Zambezi River, Zimbabwe
White water rafting day... Judgement day. Courts is questioning why she agreed to this. The safety speech from Hippo, our guide doesn't really help, nor does the trek down the gorge. Surely more life-threatening than the actual rafting!
Into the raft we go. The 8 of us have a quick tutorial on how and when to paddle and when to "get down". We hit our first rapid and handle it well. The same goes for the next 5, including our first grade 5 rapid. Our sister raft in front is not so lucky. They flip and lose everyone. We help them into our raft. Their faces are a mix of terror, excitement, relief. One guys says it was the most traumatic experience of his life. Suuuuure, mate.
Our confidence is high. We have only had a couple of hairy moments. We approach the infamous rapid 7. The only rapid of the trip that is optional. 2 from our raft and 4 from the other decide to walk around like girls. We converge into one raft. Courts amazes herself and decides to tackle the biggest rapid of the day.
It consists of a number of rapids one after the other and some paddling in between "getting down" to make sure we don't end up on the wrong side of the rapid.
We hit the first part and survive. Some of us get up to paddle before we hit the second one. Jeff doesn't make it back down in time and heads into the rapid head first. Courts is right behind him along with one other.
5 seconds of being rag-dolled by the rapids and gasping for air but receiving only water has us fearing for our lives. Courts is a "short-swimmer" and is dragged back into the raft. By the time Jeff figures out which way is up the raft is long gone and he is set to tackle the rest of rapid 7 solo. Once he sorts out the technique, he makes it back to the raft and is grateful to be alive. Most. Traumatic. Experience. Ever.
We survive the rest of the 19 rapids with one hairy moment as we lose 2 crew members. Neither of us we letting go of that raft this time. Not a chance.
We trek back up the vertical gorge running on pure adrenaline at this stage. The beers at the top were the motivator. The view wasn't half bad either. What an experience. Once in a lifetime? Maybe... Ask me again in 5 years.
No time to waste, off to a sunset cruise on the upper side of the Zambezi.
Beer, snacks, animals and an amazing sunset. Zimbabwe keeps turning it on.
We see crocodiles and our first hippopotamus chilling in the middle of the river.
About a thousand photos of the sunset later and we turn the ship around. A quick trip home and we need to pitch out tent for the first of 21 times for the upcoming tour. No dramas, it's even easy enough for Jeff to manage.
Shower, bed. The most action packed 3 days we've had in a while. Bring on Botswana tomorrow.