Bathe in The Best Part of a Waterfall

Bathing at the bottom of small waterfalls in incredibly exhilarating. Standing in the rush of water you get to slowly replace the grime stuck to you with the characteristics of the falls around you. Afterwards you feel fresh, clean, and beautiful. Waterfalls are the first and best shower ever invented.

As cool as that experience can be, there is a waterfall-related bathing activity that far exceeds it. Bathing at the top of HUGE waterfalls.

Usually bathing at the top of waterfalls is a recipe for trouble. Water that is about to slide off a cliff has an unfortunate tendency of encouraging other things to slide of the cliff. Because of this I usually discourage the top-of-waterfall bath. However, some waterfalls have a small sheltered area, a pool of relative tranquility, that will allow you to safely bathe in water that is about to free fall off a mountain. Just be really sure that such a pool exists before jumping in.

Creative Commons picture by mckaysavage.There is one such pool at the top of one of the biggest waterfalls in the world: Victoria Falls in Zambia/Zimbabwe. Non-suicidal people actually wade into water that is about to fall around 360ft (pictured above). The small safe patch of water at the top of the falls is called the devil’s swimming pool. I’m not sure, but the devil reference could be implying that it is terrifying to bathe inches from the precipice of Victoria Falls.

Bathing at the bottom of waterfalls one can feel the natural excitement and freshness of the water around them. However, when you bathe at the top of waterfalls there is one other characteristic you can feel in the water: earth shaking potential.