This is a section of my diary from my RTW trip from September 2003.
From ‘Morning Glory’ to ‘Oblivion’ via the ‘Highway to Heaven’, the ‘Devils Toilet Bowl’, ‘The Terminator’ and ‘The Gnashing Jaws of Death’. If you haven’t got a clue what I’m on about, these are the charming and highly accurate names for some of the rapids I went through when I went white water rafting on the Mighty Zambezi River.
Upriver from where we started rafting, the Zambezi is up to 2km wide and up to 20m deep. After falling 110m over the Victoria Falls into the aptly named ‘Boiling Pot’ ravine, the river is forced to narrow to maybe 20-50m and passes through a series of 14 gorges which are navigable in a raft or kayak. If you want more description about the sort of river it is, including some great pictures of others rafting, then click here and see for yourself… http://whitewater.safpar.com/. It’s not for the feint hearted!!
Within the river itself there is a grading of each of the rapids from 1 to 6. 1 is ‘easy’, 2 and 3 have increasing difficulty. You’re getting more and more likely to be thrown out of your boat. On level 4 you have a 1 in 3 chance of your boat flipping over and everyone ending up in the water. On level 5 you have a 50/50 chance of flipping over and level 6 is officially described as ‘life-threatening’.
After an 8:30 pick up all of us were taken straight to the top of the first gorge, overlooking the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia and were given a safety talk. We got taught how to drag people back into the rafts and what to do if we got knocked out of the boat and became a ‘long swimmer’ ie were no longer even holding on to the rope around the edge of the boat. We also got told what to do if we were trapped under an upturned boat and what to do if we got caught in a whirlpool… the ‘bit of a laugh’ attitude turned icy despite the 30 degree sunny temperature. Even the Kiwis were taking this seriously now. After the safety talk we were split into two groups. Novice rafters were put in to boats where our only job was to hang on and throw our weight around to balance out the boat.
Down to the rafts. No easy thing. We had to climb about 1000 steps down a 220m steep cliff, hanging onto a rail and in my case a 4 litre bottle of water for our boat too.
Once at the bottom of the gorge we were put through our paces by Tatani, our paddler and river guide. His nickname was Titanic. At least we weren’t with Kamikazee Ken!
After practising weight movement and moving from our ‘relax’ position on the boat (sat on the side) to ‘go’ position (crouching in the bottom, gripping onto the rope on the side of the boat), we headed off. There were seven boats of us in all – about 6, 7 or 8 in each boat. Two boats of novices got to go first and 5 boats of insane Antipodeans followed all clutching paddles and whooping at every mention of beer!
The first rapid was number one, the ‘boiling pot’. From where we started we could see the Eastern Cataract of the Victoria Falls crashing 300m away and all the water from it pouring into the gorge in which we now sat in a rubber dinghy. It was ranked as a number 3 rapid, and we were all pretty nervous as we pushed away from the Zimbabwean shore. Two minutes later and we were out-whooping the Aussies! We’d gone through a rapid and not only had we all stayed in the boat, it had actually been fun! The adrenalin rush, the speed, the noise and movement of the boat had all been so fantastic, I couldn’t wait to get onto the rest of the river. Rapids 2 and 3 were again graded 2 or 3. We all got a bit wet, but that was great because we were already starting to feel sunburned in the gorgeous sunshine. Number 4 rapid was our first grade 5. ‘Morning Glory’. You came out of a 170 degree bend in the gorge and there it was – a big dipper into another crashing wave. As first boat through, we gripped on tight, took a deep breath and went for it. Tatani had told us there was a 50/50 chance of a flip. Despite a couple of face-fulls of water (and nostrils full in my case too) we got through it.. We’d managed a number five!!!! Jubilation, celebration, champagne all round (though there was none on board obviously). If that was the worst the Zambezi could manage then bring it on… And just to prove how great we had been, every single other boat to come through no. 4 flipped. It was carnage! Boats, paddles, rafters all in the water and all heading towards our little craft with the current. We took on two rafters who got close enough to grab and any numbers of paddles. It took 20 minutes for all the rafts to right themselves and everyone to get back to where they should be and have the right equipment. We’d managed a no. 5, no-one else had – suddenly we felt doubly jubilant and excited about the rest of the river.
