Visiting Victoria Falls in the Dry Season: Sunrise Safari, Zambia Side, and What Really Matters

Sunrise finds us on the road to Zambezi National Park, the sky shifting from pale blue to soft fire while the bush wakes quietly.

We leave before sunrise for Zambezi National Park.

The air is still cool. The light undecided. In the hotel's driveway, I climb into the guide’s Land Rover and meet an Italian couple traveling with their guide, a kind of chaperone also from Italy who knows this place well. She comes often and her genuine enthusiasm at protecting African wildlife is radiant. Before long, she begins quietly offering context and commentary in Italian and then translates and then in English for me, relieving the official guide of some of his duties in a way that suggests familiarity rather than obligation.

The park sits close enough to the town of Victoria Falls that wilderness arrives almost immediately. There is no dramatic threshold or cinematic entrance like Jurassic Park. Just a small ticket office, a stretch of pavement, and then dirt. The sense that something may or may not happen settles as my groggy mind still catches up to the day as we drive on without seeing much.

At the park entrance, a Euphorbia ingens displays classic adaptations to arid environments: ribbed, water-storing stems, sharp spines to deter herbivory, and small yellow flowers that minimize energy expenditure. A plant that understands the assignment and has zero interest in making you comfortable.

We don’t see any animals. Definitely no adrenaline rush.

We stop by the river for coffee/tea and biscuits (the non-American version). The sun is higher now, warming the sand and water. We sit quietly, warm cups in hand, watching the river's gentle flow. The absence of wildlife doesn’t feel disappointing. The drive is unhurried, the air clean, the company agreeable. And statistically speaking, I feel I’ve already used up more than my fair share of animal sightings. It's been an incredible trip.

Then I go for a walk.

This is the kind of walk that sounds intentional when you describe it later, but in the moment is really just an effort to stretch your legs and pretend you’re not thinking about anything in particular because you've run out of small talk. Nearby, half buried in the sand along the bank of the Zambezi River, something rectangular and unnaturally yellow is poking out of the ground.

Time to investigate.

I dig around it with my shoe and discover an old cardboard matchbox, the kind that feels vaguely exotic now that everything is either plastic or rechargeable. On the cover is a large kudu with a distinctly unamused expression. The kudu looks like it has just overheard a bad idea and is deciding whether to intervene and be angry at you or let nature take its course.

I pick it up and turn it over in my hands longer than I expect to. It feels like it belongs to another era. When objects lingered long enough to acquire stories instead of immediately becoming trash. The edges are worn. The yellow has faded into the color of old paperback books. It may have even hosted mildew from being wet at one point.

I use the matchbox to scoop a bit of sand and tuck it into the beverage holding compartment of my camera backpack, because this is apparently who I am. A souvenir that makes sense only to me and to anyone who has ever worked in museums or archives and understands the deeply irrational urge to preserve things that no one else would think twice about discarding.

I want to pause here to talk about the matchbox.

A weathered box of Kudu Safety Matches, its edges softened by time and handling, the bold kudu illustration still intact. An ordinary object carrying the quiet evidence of where it has been.

History, as it turns out, is not only preserved in monuments and treaties and the very serious arguments men once had while wearing uniforms and certainty. Sometimes it survives as a soggy, half-crushed rectangle of cardboard you find along a riverbank while trying not to think too hard about colonialism and poverty.

The matchbox was labeled “Kudu Safety Matches.” Which feels less like branding and more like a quiet promise. These matches are safe. The world, perhaps, is not.

On the back was a barcode beginning with 600, which, thanks to the miracle of the internet and international standardization, means it was produced in South Africa. This small cluster of SKU code lines told me more than I expected. It meant this object was not local to the river where I found it. It had traveled. The way everyday objects do. It passed through hands and pockets and kitchens and moments of need. Someone struck a match. Something caught fire. And then the box was eventually done and tossed aside.

This is the kind of artifact that never makes it into museums unless an archaeologist gets sentimental. It is not ancient enough to be romantic, not yet important enough to be curated, and yet it is doing exactly the same job as any historical object. It says someone was here. They needed fire. They lived an ordinary life in a place we usually describe in epic terms.

The kudu, of course, does not care. The kudu never cares. It stares out from the box with the calm authority of an animal that has survived centuries of human decision-making and expects to survive a few more. Which feels like the most reasonable response to history I have encountered in some time.

