natural infinity pool on the lip of Victoria Falls in Zambia. A yard in front of me, the smooth water of the Zambezi curled serenely over the basalt rim, where it transformed into a roaring sheet of whitewater, like a vertical avalanche until it hit a swirling cauldron of froth 350ft below.

I declined. So we swam back to the safe, white sand of Livingstone Island, from where David Livingstone, the 19th-century explorer, missionary and anti-slavery campaigner, first saw Mosi-oa-Tunya — which means ‘the smoke that thunders’.

Thundering: A double rainbow arcs across Zambia's Victoria Falls perfectly

‘On reaching that lip, and peering over the  giddy height, the wondrous and unique character of the magnificent cascade at once burst upon us,’ he later wrote in his journal.

He planted apricot and peach seeds on the island to commemorate his visit, and named the Falls after his Queen. This year marks the 200th anniversary of Livingstone’s birth, with celebrations
in the Victoria Falls area including a regatta, when Eights from Oxford and Cambridge will battle it
out on the Zambezi.

But I just wanted to take in a few of the ‘scenes of surpassing beauty’ he had described. This is why  my journey started on the Zambezi, the river on which Livingstone spent the best part of three years and which he viewed as God’s highway — the means of conveying Christianity to central Africa.

We arrived at The River Club, on the northern (Zambian) bank, by boat. The vastness of the river is inspiring — for what starts as a bubbling stream in north-west Zambia is more than a mile wide by the time it reaches the Falls.

Stupendous: The magnificent Victoria Falls, where water powers down to a depth of 350ft below

The banks were lined with wild date palms and low-hanging water-berry trees, their gnarled roots coiled on the sand like boat ropes. Lapwings tiptoed through the bullrushes, minuscule bream darted near the surface of the water, and barrel-bodied hippos yawned on a mid-river sandbank.

The River Club is a beautiful, Edwardian-style lodge with bedrooms strung out on a hillside  overlooking the river. Its elegant main house, library, croquet lawn and snooker room are surrounded
by mature trees.

As dusk settled on the Zambezi, we had dinner on the verandah before drifting to sleep to the sound of 1,000 croaking frogs. Following an entertaining breakfast, keeping a close eye on marauding vervet monkeys, we visited the Livingstone Museum in nearby Livingstone Town.

It houses a curious variety of his belongings: original letters, surgical instruments, a battered medical case, a bottle containing stingless bees and — movingly — a piece of wood carved from the tree under which his heart is buried.

Open wide: Livingstone spoke about the bad tempered hippopotami

‘You meet so many people who are motivated by commerce,’ the museum’s director told me.

‘But Livingstone was driven by the plight of humanity.’ Our next destination was the Stanley and Livingstone hotel in Zimbabwe, ten minutes from Victoria Falls.

A grand hotel in exquisite gardens, it adjoins a 6,000-acre private game reserve in which roam Africa’s Big Five animals. The proximity of large game so close to our bedroom suite would have
been unnerving, were it not for the electric fence, which also protects the reserve’s population of seven black rhino.

Finding just one rhinoceros in acres of mopane woodland is tricky. Our guide, Jason, drove us across the reserve. We saw kudu antelopes, their spiralled horns like giant corkscrews, and watched white egret fall like handkerchiefs out of an indigo sky.

Golden landscape: The Zambezi at sunset - Livingstone viewed the river as God's highway

We drove, at one point, through a cloud of curiously musky scent, described by Jason as ‘the smell of buttered popcorn’: the scent markings of a passing leopard. But rhino eluded us, and the light was fading.

Then, as a tangerine moon rose, there she was — a magnificent, solitary rhino. She squinted at us in the half-light, then trotted off into the teak trees.

Our final destination was the Zambezi Queen, a five-star floating hotel, run by charming staff. The boat has three decks: a top deck with dining area, picture windows, plunge pool, and two lower decks of cabins.

She sails along the Chobe River (a major tributary of the Zambezi), whose southern banks border the Chobe National Park.

Great Scot: The world celebrates the 200th anniversary of David Livingstone's birth this year

It is famous for its vast herds — approximately 120,000 — of Kalahari elephant, which congregate along the river during the dry summer months. After a buffet lunch, a small boat took us upstream for a sunset cruise.

Livingstone wrote: ‘The Chobe is much infested by hippopotami, and, as certain elderly males are expelled from the herd, they become soured in their temper.’

We were spared a grumpy hippo encounter. Instead we chugged along reedy green banks with a hugely knowledgeable local guide, who pointed out where baby crocodile lay camouflaged and kingfishers nested.

As the sky blazed with red and an African fish eagle cried out, we motored back to the Zambezi Queen for an exquisite dinner.

The Chobe snaked behind us, through the riverine forests and marshes of the Linyanti swamp. It was from Linyanti that Livingstone departed with members of the local Makololo tribe on the expedition that led to his discovery of Victoria Falls in 1855.

A century-and-a-half later, Elspeth Murdoch, one of Livingstone’s great-grandchildren, also travelled to Livingstone Island.

‘There was a rainbow arcing over the Falls by the time we reached Devil’s Pool. I had heard about Victoria Falls from my family all my days, and yet I was so impressed I was lost for words.’ 

It was an echo of her great-grandfather’s thoughts. ‘As a whole, the Victoria Falls are the most wonderful in the world,’ Livingstone wrote. ‘It is rather a hopeless task to endeavour to convey an idea of it in words.’

Travel Facts

Imagine Africa, 020 7622 5114, www.imagineafrica.co.uk, offers six nights from £3,098 pp — including
flights, two nights at The River Club, two nights at The Stanley and Livingstone, two nights aboard the Zambezi Queen and transfers, based on two sharing.