Rapid 5 was round another 170 degree turn. The ‘Stairway to Heaven’ another no.5 rapid. As Tatani told us if we flip here it becomes the Road to Hell! Well we ducked, we gripped, we bounced through the big dips and the waves that towered over our plucky little vessel… and we came through! Joy!! Again, three of the other boats flipped and we helped to pick up the pieces. Oh how pleased with ourselves we were! You have to forgive us though. We’d all been incredibly nervous at the start and now we’d passed through 2 no. 5s ok. Sure it had been terrifying each time. I can’t play down how scary those rapids are when you are in the middle of them. Confusing, disorienting. But we had stayed together and in one piece. Rapid 6 the ‘Devils Toilet Bowl’ was great fun. Swirly, we entered it backwards and came out forwards having been spun right round while being tossed up and down too. This was level 4 and led straight onto Gullivers Travels. A long grade 5, it involved a number of deep waves. Tatani said we probably would flip and had to take care with our weight at the front of the boat. That tremor of fear reverberated again through us and we braced for the first wave. We dropped several metres straight into the face of another wave that hit me straight in the face, knocking me backwards. I hung on hard to the rope, throwing my weight forward again and as the water cleared we were still upright, but diving into the bottom of another foaming monster... miracle! We come through. A great wash of water over my helmet and lifejacket, but we had made it through and boy did we scream with relief!! It may have been at this point in a great moment of over-confidence that I declared us all “KINGS OF THE ZAMBEZI!”… what is it they say about pride? Certainly I should have known better as it was on this rapid that I lost the first of my two contact lenses – the right one. It took a few minutes to realize that I couldn’t see properly anymore. But Gulliver had claimed my contact lens. I was never to see it (ho-ho) again!
Between rapids, there were periods of drifting – checking all the boats were still together and being told the technical information about what grade the next rapid was and where to go to avoid rocks if we became a long swimmer. After Gullivers Travels was a nice long run and it gave us a time to drink, apply suncream to burnt bits (in my case both kneecaps) and enjoy the view afforded to us at the bottom of a gorge that borders two countries. We were soon enough to rapid 8 though. Another grade 5 called ‘Midnight Diner’. Just the one drop and wave to break through, but it was by far the longest drop we had faced so far. However we broke through it and continued to enjoy the views and the chat in the rundown to no.9.
‘Commercial suicide was a monster of a rapid. A level 6, I was serious earlier when that grade means ‘life-threatening’. We pulled up short and walked over the rocks to one side, bypassing this devouring monster of torrential cacophonous might. Because Southern Africa is at the end of it’s Dry Season, the river levels are quite low. This actually makes most of the rapids more intense as the water levels are closer to the rocks. It is the case with no.6, where the water is all channelled into one narrow narrow gully. During the rainy season when water levels rise, the waters pass over the rocks we climbed over and it becomes downgraded to a level 5. As we were walking round the rocks, all the rafts were pushed down and we got to see them bash and batter through the rapids. Thank god we weren’t in them. To really show us what we were missing, one of the Kayakers (there were a number of rescue guys following us down in Kayaks in case we became long swimmers) actually went through the rapid in his boat. He tore down into the first wave and then was swallowed by the water. The nose and tail of his boat were occasionally visible, but we only saw him again when the rapid spat him out 150m downstream. Still in one piece, and deserving of the biggest cheer of the day so far. Even the Kiwis were impressed!
Rapid 10 ‘The Gnashing Jaws of Death’ was a number 3 – this is one of the few rapids that gets more intense as the waters rise and upgrades itself to a 5 by February. We made it through ok and then lunched.
