We stayed three nights at Victoria Falls rest camp. It was right in town, such a great
location! I loved Victoria Falls. I could easily have spent a lot more time
there.
We set up our tents and Sergio settled into the dorms. Next stop was the atm to draw out American
money. That’s right, Zimbabwe uses
dollars. They don’t use their currency
at all anymore. People on the streets try and sell it to tourist as souvenirs. We ate at a little Italian restaurant and then
went grocery shopping. We quickly
dropped off our groceries and walked to the bridge separating Zimbabwe and
Zambia. From this bridge you can see the
falls in the wet season. This bridge is
also where you bungee jump from!!!
(WHICH I DID!) After a quick
tour, we walked back towards camp. On
the way we booked our adventures! They
had a package deal of rafting and bungee jumping which four of us signed up
for. In all six of us were rafting, four
jumping, and two were riding elephants and petting lions. Jess couldn’t go rafting because she was
pregnant. She was such a tropper. At six months pregnant she was backpacking
across Africa. Awesome. That night we ate small meat pies and swam
by the pool.
Saturday morning, the six of us met our driver at 6:45. We drove a short distance to the bridge and
walked down very, very, very steep steps (or maybe I should say ladder) into
the gorge. We received a very short
safety speech, a life jacket, a helmet and the side comment of there are indeed
crocodiles in the water… SAY WHAT????
The rafting experience was probably one of the scariest things I’ve done
in my whole life. We completed 19 rapids;
six of those were class fives. For
someone who has gone rafting all of about 2 times in her life, I was not
prepared. For the first three rapids I
kept getting bounced back into the boat.
I had no idea how to balance myself.
On the four rapid, the guide told us to “get low” right before the whole
boat flipped. I found myself still
holding on the rope stuck under the boat.
You are supposed to be able to surface under the boat and breath but
because we were in rapids it was hit and miss.
I finally managed to fling myself to the outside of the boat. Nora and Sergio were beside me and everyone
else was floating around. Our guide
flipped the boat back over and somehow Nora appeared from nowhere and pulled me
into the boat. We had two kayakers that
accompanied the boat down the rapids.
They went around and helped collect the others and the paddles. The flip managed to scare us all quite a bit. From there on out, I was on edge.
I slowly grew more comfortable with the water and with being able to
balance myself. It was actually really
an epic experience and I can now look back at it with a positive attitude. But, each time we were approaching class 5
rapids and listening to warnings about whirlpools, and paddling hard left, and
such, I was a nervous wreck. I had the
determined attitude the whole way down of “I’m not going down without a
fight!” We finally reached the end and I
felt sweet, sweet relief. We hiked back
out of the gorge and ate a wonderful lunch that was waiting for us at the top. Lunch included soda in old fashioned, glass
coke bottles. I don’t know why but all
the soda in vic falls area was served in the old glass bottles. I loved it.
But anywho, I’m quite happy to say I survived one of the “best places to
raft in the world”.
We met Kim and Jessica back at camp and then walked over to
the bridge in order to bungee jump. At
this point, I felt that I had had enough adrenaline and fear to last me quite a
long time and I indeed no longer felt the need to jump off a perfectly good
bridge. I was freaking out on the walk
over but my group refused to let me back out.
We walked to the little office at the bridge and signed our life
away. They wrote my number and my weight
on my arm and sent me off. At that
point, I knew it was too late to back out so I started trying to pump myself
up. “IF I CAN GO SKYDIVING, I CAN DO
THIS”. I’m not sure how many times I
repeated that phrase but it was too many to count. We had a group of four jumping before
us. Most of them had jumped several
times and did a great job of pumping us up.
As I stood there watching people jump, I got soooo excited. I was very glad that I hadn’t backed
out. I wanted to fling myself off a
bridge and live to tell about it. After about
8 people jumped, (including Rebecca, Audrey, and Sergio) it was time for me to
go. They opened the door and I stepped
out on the platform. I sat down on a
bench and they started tying up my legs.
It’s about around there that I started to panic. They had me stand up, back facing the gorge,
and started checking my harness and equipment.
CHECK 1, (omg, omg, omg) CHECK 2, (what
am I doing?) CHECK 3, (WHY WHY WHY) Check 4, (Oh no, we are close, we are close) CHECK 5.
“Time to turn around. Alright, now just inch up to the side until your
toes are hanging over the edge.
Good. Now, arms out. Don’t look
down. Eyes on the horizon. Ready for count down.” FIVE. FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE. JUMP.
