"When I was in school, I was obsessed with the Guinness Book of World Records."
"Not the big glossy one they have now either; the black and white pocket encyclopedia for geeks. As part of my everlasting nerdishness, I was obliged to know the biggest and longest and oldest of as many things as I could. One of these of course, was Victoria Falls: the largest sheet of falling water in the world, which lies on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe."
"Maybe the most interesting thing about the falls however, isn’t the sheer size of them, the unusual shape of the falls, or the wildlife around them– it’s a swimming pool. As it happens, you can hang yourself inches from certain death quite comfortably in a rock pool right on the edge of the fall."
"Looks like she’s about to take the 360-foot plunge, doesn’t it? Afraid it’s not true, as long as it’s not the wet season when the water is high enough for the current to actually sweep you off the edge. People can safely cavort in the “Devil’s Swimming Pool” without any problems. It’s so safe in fact, that these people took their kids:"
"Of course, I’m not sure you’d want to put your ten-year-old in that position. Thinking of my stepbrothers, I’m almost certain somebody would end up dead. But the pool remains that safe, and people are consistently drawn to it."
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