The Sunday News
It is a marvel. They call it the Lunar Rainbow. For three days in a month, when there is virtually no cloud cover, tourists are privileged to visit the Victoria Falls at night.
I tried it and it gave me a different picture.
After dinner at the Boma, I decided to visit the falls at night.
Moonlight slanted down through the leaves and blossoms of the Rain Forest, making whimsical coloured patterns that flickered on the falls, giving birth to a rainbow. Save for the plunge of the water, there was silence in their air.
The lunar rainbow was magnificent, humble and soft. The colours were not shouting but I liked it.
Of course, I was kind of afraid of the creepy creatures but my high cut shoes gave some comfort.
It was silly cold. A faint warm breeze stirred the sleepy leaves, bringing with it fragrance of flowering grass and trees, and a breath of something languid, inducing idleness, voluptuousness and strangeness.
As I cast my eyes of the falls and they were a ghostly figure of their day self. I watched the falls again. They were tinged superfluous!
On the verge, I saw the green grass turning gold hue from the dainty patches of light that flickered from the moon and quivered as if they were living. Then they were fire-coloured butterflies, that made the grass under the trees look like it was about to catch fire. They flew effortlessly but seemingly without purpose. My mind somehow told me, they had a purpose, known to them.
The only sound was the protesting water as it gushed past rocks and plunge pools, meanders and hair-pin curves of the narrow gorge.
Towards the Victoria Falls Bridge- that relic of Rhodesian architectural splendor-the usual cry of the bungee jumpers and the rambling engines that cross the bridge during the day, was missing and replaced by a cacophony of melodious and of course, discordant songs by frogs and crickets.
Satisfied that I had seen enough of my nocturnal flirt with the falls, I went back to town, where vehicles and people criss-crossed towards various destinations.
The bars were teeming with revellers, the food outlets teeming too. The night was alive and I wondered if all these people knew they could also enjoy the lunar rainbow.