I can’t even describe the epic panic that was racing through me. I think I more fell forward than actually
jumped, but oh well. I kind of blanked and after a few seconds of holding my arms out, I started flailing them in
front of me. I apparently decided that
was useless and instead choose to plug my nose.
Grabbing my nose finally brought me back to my senses and I remembered
to again put my arms out. The fall was
awesome. You bounce back up a few times
and it is exhilarating. The view from
down there is great too. A guy came down
on a rope, hooked me to his harness, and took me to a lower part of the
bridge. I then just had to walk to the
end of the bridge and then back to the platform. Once I made it back to my group I caught hell
for my unique jump. He he he. I PLUGGED MY NOSE!! What was I thinking!? Everyone else had these beautiful falls with
arms outstretched. Not Kaylee, Push her
off a bridge and she flails in the air and then grabs her nose! Good times!
At least I have a good story.
Filled with adrenaline, we headed back to camp and cooked
dinner. We had made cous cous, beans,
and sautéed veggies. YUM! I think
I ate better backpacking then I do here in my dorm. After dinner, I took a hot shower and we
headed to the reggae festival at the bar by our hostel. It was really fun. It was mostly locals. We danced, met people, and had a few $1
beers. Of course a few girls got
marriage proposals, drinks were purchased, and corny lines were dropped. “You look like an angle” “You are beautiful”. I magically gained a boyfriend for the
night. Yeah, I left him back in the states.
We’ve been dating for a while.
Really serious. Tall, dark, and
handsome. Yep, I’m taken. Madly in love. No, I can buy mine own drinks. Unfortunately, that still doesn’t work all
that well. Guys don’t mind telling you
that you’re in Africa and he isn’t here.
Bah. Anyway. Got a bit sidetracked there. Guys can be really persistent, but everyone
is pretty nice. (You find that everywhere in Africa) Finally, around 12 the three of us still
there decided we should get to bed, but not before an ice cream cone! :)
Sunday morning, we woke up, ate cereal, and headed to
Zambia. It cost us 20 dollars for a
visa. We then took a small, very short,
detour into Livingston before we realized w really needed to be right by the
border in order to view the falls and visit devils pool. We paid 20 dollars to enter the park and 39
dollars for a guide out to devils pool.
While waiting for our guide, we decided to sit outside and eat
lunch. As we pulled out our sandwiches
the baboons zeroed in. One baboon came
right up to us and bared its teeth at Jessica causing her to scream. I think it would have taken her sandwich
right out of her hand if a guy hadn’t quickly come over with a stick. After another baboon tried the same thing, a
guy finally handed us a stick and after that we managed pretty well. When they say don’t feed the baboons, they
really mean it. Those guys were quite
the pests!
We started our trip to devils pool with a few other people. It is dry season so the falls are pretty
small. We were walking on top of them,
crossing pools of water, and literally just feet from the edge. It was insane. During the wet season, that whole area is
raging with water. After a 30ish minute walk
we arrived at Livingston Island. We had
a sprite in a glass bottle, stripped down, and jumped into a small pool
area. We swam across and came to Devils
pool. When I first saw it I was
shocked. It was literally right on the
edge of the falls. SAY WHAT!?? “I’VE HAD ENOUGH DARN EXCITEMENT TO LAST ME
AWHILE!!!” But alas, we were there and I
wasn’t backing out. So I stood on the
edge of a rock and jumped into devils pool.
I then proceeded to hang my head over the edge of the falls as people
held my legs. Yes, Maybe I need to talk
to a doctor, because something is obviously wrong with me. With that said, it was an AMAZING
experience. We saw several rainbows and
got an up close view of the power of the water that was making its way over the
falls. I can only imagine what the falls
are like during the wet season.
After we
returned from our tour, Kim and Rebecca went off to do a micro flight. The rest of us walked around the park and
looked through the market. From the park, I got a great view of the
bridge. I still couldn’t believe that I
had jumped off of it. The market was
really awesome but it was so overwhelming.
All the vendors were talking to you and asking you to look at things and
buy things. I already hate to shop, so
that really wasn’t a great experience. I
only bought 3 things. I planned to buy
more but I just couldn’t bring myself to barter and bid. Yikes.
As the sun was setting, we walked back into
Zimbabwe. (We had earlier purchased
multiple entry visas). We crossed back over
the bridge and made our way back to our rest camp. We ate our last dinner as a group of eight at
the restaurant at rest camp and then went for a swim. After saying our goodbyes, we went to sleep.
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