The guide calls us over to examine an elephant’s footprint pressed into the sand, its edges already softening under the morning sun. It’s a reminder that something large and deliberate passed through here recently, even if it has no intention of being seen again, much like the thought that may have occurred by the person who threw their matchbox into the Zambezi River.

An elephant’s footprint pressed into the sand along the Zambezi River, evidence of something immense passing through quietly, without any obligation to be seen.

After coffee, we pile back into the vehicle and rejoin the dirt road. As the day warms, layers come off. Jackets are folded, hats adjusted, a small and informal treaty negotiated between humans and weather. It occurs to me that the Italians and I come from similar climate zones. California, Italy, and here in the Southern Hemisphere, all bound by familiar patterns of heat, dryness, and light. Different continents, the same clothing necessities. A funny coincidence.

A lone baobab rises beside a dirt road in Zambezi National Park, its bare branches stretching into the morning light like a quiet witness to centuries of passing travelers.

The landscape, despite advertising itself as dry and shrubby, is anything but sparse. An ancient baobab rises nearby, less a tree than a geological opinion. Native aloe species thrive in improbable forms. Spikier, stranger, and far more self-possessed than anything sold in the cactus-and-succulent section of Home Depot, where plants are bred for survival under fluorescent lights and mild neglect. Here, everything is born knowing exactly what it's supposed to do - survive whatever the climate throws at it.

Then birds. Brightly colored birds, the likes of which I had never seen before, appearing as if someone had decided the landscape needed punctuation.

There is the lilac-breasted roller, which looks less like a bird and more like a design argument where everyone on a committee got to contribute their favorite color. Turquoise wings. A wash of green. A chest the color of a bruise that has decided to be beautiful instead of alarming. It perches calmly on branches and deadwood as if fully aware that it is doing all the aesthetic heavy lifting for the continent.

A lilac breasted roller pauses on a branch above the river in Zimbabwe, its colors almost unreal against the muted water below.

Then there is the Temminck’s courser. A bird that seems to have opted out of spectacle entirely. Long-legged, sandy, and perpetually alert, it moves across the ground with the quiet efficiency of something that knows exactly where it belongs. It blends so completely into the dust and stone that you only notice it once it moved, like the earth briefly deciding to rearrange itself. No excess color. No drama. Just precision and purpose.

And then the grey go-away bird, which I immediately love for both its appearance and its name. Grey. Crested. Slightly disheveled. Much like the Kudu, it looks like it has opinions but no interest in explaining them. Known for its sounds - less like birdsong and more like muttering, “Go away."

What strikes me most is not just the color or the variety but the way the birds occupy the space. They do not scatter or perform. They simply exist alongside elephants and antelope and tourists with cameras, going about their business with the confidence of creatures that have been doing this for a very long time.

A quiet morning along the river as a herd of antelope grazes the rocky bank while a lone bird moves through the foreground, each species sharing the landscape.

In a place where the mammals get all the attention and the mythology, the birds feel like footnotes written in neon. Easy to overlook if you are focused on the big things. Impossible to forget once somebody else points them out.

Members of the deer and antelope family. All reminders that this place is worth saving, even though it has been subject to years of human destruction.

Which is to say, destruction by some humans, some of the time. Because long before borders and dams and tourist overlooks, people lived here alongside these animals, not as conquerors but as neighbors. Archaeological evidence suggests that humans have inhabited the Victoria Falls region for tens of thousands of years, hunting, gathering, and adapting to the rhythms of a waterfall long before anyone thought to name it after a queen, who rumor has it, was very grumpy but had impeccable fashion sense.

A young kudu pauses to look back, wearing the same calm, mildly unimpressed expression that makes them my favorite animal. They always seem entirely unbothered by the world around them.

These animals did not arrive recently, and neither did we. For most of that shared history, coexistence was not an abstract idea or a conservation slogan. It was simply how life worked. You paid attention. You took what you needed. You learned which tracks to follow and which ones to avoid. The antelope learned to read the land just as carefully, and the river kept doing what rivers do, indifferent to intention but generous with consequence.

The damage came later. Industrial certainty. The belief that water could be mastered, land subdivided, wildlife managed into submission. But standing here, watching antelope move through grass that has fed generations of hooves and feet, it is hard not to feel that conservation is less about inventing something new and more about remembering something very old.

