For all the adventure activities and wildlife to be found in these parts, it's the thundering Victoria Falls that are the wonder of the world. And rightly so, says Paul Ash On the last morning in Zambia, I stood on the very edge of Victoria Falls and gazed into the boiling chasm below.On either side, the Zambezi River, still swollen with the last of the summer rains in Zambia and Angola, thundered over the lip at 500 million litres per minute, and the spray fell on us like hard rain, making a double rainbow over the gorge.Alpha Omega, my guide - a man with dreads and wraparound shades - held me by my belt as I craned over the edge, slimy rock quivering beneath my muddy bare feet.story_article_left1That's a good name for a man who spends his days taking people to the edge of one of the greatest wonders of the world, where the Zambezi - fat like a python to this point - pours into the gorge and changes into a fast and furious green torrent squeezed between high basalt cliffs.Alpha Omega showed me the rock that bears Livingstone's plaque etched with his famous "angels" quote and pointed out the Devil's Pool - washed out now by the high water - where, when the water is low, you can swim in a natural pool carved out of the rock at the edge of the cliff.I would not swim there for all the kwacha in Zambia but many do, if only to bag what may be the ultimate selfie.We retreated to breakfast in a safari tent pitched under trees and ate scones and drank tea as the river rolled by like a green express train on each side.It struck me then that, for all the game watching and horse riding and walking with lions and shopping for curios and bungee-jumping off the high, arched bridge that links Zimbabwe and Zambia, everything here is really about the waterfall, which is - rightly - one of the world's seven natural wonders.Our first stop was to see them head-on, best done from the Zambian side.We stood in the spray, and smelled the river on our skins and craned like all the other tourists for a glimpse of the bottom of the chasm.People took selfies and pranced in the mist and tried to catch the rainbows. One traveller stood at a lookout in front of the Eastern Cataract, struck immobile by the sight. Eight million litres a second. Thunder like the beginning of the world. Sweet, warm rain. Who wouldn't be?But if it is all about the river, then you have to see both sides - the wide, easy-flowing, animal-studded stretch above the cataract and the wild, leaping serpent below.block_quotes_start If a hippo comes up under the kayak and flips it, then swim away from the boat because the kayak is the biggest thing here and that's what the hippo will go for. block_quotes_endIn the morning, we took a truck ride upstream to a scruffy village where we launched a couple of fibreglass canoes through a gap in the reeds. The village children turned out to gawp until an irascible village elder chased them away.A trio of piglets foraging in the shallows competed with guide "JT" ("Jacobus Theron, from the Free State") for our attention."Don't trail your hands in the water," he said. "Lots of crocodiles." Crocodiles? Ugh. The pigs splashed in the shallows."Now, if a hippo comes up under the kayak and flips it, then swim away from the boat because the kayak is the biggest thing here and that's what the hippo will go for." We must have looked doubtful. "It's never happened before," he said, "not ever."We launched through the reeds and turned downstream. The river was full and strong and carried us along like leaves. A distant pod of hippo dashed into the water as we approached. Beady little eyes watched our paddle strokes.full_story_image_hleft1"We'll stick to the middle of the river where it's deep," said JT. "Hippos are bad swimmers."But bloody good runners, I thought, remembering a documentary I'd seen as a kid in which a hippo chased a scuba-diving photographer along a river bottom in Botswana. It ended badly for the photographer, as I recall. No one swims faster than a running hippo.We passed by unmolested."Crocodiles!" Our guide pointed to a sandbank, where one of the creatures lay on its perpetual sunbed. Good, I thought. Stay where I can watch you. Happily I missed seeing the others, which slid like thieves into the water on the other side.Above us, a cloud of vultures - 60 or more - circled in thermals on the Zimbabwean shore. A Cessna droned overhead, the birds parting to let it through, then tightening into their gyre, spiraling down into the bush. Some creature had had a rubbish day.Some time later as we crunched ashore