60 pieces · NaturePhoto by ninara (Helsinki, Finland), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Rainbow Falls, part of Victoria Falls — Mosi-oa-Tunya, 'the smoke that thunders' — on the Zambezi River at the Zimbabwe border, with spray rising off the gorge and a full rainbow arcing across the falling water.
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A Rainbow Over Victoria Falls
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A Rainbow Over Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls sits on the Zambezi River, on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, where the full width of the river drops into a narrow zigzag gorge in a single curtain more than a mile across. Local names for it predate the English one by a long way: Mosi-oa-Tunya, "the smoke that thunders," describes what you see from a distance before you see the falls themselves — a column of spray thrown hundreds of metres into the air, visible well before the river's edge comes into view. This photograph was taken from the Zimbabwe side, looking into Rainbow Falls, one of the named sections of the main cataract, with the mist catching enough sun to throw a full rainbow across the falling water.
That rainbow is less of a bonus than it might look — it is a near-daily feature of the falls rather than a lucky accident of timing. The sheer volume of water hitting the gorge atomises into a permanent spray cloud, and because the gorge runs roughly east-west, the sun crosses it at an angle that lights the mist for long stretches of most days, sometimes even producing a lunar rainbow after dark on a bright moon. What changes through the year is the water itself: the Zambezi's flow swings hard between the flood season, when spray can blot out the view of the falls entirely from some viewpoints, and the late dry season, when the water drops enough to expose bare rock on the lip and walk some stretches of the riverbed above the drop. A rainbow this clean and this close to the falling water usually means a flow high enough for a heavy spray cloud but not so high that the mist swallows everything.
As a jigsaw, treat the picture as three separate problems rather than one. The rainbow band is the most distinctive shape in the frame and the easiest anchor — its arc and colour gradient are unlike anything else here, so place it first and work outward from it. The falling water behind it is a mass of white and pale grey with no hard edges, so sort those pieces by the direction of the streaking rather than by colour, since the water reads as vertical lines of varying density rather than blocks of tone. The spray and sky fill in last: a soft, low-contrast backdrop where pieces mostly differ by how much mist is sitting in front of the blue, which is easiest to judge once the rainbow and the water have already fixed the rest of the frame in place.
How to play
- Tap Play A Rainbow Over Victoria Falls puzzle to open the puzzle board, then choose your piece count and difficulty.
- Drag pieces from the tray onto the board and snap them into place until the full image is complete. Works with mouse on desktop and touch on mobile.
- Use the Preview button on the play screen to peek at the full reference image whenever you need a hint.
- When you finish, check your solve time on the completion screen and share it with friends to see who can beat your record.
Frequently asked questions
- Why does Victoria Falls almost always have a rainbow?
- The falls throw up such a large, dense cloud of spray that on most sunny days there is enough airborne water for sunlight to refract into a rainbow somewhere over the gorge. Because the gorge runs roughly east-west, the sun tracks across it for long stretches of the day at angles that keep lighting the mist, rather than only catching it briefly at sunrise or sunset as happens at many waterfalls. On especially clear nights with a bright moon, the same spray can even produce a faint lunar rainbow, a rarer sight that photographers specifically travel to the falls to catch.
- What does "Mosi-oa-Tunya" mean, and why two names?
- Mosi-oa-Tunya is a Lozi-language name meaning "the smoke that thunders," describing the spray column and the roar of the falls that travel far beyond the gorge itself. It is the older, local name for the site and remains in official use — Zambia's national park on its side of the falls is named Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. "Victoria Falls" was the name given by the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone in 1855, after Queen Victoria, and it is the name that stuck internationally and gives the Zimbabwean town and national park their names today. Both names are used locally and on official signage.
- Where exactly is Rainbow Falls, and which country is this photo from?
- Victoria Falls is split by rocky islands into several named sections along its roughly 1.7-kilometre width; Rainbow Falls is one of the sections on the Zimbabwean side, generally regarded as the tallest and often the most dramatic stretch of the whole curtain. This photograph was taken from the Zimbabwe side of the gorge, where the Victoria Falls National Park footpaths run close enough to the rim to put visitors directly in the spray.
- Does the waterfall look the same all year?
- No — the Zambezi's flow changes dramatically with the seasons. During and just after the rainy season, typically into the first half of the year, the river runs at its highest and the spray cloud can grow thick enough to obscure the falls themselves from some viewpoints, even while soaking every visitor on the footpaths. By the end of the dry season, later in the year, the flow drops substantially, more bare rock becomes visible on the lip of the falls, and on the Zambian side it even becomes possible to walk to natural pools right at the edge. A rainbow this well-defined, with the falls still clearly visible behind it, is typical of the fuller but not flood-stage flow in between.