Saving this place does not mean freezing it in time. It means acknowledging that for most of human history, this landscape was not scenery. It was home. And for the animals moving quietly through it now, it still is.

Back in Victoria Falls later that morning, I ask the Italians if they'd allow me to crash their party and wander through the traditional arts and crafts market with them. Blankets are laid on the ground and stacked with wood carvings, baskets, and neatly folded textiles. The Italian guide helps me choose a piece. I settle on a wood-carved elephant without eyes.

I like its simplicity. The natural grain of the wood still visible. I don’t have much cash, only the remaining South African rand I tossed into my bag before leaving home. The guide pauses to ask what the white portions of one vendor’s carvings are made from, careful not to let us accidentally buy ivory. Goat, he explains.

The vendor says he’ll accept my rand, using the Italian guide as a translator, though at about half of what the elephant was marked for. The piece feels incomplete in a way that feels right. I’m proud that I can participate in a sale in a foreign country. One running out of money halfway around the world from home. And, still support the local economy. Yet, I’m self-conscious. I’m buying it as a gift, unsure whether people back home can really grasp what survival looks like elsewhere. As we walk away, I find myself wondering what I might use for its eyes once I’m home, something to make it feel finished before I give it away.

Me and Italians part ways as their heading to a different national park in Zimbabwe. I'd like to join them but don't have the time. I walk back to Ilawa Lodge for lunch and another tour pickup.

I meet another driver in the lobby and hop into his car for a tour of Victoria Falls from a different perspective. Crossing the border into Zambia is efficient in the way systems become efficient when they have been practiced for a long time. One driver hands me off to another, and I am instructed exactly where to walk, where to stand, and where to wait. The choreography suggests that this happens often, which it does. Borders here are less about geography than administration. A line, a brief pause to confirm that I am where I am supposed to be, and then a stamp.

Crossing the Victoria Falls Bridge, where a raised gate, a line of cars, and a few pedestrians mark the transition from Zimbabwe into Zambia.

Zambia, said plainly, ranks among the most dangerous countries in the world for LGBTQ people. A fact that accompanies me as I cross, one that does not announce itself at the border but settles quietly into the background of every interaction. Even an app on my phone causes it to vibrate as a reminder of the dangers of where I'm going. Travel often demands an awareness, a constant recalculation of what to notice and what to hold close. I am aware of the risk, and also aware that awareness itself does not always translate into visible consequence. Perhaps this is why travel makes me feel so alive. There are no other options than living in the moment.

Today, at least, the process remains procedural. Uneventful. Which is its own kind of privilege.

A line of upright stone set by human hands on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls. Less fence than suggestion, it marks a boundary meant to be noticed rather than enforced.

On the Zambian side, a guide is looking for me, tells me to get into his car (which I consistently get in on the wrong side because of British tradition) and then drives me to Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. The drought is impossible to miss. Water is scarce. There's a lot of brown. The river has pulled back from its usual theatrics. Wildlife has adjusted accordingly, migrating toward more reliable sources. We do not see much, and no one attempts to sell the absence as anticipation. There is no marketing spin for a dry year.

I walk the park paths alone, and the place remains extraordinary even without the expected spectacle. Maybe in a different way. The falls do not need to perform to justify their importance. The air is still heavy with moisture, a reminder of proximity rather than volume. Plant life grows dense and confident, shaped by centuries of abundance rather than a single season of restraint. It becomes clear that this landscape measures time differently than we do. What feels like absence to us registers as fluctuation to Geology.

There is, on this side in addition to the Zimbabwean side, a statue of David Livingstone. At first it feels redundant, until you remember that redundancy is one of history’s favorite tools. Livingstone appears on both sides of the border because borders came later, drawn long after he arrived here in 1855 and did what Europeans of his era specialized in: writing down a place that already had a name and declaring it discovered.

Panoramic view from the Knife-Edge Bridge in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park in Zambia, looking toward the Boiling Pot and Victoria Falls, which straddles the border in the distance. Zambia lies to the left and reappears beyond the falls, while Zimbabwe occupies the right foreground. The cliffs straight ahead are where, days earlier, I watched baboons linger at the edge, calmly enjoying the view as well. During normal years, the falls would also be raging on the right.

