Final Day in Zambia
Today was unreal. I woke up REALLY early to make sure that I was able to do my laundry before departing at 8 a.m. for white water rafting on the Zambezi River - one of the most famous rafting rivers in the world. I caught a beautiful sunrise over the camp as I did my washing, and was able to get all of my stuff on the line with enough time to have breakfast and get dressed for the day's adventure.
Our meeting for the rafting was hilarious. The safety instructor described the line around the raft as the "Oh Shit" line, and told us that we were pretty much guaranteed to flip at least once. We had 5 people from our G tour going rafting, so together we made a boat with our guide and one extra guide who sat in the front of our boat to give us a little bit of extra power. To get to the river we all loaded up in a open truck with five rows of benches that squeezed 5 people in each row and drove about 20 minutes outside of Livingstone and through a couple of different villages to get to rapid #10 on the Zambezi (because it is high water right now, rapids 1-10 are too dangerous to raft). The truck dropped us off at the top of a gorge, but in order to get down to the river we had to hike down about 200m. The path was pretty steep, so the locals had constructed a makeshift ladder made out of long skinny tree branches laid in cross ties. At times the ladder was more like a bridge and it wasn't too hard to keep balance on it, but at other times it was incredibly steep and almost like walking on 2 inch stairs that had a foot gap between each one. It was a bit of an adrenaline rush in itself. My chacos held up well though, and Sara and I were the first two from our group down to the water. She set an awesome pace, and I was just happy to be able to keep up! We waited by the river for about 10 minutes before the rest of the group made it down, but as soon as our guide arrived we loaded into our boat. He spent a bit of time teaching us the paddle instructions and testing our strength while we were in a cove of water that was off of the main stream of rapids, and then he issued some of the more serious safety warnings. Rapids 10-14 were all a variety of different classes (ranging from class 2 to class 5), but they each had various whirlpools at the end of them and were really dangerous if you fell out of the raft. We saw whirlpools all over the river, and we would often get caught in them as a full raft and get spun all the way around in a 360 as the water swished in circles.
The view in the canyon was beautiful. The cliffs were jagged, covered in leafless trees and the river rested under a gorgeous blue sky. While we were in the canyon we saw a crocodile on the river bank, as well as a fish eagle and a black eagle flying among the rocks. I was so happy and at peace in the serenity of the nature, but at the beginning of our adventure I was really nervous about the waters - I've rafted 3 times before in Tennessee, Costa Rica and Slovenia, but I had never seen rapids like these. The waters really looked angry.
We survived the first couple of rapids without too much duress. There were a couple of the really big ones that we had to drop into the raft and duck so as not to fall out, but we kept our balance well and continued through the rapids cleanly. Some of the waves were SO much fun. I couldn't believe how big they were as we approached them, and it was a true thrill to approach them and be dwarfed by their size. It wasn't until rapid #19 that we encountered some trouble. The rapid was a class 5, and the guide was anxious to let us "Go Big" and experience a flip. We were all comfortable on the waters by this point and were excited for a challenge. We paddled head first into the rapid, but it just swallowed us and flipped the raft with a big force. I held on to the "Oh Shit" line for a couple of seconds, but it wasn't long before I was thrown off the raft and into the rapids. I was able to get a couple full breaths of air, and our guide grabbed my vest quickly to return me to the raft. He climbed on top of it, did a head count (noting that one of our girls had drifted so far off that one of the kayaks had to go rescue her), and flipped our raft back right side up. When he did it, we all had to dunk under water again and pop back up on the other side of it. It was REALLY cold when we got back into the raft, but the experience was awesome and we were all safe. One of our guys was a bit off balance, however, and fell back out of the raft after about a minute in a really inopportune spot. Our guide was a complete champ, however, and pulled him back in without much trouble, but it was a dramatic experience before the rescue was completed.
We made it through the last couple of rapids without too much fanfare, and got to be lifted out of the gorge by a cable car, saving us a rather steep hike. When we got back to the campsite we were given lunch and had the opportunity to watch our video and see pictures from the event. I didn't purchase any, so I technically don't have proof that any of this happened, but you'll have to take my word for it. Once all of the excitement was wrapped up I went back to my tent to check on my laundry and settled some things before heading back out to town for dinner at Cafe Zambezi. I took a pretty big personal risk and ordered crocodile for an appetizer. It was surprisingly really good. I'm not sure I'll choose to order it ever again just because of the principle of it but if it was ever on the table I wouldn't have a problem taking a bite. The dinner was a great way to get to know some of the new members of our tour. Since we're in Livingstone we lost 3 of our members and picked up 11 new ones. Four of them joined us at dinner and one other girl went rafting with us, so I'm slowly getting to know the new group. I think that they're going to be a lot of fun. Right now we're watching the World Cup final - half of our tour group is German, so it's a pretty dedicated crowd. We won't depart until 8 a.m. or so tomorrow, so I'll still get a little bit of sleep tonight. I surprised myself and didn't get much access to internet while here - but I'm glad that I was just having so much fun that I didn't have time to sit down and spend time on the web. Tomorrow we head to Botswana and experience our first day on the truck with the new crew. I'm hoping that we'll have a smooth day of travel.
This blog was written on July 13, 2014 but may not be posted until a later date when internet becomes available.
