ETHIOPIA -- Tissiat, one of Africa's most spectacular waterfalls, is known as "Smoke of the Nile."

You have to take a winding hike over a very dry mountain to reach Tissiat and you can't believe that this view is on the other side. At Victoria Falls, which is larger and I think to be the most beautiful falls in the world, there are paths and a cultivated, tourist oriented feel, but here at Tissiat there was such a sense of discovery and phenomenal energy. It's not like here in the United States with Niagara or even Victoria or other places that have become tourist destinations. Very few people come here, so you actually get that kind of gasp, that you're one of the first to see this, discover this. You can't buy a postcard.

Usually some natives join you on the hike here, which was lucky for me because the spray is so intense that even though I'm standing across the valley from the falls, it was so muddy there that to get this picture I had to slide down the wet hillside to a ledge. I found myself up to my knees in mud. Two kids, seven or eight years old, were holding me up by my elbows. They had to drag me out, I was literally caked in mud. When the water is running high there is such an amazing mist, and rainbows rising off the falls, and its sopping wet all around. That's also why its so lush here, right in this area, while on the other side of the mountain it was almost solid dirt.

I would say the tragic thing is that although occasionally a tourist might come through, and they can make a bit of money, the people who live nearby here are not thinking about the beauty of the falls; they are thinking of the most basic needs of sustenance. All of our guides were frightened and wanted help getting out of there. So even though there is this amazing beauty, and even arable land, the whole country needs such a massive reorganization in terms of infrastructure if it is to be used at all effectively. It's very sad.

Photographs (c) 1999 by Lynn Davis