I had enough focus though to grab a hotdog and an orange for lunch and munched them down while fending off the Marmosets, who were equally intent on dining on my sausage. Chatting over lunch, I had been effusive about what a great time I was having. I was definitely going to have to try this again in New Zealand and I was keen to get on with the afternoon half of the river. Two boats worth of people left at lunchtime including two from our boat. They’d paid for the half day trip and that was that. They got replaced by two others, who had been flipped already on their previous boat…
After lunch and straight into the most difficult part of the river. Remember we were yet to flip and everyone else had gone over at least once. One poor boat, skippered by John ‘the Baptist’, had gone over on every single no.5! We approached another no. 5, called the ‘Overland Truck Eater’. Maybe it was the post-lunch dip in energy, but I was edgier going into this. Again we were first through and again we managed it ok. In our boat, it was after no.10, that Douglas said he was enjoying it because ‘it all felt safer than he had expected it to be when we were going through the safety talk’… I wouldn’t have minded but Douglas suffered from a dreadful stammer and it had taken him this long in the day to pluck up the courage to say anything! Did someone mention tempting fate? The next set of rapids was 4 in a row. 12 a, b, c called the Ugly Sisters were a grade 3, 3 and a 2 one after the other. They were followed by no. 13… The Mother. Now those who have been paying attention will have read all the signs so far, but let me recap. We have the character who is initially terrified but then gets oh so cocky… (not like me at all!), we have the inclusion into the scene of two characters from another flipped boat (if we’re being unkind let’s call them jinxed), we have the character who tempts fate and we have a boat, heading into rapid no.13…
Not that I noticed any of this at the time however. The first of the ugly sisters dislodged my one remaining contact lens – I blinked as a wave hit me square in the face – and I spent the following 10 minutes with unfocussed vision out of my right eye and double vision in my left eye! The other ugly sisters were passed without incident, and the last thing I remember is hearing Tatani ask us all “What did you think of the Ugly Sisters?”… and someone replying, “Don’t be so rude about the sisters, I don’t want to offend the Mother”. And then we were into it. You could see that this no.5 was different from all the others because it was much, much longer. The gorge narrowed not at the top of the rapid, but half way through it, creating violent foamy water bang in the middle, which was erratic and had a huge height swell. I hung on tight and we managed the first wave… then a long drop and I was forced back onto my feet again while gripping the rope. At the top of the wave I rocked back down into my crouch position and the raft plunged again. This time we were met with a wall of water and my memory switches from description to colour.
White: deafening roar: grey blue green: quiet: pale green, forcing my head out from under the raft as I hang onto the rope: white and green, my head is back above water and now I see what has happened. Reader… we flipped on The Mother.
I was hanging by one arm to the raft and the raft was twisting in the water. I was on the Zimbabwe side (right hand side) facing downstream, then on the Zambian side facing upstream. I’m checking who I can see – someone is next to me, I can’t see Tatani, or anyone from the back of the boat. someone else I can see though, and he is a long swimmer, ie detached from the boat and loose in the rapid. Pointing downstream, he heads towards me at speed – I think I can grab him or he will pass by the boat close enough to grab it, but at the split second he nears, he is pushed away again to the Zimbabwe side and further down the rapid. Our boat is caught in an eddy and we get thrown into calmer, swirling water on the Zambian side. As everyone else disappears downstream I just shout after them “knees up – keep your knees up!” The key instruction necessary to avoid injury on shallow rocks.
So the situation now is that the raft is upside down, I can only see one person from the boat and the current is slamming us into a flat vertical lava rock on the Zambian side. Not only was I loose in the water clinging onto an upturned raft, many others out of sight, lost to my double vision sight down the Zambezi’s dodgiest rapid, but as I got hammered onto the Zambian rocks without a passport, I could now officially be classed as an illegal immigrant.
As the boat steadied, I saw we were off to the side of the river and we had some catching up to do. Thankfully everyone else on the boat had hung on, with the exception of one person who had been trapped under the dinghy until we hit Zambia. Tatani was on top of the raft, the whole time and he overturned it quickly. Now our only problem was that because we were off to one side of the river, we had to row ourselves back into the rapid that had flipped us before, otherwise we would be stuck in Zambia until someone came to deport us for illegal entry… and we all know how many months that can take! So Tatani dug deep; we all crouched and gripped again and we tackled the last section of the Mother from the side. We came through in one piece and quickly found ourselves in the next section of the River. Thankfully it was a wide calm lagoon. I still couldn’t see properly however as my left contact lens was still giving me double vision. It shifted eventually, and I celebrated by jumping into the Zambezi to cool off from the stress of the flip. The water was great – lovely and warm, and excellent for swimming once you were away from the bastard rapids!!
