By Bob Van Leer

  (VICTORIA FALLS, ZIMBABWE, June 15, 1986) - Another whirlwind day started at Sun City, Bophuthatswana, at 4:30 a.m. with a three hour bus ride back to Jan Smuts Airport at Johannesburg. Increased security was evident at the airport with more soldiers around carrying Uzi machine guns. We boarded a South African Airways flight to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

  There we had to clear customs, which took a while, and then boarded an Air Zimbabwe flight for the final leg to Victoria Falls. We could see Victoria Falls in the distance coming in to the airport. Actually, we couldn't see the falls itself, but there is such a tremendous volume of water falling such a great distance that there is a permanent plume of mist several hundred feet in the air. From a distance it looks as if there were a forest fire going.  

  We are staying at the Victoria Falls Hotel, an old grand hotel so near the falls that there is a constant thunder from the falls, much like a loud surf. Visible from the terrace is the plume from the falls and the Zambezi Gorge, a churning mass of white water between sheer canyon walls. The gorge is spanned by a bridge that is the connecting link between Zimbabwe and Zambia, just across the river. 

  We decided on a short plane flight over the falls. From the air above, the falls are truly spectacular. The Zambesi River falls in a sheet over a rock face into a deep gorge and the river runs out at a right angle to the river above the falls. If is hard to describe, but there is a narrow chasm into which the river falls and this is only a few hundred yards wide. The falls is more than a mile wide and drops 350 feet. The river volume is estimated at 120 million gallons per minute. The mist from the falls sometimes reaches more than 1000 feet and, circling the falls at about 500 feet, we got spray on the plane windshield. There is a rainbow always visible in the mist plume.

  On an island just above the falls we saw an elephant, an old bull with huge tusks, but he didn't look very well fed. We flew upriver for a few miles and found near the shore a herd of elephants that must have numbered about two dozen. This area is a national park. In the evening we saw a demonstration of Shangaan and Makishi dancing before a barbecue dinner.

  Barbara Bancock, one of the stars of "Hill Street Blues" (she played the part of Grace Gardiner, the sergeant's oversexed girlfriend), boarded the plane with us at Johannesburg and is also staying at this hotel. She is investigating the South African political situation. She is a trustee of a college and all colleges are faced with a campaign to "disinvest" trust fund moneys from any company doing business in South Africa. She joined our group for dinner and we traded notes.

  She also finds the issue not as simple as it appears from the U. S. Tomorrow we take a walking tour of the falls, visit a crocodile ranch and take a sundown dinner cruise on the Zambezi River above the falls. That will conclude our trip except for the long journey home.