For Christmas, Lily came up to visit my site in the Mbala area. While she was up here, we went to go visit Kalambo Falls. We stayed at the Kalambo Falls Lodge, which is right next to the falls. Getting to the falls is a 40ish km ride from Mbala over a pretty terrible road, but at least it is a very scenic drive so it’s got that going for it. Kalambo Falls Lodge is pretty new and when we stayed there we were the only two people, so that was neat. After arriving at the lodge and unpacking, we walked down to the path to start checking out the falls. We were the only visitors at the time. There is a well-maintained concrete path that takes you to various viewing areas and to the top of the falls. Kalambo Falls is notable for being the highest waterfall in Zambia at about 222m. This is far taller than Victoria Falls, but of course far less wide. Kalambo Falls is also the second highest waterfall in all of Africa, and the 12th highest in the world, so, you know, quite an attraction. Kalambo Falls is on the Kalambo river, and forms the border between Zambia and Tanzania. Lily, overlooking the falls and wondering when I’ll be done. Besides its physical characteristics, Kalambo Falls is known for being an extensive archealogical site, with evidence for habitation at least 200,000 years old. I’ve read on other sites that you can walk to some of these sites, but the guide when I was there didn’t seem to think it was possible. Maybe he was just keeping me away. He did point to a cave at the bottom of the gorge where he said they found artifacts. Even without seeing the ancient man sorta stuff, the site is fantastically beautiful. Most people visit the lodge by hiking up from one of the lodges on the shore of Lake Tang, but since we were staying at the lodge we got to see the site in both the evening and the morning. The falls plunge into a deep gorge lined with mysterious-looking jungle. At the bottom, the Kalambo river winds the last 6km to Lake Tang. Standing on the edge looking down at the birds swooping around gives a massive sense of vertigo. There are some baboons in the area (thankfully a lot more scared of people than the Victoria Falls brand) which we managed to catch a glimpse of. Kalambo Falls is gorgeous and I recommend anyone in the Mbala area do their best to go take a look. There can’t be many more places in the world like it.