on a sandy beach, I asked JT if he did whitewater guiding as well. "No," he said. "This" - he gestured at the placid river - "is exciting enough."story_article_right2David Livingstone first saw the falls in 1855. By then a few explorers had heard the tales from local people about a place they called "Mosi oa Tunya" - the smoke that thunders - but Livingstone is said to be the first European to see them. Only angels, he said, could have gazed down upon such beauty.That November, the explorer and a party of experienced rivermen beached their canoe on the island and "creeping with awe to the verge, I peered down into a large rent which had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambesi, and saw that a stream of a thousand yards broad leaped down a hundred feet, and then became suddenly compressed into a space of fifteen or twenty yards."Today, a daily procession of helicopters and microlights drones over the falls, offering a fine view and a succinct geology lesson. I was not sorry to beat a Spanish tourist to the front seat of our chopper - seeing the river fall away beneath my feet was worth any hiccup in foreign relations.Our pilot was a taciturn sort and not much given to excitement as we thudded over the gorge at 1,500 feet. He pointed out the cataracts and the hotels and, later, a herd of elephant in water up to their tusks.To the west, the river gleamed in the sun. Below us yawned the deep rent of the falls, wreathed in mist. To the east, the Batoka Gorge was a twisting scar in the earth."There's something you don't see every day," I gushed. The pilot gazed at me lugubriously, probably because he does.That evening we dressed in our finery and rode down to the glorious steel bridge on the steam-hauled Royal Livingstone Express.The train backed slowly onto the bridge and the spray fell on the carriage roofs just as the Empire's railway engineers hoped it would.It is all about the falls; even at the hotels - the glorious Royal Livingstone and its neighbour, the Avani Victoria Falls Resort.At The Royal Livingstone, close-cropped lawns shaded by old trees reach down to the water's edge; at the Avani, whose balconies look out into forest, the thunder of the cataract drowns out the scronch-scronch of tame zebras cropping the grass and the chattering vervet monkeys.full_story_image_hleft2At night I sat on my balcony at the Avani and listened to the thunder.One afternoon I sat with a pot of tea on the wide, colonnaded verandah at the Royal Livingstone and watched the Zambezi racing past.That morning we had taken a whitewater trip down the Batoka, where, in a rapid named Terminator 2, the river had kicked our asses.That night the Zambezi worked its way into my dreams. No wonder the people who live here say there is magic in this place.Livingstone was right: it truly is lovely. You should go.sub_head_start IF YOU GO … sub_head_endGETTING THERE: British Airways operates daily return flights between Joburg and Livingstone, leaving OR Tambo International at 11am and leaving Livingstone at 1pm. Return fares are R4,080 (economy) and R8,520 (business class).story_article_right3WHERE TO STAY: Rates at The Royal Livingstone Victoria Falls Zambia Hotel start at US$650 pps/pn while rates at the Avani Victoria Falls Resort are from US$350. The rates include B&B, taxes and service charges, as well as the US$4 park fee, which offers unlimited access to the falls. Both hotels offer a 20% discount on the best flexible rate for stays of five nights or more.WHAT TO DO:• Livingstone tour operator Bushtracks Africa offers game drives, airport transfers and other tourist activities. The company also runs the steam-hauled Royal Livingstone Express dinner train ($175 pp), which steams twice weekly from the Bushtracks siding down to the Victoria Falls bridge, after which a five-course dinner is served in the restored 1930s dining cars.• Helicopter flips: You will need to take a chopper ride to see the falls like one of Livingstone's angels. United Air Charter offers 15-minute scenic flights over the falls and part of the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park upstream for $130.• Canoeing: Makora Quest offers guided trips on the upper section of the river, using stable fibreglass "Klepper" canoes. The cost is $105 for a half day, $125 for a full day.• Livingstone Island: Tongabezi Lodge takes a handful of people per day on guided tours of the island. Rates are $98 (including breakfast and the tour), lunch $158 and high tea $138.• Ash was a guest of Minor Hotels and British Airways-Comair..