That huge river flowing past the Anantara Royal Livingstone is the mighty Zambezi, one of Africa’s “Big Four” of legendary rivers along with the Nile, Congo and Niger. Here’s the lowdown on what makes the Zambezi so special and the various ways you can get out on the river while staying at the Royal Livingstone.
From the highlands of eastern Angola, the Zambezi flows through six countries on a 1,600-mile journey to the Indian Ocean. Along the way are other watery landmarks like Victoria Falls and Lake Kariba, as well as celebrated wildlife areas like the Chobe floodplains in Botswana, Mana Pools and Matusadona national park in Zimbabwe, and Lower Zambezi National Park in Zambia.
Coming across the mouth of the river on a voyage from Portugal to India in 1498, Vasco de Game named it the Rio dos Bons Sinais (“River of Good Omens”). By the middle of the 16th century, the Portuguese were calling it by various forms of its indigenous name — Zembere or Zambeze — allegedly for a people who lived along the river in what is now central Zambia.
explorer David Livingstone was the first European to probe the upper Zambezi. He came across a huge cascade which he christened for Queen Victoria. But like the river, it also had a local name: Mosi-oa-Tunya (“The Smoke That Thunders”). A much more evocative description than naming it after a faraway British monarch.
The Royal Livingstone offers a number of ways to get out onto the river, from adrenalin-pumping rafting through the raging whitewater below Victoria Falls and a vertiginous visit to the famous Devil’s Pool to a sunset cruise or gentle guided canoeing safari on the flatwater part of the river above Vic Falls.
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