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Africa's Major Tourist Attractions Victoria Falls

By: Douglas Scott

The Victoria Falls constitutes one of the most spectacular natural wonders of the world. The Local people call it Mosi-oa-Tunya. The Victoria falls is 1708 meters wide, making it the largest curtain of water in the world. It drops between 90m and 107m into the Zambezi Gorge and an average of 550,000 cubic metres of water plummet over the edge every minute.

One special vantage point is across the Knife edge bridge, where visitors can have the finest view of the Eastern Cataract and the Main Falls as well as the Boiling Pot where the river turns and heads down the Batoka Gorge.

Victoria Falls are one of Africa's major tourist attractions, and are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The falls are shared between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and each country has a national park to protect them and a town serving as a tourism centre.Victoria Falls National Park and the town of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park and Livingstone in Zambia.

By the end of the 1990s, almost 300,000 people were visiting the falls annually, and this was expected to rise to over a million in the next decade. Victoria Falls has more Zimbabwean and Zambian visitors than international tourists as they are accessible by bus and train and therefore comparatively inexpensive to reach

There are two seasons the wet and dry season. Regardless, the temperatures are rather moderate and less arid and humid than in the Northern part of Africa. The dry season generally is from May to October. At the tail end of the dry season, it is the least desirable time to visit Africa. In fact, October and November are known as suicide months because the temperatures remain high through the night as well.

In 1851, Livingstone first heard of the great water fall, but it was only in 1855 that he set out to visit it. He spent the night on Kalai Island a few kilometres upstream of the Falls, having come down river by foot, and the next morning set off in a small canoe to approach the thundering smoke. He landed on the biggest island on the lip of the falls, now called Livingstone Island and from there obtained his first view of the falls.

Falls Crafts Village complex consists of the reconstructed huts of five different Zimbabwean tribes from the 19th century, with numerous stalls and shops. If you are thinking of braving the rapids on a boogie board, it might be a good idea to have your fortune told first by the Village's nyanga. This is also where you can catch some of the best traditional dance acts in the evenings.

Article Source: http://www.articleresourceindex.com

Douglas Scott writes for The Car Hire Specialist. and is a free lance writer for The Victoria Falls Rental Site

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