When you’re raised on Tarzan movies, your idea of Africa is what you’ve seen on the screen: stage settings, Tarzan and Jane, and wild animals.
I had also seen stock footage showing charging elephants, tribal warriors with painted faces, and filler footage that showed vast forests and bright jungles.
In the classroom and in National Geographic magazines, you see that Africa is really so much more.
I read about the Boer War, the Kimberly Diamond Mine, Kruger National Park, Dr. Livingstone, the Tutsi and Maasai peoples, the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, the pyramids, and Victoria Falls.
In 1959, Wally Byam led an Airstream Caravan through Africa. I have enough memories of that endeavor to last a lifetime, but one I remember spectacularly is the natural wonder Victoria Falls, at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, named for Queen Victoria.
The Falls also have a very descriptive indigenous name, Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means "The Smoke That Thunders."
The African Caravan camped within walking distance from the Falls in Southern Rhodesia. Nearby was a bridge which crossed the Zambezi River at the northern end of the Falls.
Pictured are two Caravanners gazing down into the gorge. There is a muddy trail which winds through a rainforest. Much of our group walked along this path. To avoid getting soaked from the mist, most wore raincoats and carried umbrellas.
The Zambezi Rover is 1,653 miles long. It rises in Zambia and its headwaters are in eastern Angola. It flows through Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique before flowing into the Indian Ocean. The river takes an amazing journey through Africa.
Victoria Falls is not the highest waterfall in the world, nor is it the longest. But it is the largest. It is over one mile wide, at 5,604 feet to be exact, and is 354 feet high. This is a mighty, tumultuous water cascade.
What a wonderful world we live in. And what a wonderful experience we had on the 1959 African Caravan.
Dale “Pee Wee” Schwamborn has silver in his blood. Each week, Pee Wee shares one of his many stories, including his experiences on the iconic Airstream Caravans, his time spent working in the Airstream factory, and the many Airstreamers he’s befriended, far and wide.