Local communities had long called the falls Mosi-oa-Tunya, the Smoke That Thunders, a name that manages to be both descriptive and sufficient. Livingstone renamed them Victoria Falls, honoring a queen who never saw them and never would, which is a remarkably efficient summary of how naming tended to work during the age of exploration. To name something, it turns out, was often treated as equivalent to understanding it.

Nearby, a sign titled The Journey of the Zambezi River explains how the falls have shifted and reshaped themselves over time. The river has never been static. It has moved, eroded, rerouted, and revised itself repeatedly, entirely indifferent to borders, statues, and whatever name someone decided to give it at a particular moment in history.

A sign titled The Journey of the Zambezi River traces the river’s path across southern Africa, illus

An interpretive sign explains how Victoria Falls has shifted position over time, mapping former and

Which feels like the point.

The Zambezi predates Livingstone, the park, the borders, and the ideologies that now complicate movement through this region. It has sustained human life here for tens of thousands of years, long before anyone thought to measure its worth by cubic meters per second, amount of potential electricity production, or tourist satisfaction. Standing there, reading about its slow, stubborn persistence, it is difficult not to feel that what we call change is often just our belated recognition of processes already underway.

A close-up view of Victoria Falls from the Zambian side, where the Zambezi slips over the edge in ribbons rather than a roar, revealing the scale and structure of the gorge beneath the spectacle.

The river is not diminished by a dry year. It is simply being itself. And perhaps that is the quiet lesson the landscape keeps offering, regardless of which side of the border you happen to be standing on. Life would be much easier if we all lived with that philosophy.

When I booked a trip to the Zambian side days earlier, the tour company tried to discourage me as I am visiting Victoria Falls in the dry season, candid about the lack of spectacle the Zambezi would offer at this time of year. By the end of the day, though, it became difficult to separate change from attention. What we tend to call change is often just our delayed recognition of forces that never stopped moving. Currents already in motion whether we’re watching or not. The river understands this. The land does too. The Earth, droughts, and seasons shift on their own schedules, indifferent to the rules societies attempt to impose within these imagined boundaries. I’m glad I pushed myself to visit Zambia for that lesson, if nothing else. Though next time, I’d wait for a wet year.

Travel sharpens that realization. It requires a particular kind of vigilance, a running inventory of what deserves notice and what must be quietly held close, what gets named and what remains unspoken. Risk is part of the equation, but awareness does not always announce itself with consequence. Most of the time, nothing happens at all. Rarely something fantastic happens. Sometimes the only result is that you notice more than you did before.

Perhaps that is why travel makes me feel so alive. It doesn't guarantee transformation. It insists on presence. On standing at the edge of something vast and in motion like Victoria Falls. You are simply there, seeing it, and living as yourself.

Notes from the Edge of Victoria Falls in the Dry Season: Tips, Tricks, and Support:

Sunrise Safari in Zambezi National Park (from Victoria Falls)

What it is: An early-morning game drive departing before sunrise from Victoria Falls, heading into Zambezi National Park just as the light begins to sort itself out. This small-group safari focuses less on spectacle and more on presence — slow driving, open landscapes, and the quiet possibility of encountering wildlife moving through the park as the day warms.

Why go: If you’re curious about safari without the pressure of nonstop sightings, this experience offers something rarer: space to observe how the land works when nothing performs on cue. Expect river views, shifting light, birdlife that steals the show, and the occasional sign of larger animals — footprints, movement, absence — that remind you how recently something passed through.

Good to know: Coffee, tea, and light snacks are typically served along the river. This is an ideal option for travelers who appreciate unhurried mornings.

Half-Day Tour to Victoria Falls & Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park (Zambia Side)

What it is: A half-day excursion from Victoria Falls town into Zambia, including border crossing assistance and a guided walk through Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. The tour covers key viewpoints such as the Knife-Edge Bridge, the Boiling Pot, and overlooks of Victoria Falls, which straddles the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Why go: This tour is less about chasing mist and more about understanding the landscape — its geology, its shifting river, and its indifference to the lines humans draw across it. Even in a dry year, the experience offers perspective: on the scale of the gorge, the history layered into the park, and the quiet drama unfolding beyond the main viewpoints.

Good to know: Water volume varies dramatically by season; during drier months the falls may be subdued, but visibility of the gorge and rock formations improves. Wildlife sightings are possible along the paths.

Kudu Safety Matches: A Found Artifact from Southern Africa

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