The mood had changed. As total novices, we had enjoyed the thrill of the morning, but the harsh reality of the river had hit us all. We still had 8 rapids to go until home, including Oblivion, which flips more rafts than any other rapid in the world. Thankfully I only found that out afterwards when I looked on the internet site of the rafting company!!
The next few rapids, ‘Surprise Surprise’ (the surprise is a torrent of water pouring in from the right half way down the rapid), ‘The Washing Machine’, ‘The Terminator’, and ‘Judgement Day’ were all rated as level 3 or below and we passed without incidence, though still with plenty of fresh nerves. We were coming up to Oblivion though and we were second to go through. This was actually the first time anyone else had gone on ahead and it gave us a great chance to watch a raft flip from behind! As we found out afterwards our flip had been a simple right over left flip – so quick none of us knew what had happened. The flip in front of us on Oblivion though had forced the raft straight up in the air before slamming upside down into the water. It looks great on the video, but it was not the best for our confidence at all. I convinced myself that if this was a 50/50 rapid, then we’d seen one raft down and it was our turn to make it. Three big dips and waves hit us and on the crest of the final wave we lurched left. We all threw ourselves hard right however and we managed to balance the boat and ride the wave. We came through Oblivion on an even keel. Phew. The stuffing had been knocked out of us though and we were all keen to see home. I took one final swim in the Zambezi as the boat drifted from no.19 ‘The Last Straw down towards the last two unnamed rapids. It was great to swim, but I wanted to be in a bath and in bed. I was exhausted.
Unfortunately of course, for those of you with excellent memories, you will recall and deduce that if you have to climb down 1000 steps into a 220m deep gorge, then sooner or later you have to climb back up again. The steep cliffs do not flatten out for several hundred more kilometres. In 5 hours of rafting we had come 27km. So we trekked up the hill and my legs were stiff for days after.
We rafted the Zambezi, we surfed the Zambezi, we swam in the Zambezi, we got Zambezi in the face, we got Zambezi up the nose. We got tossed us out of our boat by the Zambezi, I lost a lens to the Zambezi and finally at the top of the gorge, we drank Zambezi… in the form of the local beer of the same name to celebrate our efforts!!
From ‘Morning Glory’ to ‘Oblivion’ via the ‘Highway to Heaven’, the ‘Devils Toilet Bowl’, ‘The Terminator’ and ‘The Gnashing Jaws of Death’. If you haven’t got a clue what I’m on about, these are the charming and highly accurate names for some of the rapids I went through when I went white water rafting on the Mighty Zambezi River.
Upriver from where we started rafting, the Zambezi is up to 2km wide and up to 20m deep. After falling 110m over the Victoria Falls into the aptly named ‘Boiling Pot’ ravine, the river is forced to narrow to maybe 20-50m and passes through a series of 14 gorges which are navigable in a raft or kayak. If you want more description about the sort of river it is, including some great pictures of others rafting, then click here and see for yourself… http://whitewater.safpar.com/. It’s not for the feint hearted!!
Within the river itself there is a grading of each of the rapids from 1 to 6. 1 is ‘easy’, 2 and 3 have increasing difficulty. You’re getting more and more likely to be thrown out of your boat. On level 4 you have a 1 in 3 chance of your boat flipping over and everyone ending up in the water. On level 5 you have a 50/50 chance of flipping over and level 6 is officially described as ‘life-threatening’.
After an 8:30 pick up all of us were taken straight to the top of the first gorge, overlooking the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia and were given a safety talk. We got taught how to drag people back into the rafts and what to do if we got knocked out of the boat and became a ‘long swimmer’ ie were no longer even holding on to the rope around the edge of the boat. We also got told what to do if we were trapped under an upturned boat and what to do if we got caught in a whirlpool… the ‘bit of a laugh’ attitude turned icy despite the 30 degree sunny temperature. Even the Kiwis were taking this seriously now. After the safety talk we were split into two groups. Novice rafters were put in to boats where our only job was to hang on and throw our weight around to balance out the boat.
