•A statue of David Livingstone and his faithful servants Juma and Susi at Harry Mwanga Nkumbula
International Airport.

By HUMPHREY NKONDE –

I was ready to be hurled down more than 100 metres from the Victoria Falls Bridge into the gorge between the crossing facility and the water in the Zambezi River in Livingstone, Zambia’s tourist capital.
My heart thumped heavily as an operator from the Victoria Falls Company put the strapping on my body that is connected to a high tension rope that has been knotted to the parapet of the bridge.
How else was I going to explain in literally terms how jumpers felt when they were thrown more than 100 meters into the void at one of the highest bungee jumping facilities in the world?
The last time I was in Livingstone I wrote extensively on the Victoria Falls, so I decided to work on the other tourist attractions that have been ignored by the print media and television stations.
When the operator was sure that I was properly fastened to the safety apparatus and that the rope to the parapet was tightly knotted, he pushed me down into the chasm.
Other tourists were airborne in helicopters to have aerial views of the Victoria Falls, the Batoka Gorge and the bridge.
Before going down into the gorge, I remembered a story of an important person who emptied his bowels as a result of the force of gravity with which bungee jumpers are propelled down into the space below the bridge.
At first I felt as if my journey into the bowels of the earth was going to be endless, thinking that may be the rope had broken.
But after some time, I felt the tension on my feet as the force brought me up on top of the bridge, providing me with the deepest expedition in my life.
“How was it?” a female Japanese tourist asked me and to which I replied, “More than going into the sky in a jet.”
She handed me back my EOS 600D Canon digital camera, I took photographs of her when she was on top of the bridge and at the time she was reduced to the size of a rat just above the water in the Zambezi River.
The historic bridge
It was Scottish explorer David Livingstone who re-named the cascading water Victoria Falls after the then reigning Queen of England from Kololo’s Mosi-o-tunya (the smoke that thunders) after he viewed the natural phenomenon on November 17, 1855.
But it was British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes who is closely connected to the Victoria Falls Bridge.
It was him who suggested that it should be constructed in such a way that the road as well as railway passengers viewed the falling water as they crossed the Zambezi River.
Otherwise there were several places where the bridge could have been spanned with a short distance including the Old Drift, where Rhodes’ firm, the British South African Company, had an establishment.
It is unfortunate that Rhodes, who had the ambition of constructing a railway line from South Africa’s Cape to Cairo in Egypt, died in 1902 and did not live to see his dream 200-metre bridge that was completed on Fools Day (April 1, 1904).
As I travelled to Livingstone, I read in a book that engineers waited until night on that day in order for the spans to contract from loss of heat.
They failed to put them across the gorge during the day because they expanded due to heat, given that components were made in England and shipped to this part of Africa, where they were re-assembled.
Victoria Falls Bridge was officially opened in 1905 by Francis Darwin, the son of the famous biologist Charles Darwin whose findings were that Africa was the cradle of mankind.
To get good photographs of the Victoria Falls including the arch at the bottom, I positioned myself upstream on the Knife Edge Bridge just in front of the Victoria Falls.
Colonial buildings
Since I did not want to write about the Victoria Falls, I went into the city centre to see exhibitions at the Livingstone Museum.
The concept for a museum started in the 1900s and the British colonial government opened Livingstone Museum in 1934, making it the oldest in the country.
I was full of excitement as I went into the museum because my travel writing is closely connected to Dr Livingstone’s journeys through what is now known as Zambia.
My travels have taken me to Chitambo near Serenje where he was found dead on May 1, 1873, Nsama where he witnessed a wedding between and an Arab and Chief Nsama’s daughter in the 1867 and Pelekani where he crossed the Luangwa River in 1866.
The museum is situated in the central business district on Mosi-oa-Tunya Road, which leads to the Victoria Falls.
One of the galleries inside the museum contains some of Dr Livingstone’s personal effects, including a knife, coat, hat and original hand-written letters.
From the galleries, I was taken back into history from the Early Stone Age, Late Stone Age, through the Iron Age to modern times by way of archeological artifacts, drawings, writings and newspaper cuttings.
A light plane previously owned by the Zambia Air Force that was used by some of the country’s first indigenous pilots immediately after Zambia gained political independence from Britain on October 24, 1964, is on display outside the museum.
Captain Phillip Lemba, Proflight Zambia’s director of government and industry affairs, who started his flying career with ZAF before he was engaged in civil aviation by the defunct Zambia Airways, said in Lusaka the small plane was used to train Zambia’s first pilots.
Since the museum has been named after the Scottish explorer, his statue has been constructed near the front entrance of the museum.
Other statutes of the Scottish explorer are at the Victoria Falls and another one is in front of the local terminal at Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula International Airport.
Unlike others, the one at the airport has been combined with that of his African aides Chuma and Susi who carried the explorer’s body to the Indian coast in Tanzania before it was shipped to Westminster Abbey for burial.
Many know from history books that much of archeological excavations at Kalambo Falls and other places in Zambia were done by Dr Desmond Clarke, but do not know that he was the first director of Livingstone Museum.
Livingstone was the capital city of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) from 1911 until 1935 when it lost that status to Lusaka that resulted from British colonialists’ wish to have a more central place.
As a result of Livingstone initial status, there are several colonial buildings in the city including the Livingstone Museum.
Not far from the museum, I had a chance to see Zambezi Street’s North Western Hotel whose first structures were constructed in 1909, two years before Barotseland and North East Rhodesia were amalgamated to form Northern Rhodesia.
The original Livingstone High Court building served as Northern Rhodesia’s Legislative Council, now known as the National Assembly and housed in Lusaka.
Traditional Music and Art
As a result of an influx of tourists, Livingstone is one of the places in Zambia with good business in handcrafts.
Most of the wooden carvings sold in the city depict wild animals because the sellers know that most of the tourists who come to Zambia are in interested in animals.
They are made by villagers in Mukuni, Songwe and other settlements around Livingstone.
In fact, Livingstone Museum has a curio shop, where different types of wooden carvings and other handcrafts are sold.
And if you think that xylophones can only be played in Mongu during the Kuomboka Ceremony, you need to see how it is done outside the entrance of the Victoria Falls by Lozi music enthusiasts.
Used to Western instruments, some Europeans spent time listening to the music from the xylophone as one of them recorded the event using a video recorder.
There are many places and activities that this article has left out because of limitation of space, but its purpose was to show that as Livingstone is being marketed, tourist attractions other than the Victoria Falls can also attract tourists.Zambian Insight Feature Syndication