In an outing with his friends and their wives and friends, Roy George Tinashe Dikinya, 40, missed a step and slipped as he walked parallel to the edge of the gorge.
The surfaces were wet and slippery due to heavy rain and he could not catch it, slipping on the rocks and eventually falling from a height of about 108 meters, his friends told CNN.
Dikinya, originally from Harare, had been living in Victoria Falls for a year and knew the area well.
His body was found on January 2, but the area where he fell was difficult for rescuers to access because the river was high after heavy rains.
People drowned on the spot before, but this was the first time someone had fallen into the gorge, Farawo said.
A video seen by CNN shows that his remains are lifted back over the edge of the cliff with a zip line and a pulley system. The rescue also involved soldiers, miners and volunteers from the tourism sector, Farawo added.
Dikinya was a fitness instructor and the father of the twin boys, Trey and Lionel, and two girls, Hayli and Taya from a previous relationship.
“My hope soon after the fall was that he will succeed because he is fit and strong and a good swimmer,” his partner, Mazwi Shamu, said during a telephone conversation with CNN while transporting Dikinya’s remains to Harare on Thursday. .
“I had so much hope that maybe he had clung to a rock or fallen into the water and swam to shore.”
The couple planned to announce their recent engagement with friends and family and planned to travel to Asia, Shamu said.
“He was determined and hardworking, wanting to have a life of his own,” his mother, Eileen Gowera-Dikinya, told CNN by telephone. He used to break a lot of jokes and was an animator, she added, laughing heartily at some memories of him.
Dikinya was a foodie who was determined to help others lead a healthy lifestyle, his mother said.
He built a gym at home so that the locals could come and train and encouraged those around him to exercise and eat well.
He was a football fanatic and a fan of the Dynamos football club in Harare and would regularly attend matches on Sundays, said his best friend, Reginald Matinanga.
“It was basically a family and I will cherish those moments and those memories forever,” he said.
Located in the western tip of Zimbabwe, this Victoria Falls National Park is a UNESCO Natural Heritage Site. Often listed as one of the seven natural wonders of the world, the falls are known to the local Kololo tribe as “Mosi-oa-Tunya” – meaning “thundering smoke”.
At 1.7 kilometers wide and up to 100 meters high, they are not the highest or widest falls in the world, but many consider them the most spectacular.
ZPWMA manages one of the largest properties in the country, accounting for approximately 5 million hectares or 13% of Zimbabwe’s total land area.