Down to the rafts. No easy thing. We had to climb about 1000 steps down a 220m steep cliff, hanging onto a rail and in my case a 4 litre bottle of water for our boat too.
Once at the bottom of the gorge we were put through our paces by Tatani, our paddler and river guide. His nickname was Titanic. At least we weren’t with Kamikazee Ken!
After practising weight movement and moving from our ‘relax’ position on the boat (sat on the side) to ‘go’ position (crouching in the bottom, gripping onto the rope on the side of the boat), we headed off. There were seven boats of us in all – about 6, 7 or 8 in each boat. Two boats of novices got to go first and 5 boats of insane Antipodeans followed all clutching paddles and whooping at every mention of beer!
The first rapid was number one, the ‘boiling pot’. From where we started we could see the Eastern Cataract of the Victoria Falls crashing 300m away and all the water from it pouring into the gorge in which we now sat in a rubber dinghy. It was ranked as a number 3 rapid, and we were all pretty nervous as we pushed away from the Zimbabwean shore. Two minutes later and we were out-whooping the Aussies! We’d gone through a rapid and not only had we all stayed in the boat, it had actually been fun! The adrenalin rush, the speed, the noise and movement of the boat had all been so fantastic, I couldn’t wait to get onto the rest of the river. Rapids 2 and 3 were again graded 2 or 3. We all got a bit wet, but that was great because we were already starting to feel sunburned in the gorgeous sunshine. Number 4 rapid was our first grade 5. ‘Morning Glory’. You came out of a 170 degree bend in the gorge and there it was – a big dipper into another crashing wave. As first boat through, we gripped on tight, took a deep breath and went for it. Tatani had told us there was a 50/50 chance of a flip. Despite a couple of face-fulls of water (and nostrils full in my case too) we got through it.. We’d managed a number five!!!! Jubilation, celebration, champagne all round (though there was none on board obviously). If that was the worst the Zambezi could manage then bring it on… And just to prove how great we had been, every single other boat to come through no. 4 flipped. It was carnage! Boats, paddles, rafters all in the water and all heading towards our little craft with the current. We took on two rafters who got close enough to grab and any numbers of paddles. It took 20 minutes for all the rafts to right themselves and everyone to get back to where they should be and have the right equipment. We’d managed a no. 5, no-one else had – suddenly we felt doubly jubilant and excited about the rest of the river.
Rapid 5 was round another 170 degree turn. The ‘Stairway to Heaven’ another no.5 rapid. As Tatani told us if we flip here it becomes the Road to Hell! Well we ducked, we gripped, we bounced through the big dips and the waves that towered over our plucky little vessel… and we came through! Joy!! Again, three of the other boats flipped and we helped to pick up the pieces. Oh how pleased with ourselves we were! You have to forgive us though. We’d all been incredibly nervous at the start and now we’d passed through 2 no. 5s ok. Sure it had been terrifying each time. I can’t play down how scary those rapids are when you are in the middle of them. Confusing, disorienting. But we had stayed together and in one piece. Rapid 6 the ‘Devils Toilet Bowl’ was great fun. Swirly, we entered it backwards and came out forwards having been spun right round while being tossed up and down too. This was level 4 and led straight onto Gullivers Travels. A long grade 5, it involved a number of deep waves. Tatani said we probably would flip and had to take care with our weight at the front of the boat. That tremor of fear reverberated again through us and we braced for the first wave. We dropped several metres straight into the face of another wave that hit me straight in the face, knocking me backwards. I hung on hard to the rope, throwing my weight forward again and as the water cleared we were still upright, but diving into the bottom of another foaming monster... miracle! We come through. A great wash of water over my helmet and lifejacket, but we had made it through and boy did we scream with relief!! It may have been at this point in a great moment of over-confidence that I declared us all “KINGS OF THE ZAMBEZI!”… what is it they say about pride? Certainly I should have known better as it was on this rapid that I lost the first of my two contact lenses – the right one. It took a few minutes to realize that I couldn’t see properly anymore. But Gulliver had claimed my contact lens. I was never to see it (ho-ho) again!
