By FIONA BARTON

Last updated at 10:06 23 April 2008

If you are looking for a taste of life on the edge, this just has to be the place.







Only a slippery, submerged lip of rock stands between these bathers and a 100m drop over the world's largest waterfall.

The Devil's Swimming Pool is certainly aptly named.

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Don't look down: Tourists challenge gravity at the edge of the falls

Edge of madness: A father poses with his youngster perilously close to the 100m drop

It is created each year at the fringes of Victoria Falls, when the dry season reduces water levels to create what has been likened to the ultimate infinity pool.

Hundreds of thrill-seekers descend on the falls, on Zambia's border with Zimbabwe, clambering across rocks and wading through shallows across the precipice to reach the pool.

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Wild and wonderful: Circle shows the location of the Devil's Swimming Pool at the edge of Victoria Falls

The most daring visitors jump in and allow themselves to be carried towards the falls at terrifying speed. They are just inches from the edge when the rock lip brings them to a halt as the raging waters of the Zambezi crash over the edge a few feet away.

For most of the year, anyone foolish enough to enter the waters would be instantly swept to their deaths.

But when levels drop, the natural rock walls of the Devil's Swimming Pool come close enough to the surface to form a barrier and stop swimmers being carried away.

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It's a scream: Angela Stugren (above and below) chose Devil's Swimming Pool to mark her anniversary

Astonishingly, even children frolic in Nature's most exhilarating theme park. There is almost an air of the hotel swimming pool as the youngsters captured in these photographs bob about, playing and splashing each other, seemingly oblivious to the danger nearby.

Their parents peer cautiously over the watery precipice at the vision which makes Victoria Falls a World Heritage Site.

Known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya, or The Smoke that Thunders, 500million litres of water a minute cascade over the mile-wide falls, causing a deafening and spectacular explosion of rainbow-coloured spray which can be seen 30 miles away.

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It's behind you: Waving in the water with only a lip of rock between them and the falls

Angela Stugren, a 30-year-old American, travelled across two continents after deciding it was the perfect place to celebrate her first wedding anniversary with husband Francisc.

Bikini-clad, she stretches out over the edge so she appears to be flying over the falls, dangling her head and shoulders into the spume of spray.

Software engineer Francisc, 35, from Seattle, said the thrill was "better than bungee jumping".

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Thrilling: A holidaymaker leans right over the edge to get the ultimate photograph of the falls

Superman: It's all smiles for this daredevil tourist as he emulates his favourite superhero

"It is a serious adrenalin rush for the first few minutes. The thought that you may get sucked away from the relatively calm waters of the pool makes you giddy with apprehension, although you would have to stray a fair way out for that to happen.

"If you jump in, it adds to the excitement but you can also get in gently. It's great fun - some people enjoy it quietly, swimming, looking and thinking, while others just keep screaming."