The sky in Africa is different: bigger than anywhere else on earth. At night, unpolluted by high rise buildings and electric lights, the moon is low and bright and the stars are very close. By day, the sun closes on the brim of the earth, as if the sky itself were trying to draw closer to this beautiful land.

Here they must always have known that the earth was round. Out in the bush you can see it: the curve of the land and the ark of the sky in the distance where the swaying grassland drops over the rim of the earth. And the sky descends not to meet with the horizon but to shield it, enclose it in this immense, blue dome.

In January, I made my first trip to Africa, to Zimbabwe, and under that huge sky I discovered three very different Africas.

Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls is one of the oldest towns in Zimbabwe. The first tourists came here in 1904 on the railway line which Cecil Rhodes dreamed would run from the Cape to Cairo, crossing the rainbow gorge close enough for the passengers to feel the spray as it fell on the carriages.

I had hoped to recapture some of the pioneering spirit of a lost era, but Victoria Falls has moved on. The town is unashamedly geared towards the 1990's tourist: the coach stops outside a fast-food restaurant; the main street is filled with souvenir shops and currency exchanges.

We turned gratefully off the main street into an avenue of scented trees which led towards the elegant white columns of The Victoria Falls Hotel. A pillbox-hatted porter came running to take our luggage and we were transported out of the hot, hurried 1990's and into the cool, calm elegance of 1920's colonial Africa.

The Victoria Falls Hotel is an experience in itself. Tea is taken in the shade of the verandah, where the service is impeccable and the view breathtaking. Seated in chairs of rattan and polished wood and waited on by discreet staff in starched uniforms, you look out to the silver green hills of Zambia and the iron bridge, intrepidly spanning the gorge from which a constant mist of spray rises.

Not only are the falls one of the natural wonders of the world but the approach and first glimpse of them must be among nature's most dramatic presentations. The dark, tropical vegetation of the rainforest thrives in the constant spray thrown up by the falls. Vervet monkeys call to one another from tall mahogany trees and brightly coloured birds flit amongst the branches. Waxen lilies nestle amongst luxurious moss and ferns on the forest floor.

Cocooned inside the damp, green rainforest drops of water fall gently from leaf to leaf. The air is warm and smells of wet earth. Sounds are muffled. And all the time you can hear the deep and constant rumble of the falls. The noise seems distant, faraway from the sheltered interior of the forest, but suddenly the trees and vines part and the forest floor drops into the gorge below, revealing what must truly be one of the most breathtaking sights on earth.

The sheer quantity and force of the water lends it a tangible quality which is not that of a liquid: it is a white, furious, seething, tumultuous mass hurtling towards the rocks below with awe-inspiring energy and terrifying force.

Here, I felt the stirrings of another Africa. Above Devil's Cataract is an imposing statue of David Livingstone, the first white man to see the falls. It would not look out of place in the grey streets of London, but it is a bizarre monument to come across in a tropical rainforest.

Our guide informed us that Livingstone was "the first man ever to see the falls", a statement as incongruous as the statue itself. Archaeological digs near the falls have revealed that men lived there as long as two million years ago. These ancient Africans and their descendants had watched the almighty force of the Zambezi tumble over the falls long before Livingstone first laid eyes on them and named them for his Queen.

Looking into the gorge, at layers of basalt and limestone millions of years old, the thin veneer that is colonial Africa began to crack. And underneath, a distant but powerful sensation emanating from the heart of this mysterious continent, like the faraway sound of the falls from inside the rainforest.

It was with this same sense of a peeling back of the surface to reveal the different layers of the continent that I spent the afternoon cruising down the Zambezi. The trip began with aperitifs under the awning of a river launch, cruising sedately down the wide, placid river. On gently sloping banks, feathery acacia and dark trees leaned over the water.

Nearby, the smooth, slow-flowing surface of the river was suddenly broken by a pair of muddy-looking ears, followed by a tiny pair of curious eyes and then the enormous gaping mouth that is the hippo's territorial warning. Further along we saw crocodiles, threateningly motionless, absorbing the sun on the river banks. White-faced monkeys peered indignantly from leafy islands and a kite circled slowly overhead.

Hwange National Park

The next day we set off to go "on safari" in Hwange National Park. The park is about two hours by road from Victoria Falls. We had decided to travel by Blue Arrow coach as it would enable us to see parts of the countryside we would miss if flying. It was also decidedly cheaper!

We had been surprised by the fact that Blue Arrow's fleet was so modern. There was on-board entertainment in the form of video, radio and a choice of CDs. The coaches were air-conditioned and boasted waiter service, allowing us to arrive in Hwange relaxed and refreshed.

There are few places in the world with a greater concentration of bird and animal species than Hwange, Zimbabwe's largest national park. We saw herds of zebra, small and heavy and beautifully marked. Wildebeest congregated around watering holes, elegantly lifting their cloven feet in the mud. Giraffe found camouflage among the leafy acacias. This was Africa, kingdom of the animals, where man is an interloper.

We arrived at Sikumi Tree Lodge to the sound of drums calling everyone to dinner. Later, with childish delight, I climbed the ladder into my en-suite tree house where I lay awake listening to the hypnotic sounds of the African night: the static call of tree frogs, an owl searching for its mate and, far away, the low and ancient roar of the lions.

At dusk the next day, we found a young male lion lying nonchalantly in the shade near the track. You have to see a lion in the wild to understand why he is king of the beasts. Captivity robs them of their regal dignity and no camera can capture the intensity of their gaze.

We stopped the jeep and the lion barely deigned to turn his head. Just the black tip of his tail flicked back and forth. Harsh, amber coloured eyes stared at us unrelentingly from an enormous grizzled, maned head, exerting the kind of calm authority and lack of haste which only comes from an unthreatened position of power. After a few minutes he stretched and rose to his feet, turned his back and ambled disdainfully into the bush, tail still flicking rhythmically from side to side.

Matobo Hills

Our final days were spent in the Matobo Hills. It was here that the veneer of colonial Africa was finally swept away, symbolically marked by the bronze tombstone incongruously set into the rock of this sacred burial site of Malindidzimu, the resting place of spirits: "Here lie the remains of Cecil John Rhodes".

The blue of the sky is even more vivid in the Matobo, the burnt orange and burnished gold rocks providing an absolute contrast where they meet the sky and reflect the gold of the sun that warms them. And here I felt I was in yet another Africa. An Africa where that intense undercurrent I had first felt in Victoria Falls bubbled up and broke to the surface, a hot evocative lava which is the power of Africa.

A strong sense of elemental spirituality pervades the Matobo; one that here man and beast live together, united by something more powerful than their own will, a power that seems to emanate from the land itself.

It is the innocence and mystery of origins; the starting point that people have been struggling to return to ever since, a stillness that holds the history of everything that has been before and died away, the quietness of all that is yet to happen.

Naomi Adamson helped to establish Travel Africa magazine. She currently works in publishing in London.

Published in Travel Africa Edition Three: Spring 1998. Text is subject to Worldwide Copyright (c)