Between rapids, there were periods of drifting – checking all the boats were still together and being told the technical information about what grade the next rapid was and where to go to avoid rocks if we became a long swimmer. After Gullivers Travels was a nice long run and it gave us a time to drink, apply suncream to burnt bits (in my case both kneecaps) and enjoy the view afforded to us at the bottom of a gorge that borders two countries. We were soon enough to rapid 8 though. Another grade 5 called ‘Midnight Diner’. Just the one drop and wave to break through, but it was by far the longest drop we had faced so far. However we broke through it and continued to enjoy the views and the chat in the rundown to no.9.
‘Commercial suicide was a monster of a rapid. A level 6, I was serious earlier when that grade means ‘life-threatening’. We pulled up short and walked over the rocks to one side, bypassing this devouring monster of torrential cacophonous might. Because Southern Africa is at the end of it’s Dry Season, the river levels are quite low. This actually makes most of the rapids more intense as the water levels are closer to the rocks. It is the case with no.6, where the water is all channelled into one narrow narrow gully. During the rainy season when water levels rise, the waters pass over the rocks we climbed over and it becomes downgraded to a level 5. As we were walking round the rocks, all the rafts were pushed down and we got to see them bash and batter through the rapids. Thank god we weren’t in them. To really show us what we were missing, one of the Kayakers (there were a number of rescue guys following us down in Kayaks in case we became long swimmers) actually went through the rapid in his boat. He tore down into the first wave and then was swallowed by the water. The nose and tail of his boat were occasionally visible, but we only saw him again when the rapid spat him out 150m downstream. Still in one piece, and deserving of the biggest cheer of the day so far. Even the Kiwis were impressed!
Rapid 10 ‘The Gnashing Jaws of Death’ was a number 3 – this is one of the few rapids that gets more intense as the waters rise and upgrades itself to a 5 by February. We made it through ok and then lunched.
I had enough focus though to grab a hotdog and an orange for lunch and munched them down while fending off the Marmosets, who were equally intent on dining on my sausage. Chatting over lunch, I had been effusive about what a great time I was having. I was definitely going to have to try this again in New Zealand and I was keen to get on with the afternoon half of the river. Two boats worth of people left at lunchtime including two from our boat. They’d paid for the half day trip and that was that. They got replaced by two others, who had been flipped already on their previous boat…
After lunch and straight into the most difficult part of the river. Remember we were yet to flip and everyone else had gone over at least once. One poor boat, skippered by John ‘the Baptist’, had gone over on every single no.5! We approached another no. 5, called the ‘Overland Truck Eater’. Maybe it was the post-lunch dip in energy, but I was edgier going into this. Again we were first through and again we managed it ok. In our boat, it was after no.10, that Douglas said he was enjoying it because ‘it all felt safer than he had expected it to be when we were going through the safety talk’… I wouldn’t have minded but Douglas suffered from a dreadful stammer and it had taken him this long in the day to pluck up the courage to say anything! Did someone mention tempting fate? The next set of rapids was 4 in a row. 12 a, b, c called the Ugly Sisters were a grade 3, 3 and a 2 one after the other. They were followed by no. 13… The Mother. Now those who have been paying attention will have read all the signs so far, but let me recap. We have the character who is initially terrified but then gets oh so cocky… (not like me at all!), we have the inclusion into the scene of two characters from another flipped boat (if we’re being unkind let’s call them jinxed), we have the character who tempts fate and we have a boat, heading into rapid no.13…
Not that I noticed any of this at the time however. The first of the ugly sisters dislodged my one remaining contact lens – I blinked as a wave hit me square in the face – and I spent the following 10 minutes with unfocussed vision out of my right eye and double vision in my left eye! The other ugly sisters were passed without incident, and the last thing I remember is hearing Tatani ask us all “What did you think of the Ugly Sisters?”… and someone replying, “Don’t be so rude about the sisters, I don’t want to offend the Mother”. And then we were into it. You could see that this no.5 was different from all the others because it was much, much longer. The gorge narrowed not at the top of the rapid, but half way through it, creating violent foamy water bang in the middle, which was erratic and had a huge height swell. I hung on tight and we managed the first wave… then a long drop and I was forced back onto my feet again while gripping the rope. At the top of the wave I rocked back down into my crouch position and the raft plunged again. This time we were met with a wall of water and my memory switches from description to colour.
White: deafening roar: grey blue green: quiet: pale green, forcing my head out from under the raft as I hang onto the rope: white and green, my head is back above water and now I see what has happened. Reader… we flipped on The Mother.
I was hanging by one arm to the raft and the raft was twisting in the water. I was on the Zimbabwe side (right hand side) facing downstream, then on the Zambian side facing upstream. I’m checking who I can see – someone is next to me, I can’t see Tatani, or anyone from the back of the boat. someone else I can see though, and he is a long swimmer, ie detached from the boat and loose in the rapid. Pointing downstream, he heads towards me at speed – I think I can grab him or he will pass by the boat close enough to grab it, but at the split second he nears, he is pushed away again to the Zimbabwe side and further down the rapid. Our boat is caught in an eddy and we get thrown into calmer, swirling water on the Zambian side. As everyone else disappears downstream I just shout after them “knees up – keep your knees up!” The key instruction necessary to avoid injury on shallow rocks.
So the situation now is that the raft is upside down, I can only see one person from the boat and the current is slamming us into a flat vertical lava rock on the Zambian side. Not only was I loose in the water clinging onto an upturned raft, many others out of sight, lost to my double vision sight down the Zambezi’s dodgiest rapid, but as I got hammered onto the Zambian rocks without a passport, I could now officially be classed as an illegal immigrant.
As the boat steadied, I saw we were off to the side of the river and we had some catching up to do. Thankfully everyone else on the boat had hung on, with the exception of one person who had been trapped under the dinghy until we hit Zambia. Tatani was on top of the raft, the whole time and he overturned it quickly. Now our only problem was that because we were off to one side of the river, we had to row ourselves back into the rapid that had flipped us before, otherwise we would be stuck in Zambia until someone came to deport us for illegal entry… and we all know how many months that can take! So Tatani dug deep; we all crouched and gripped again and we tackled the last section of the Mother from the side. We came through in one piece and quickly found ourselves in the next section of the River. Thankfully it was a wide calm lagoon. I still couldn’t see properly however as my left contact lens was still giving me double vision. It shifted eventually, and I celebrated by jumping into the Zambezi to cool off from the stress of the flip. The water was great – lovely and warm, and excellent for swimming once you were away from the bastard rapids!!
The mood had changed. As total novices, we had enjoyed the thrill of the morning, but the harsh reality of the river had hit us all. We still had 8 rapids to go until home, including Oblivion, which flips more rafts than any other rapid in the world. Thankfully I only found that out afterwards when I looked on the internet site of the rafting company!!
The next few rapids, ‘Surprise Surprise’ (the surprise is a torrent of water pouring in from the right half way down the rapid), ‘The Washing Machine’, ‘The Terminator’, and ‘Judgement Day’ were all rated as level 3 or below and we passed without incidence, though still with plenty of fresh nerves. We were coming up to Oblivion though and we were second to go through. This was actually the first time anyone else had gone on ahead and it gave us a great chance to watch a raft flip from behind! As we found out afterwards our flip had been a simple right over left flip – so quick none of us knew what had happened. The flip in front of us on Oblivion though had forced the raft straight up in the air before slamming upside down into the water. It looks great on the video, but it was not the best for our confidence at all. I convinced myself that if this was a 50/50 rapid, then we’d seen one raft down and it was our turn to make it. Three big dips and waves hit us and on the crest of the final wave we lurched left. We all threw ourselves hard right however and we managed to balance the boat and ride the wave. We came through Oblivion on an even keel. Phew. The stuffing had been knocked out of us though and we were all keen to see home. I took one final swim in the Zambezi as the boat drifted from no.19 ‘The Last Straw down towards the last two unnamed rapids. It was great to swim, but I wanted to be in a bath and in bed. I was exhausted.
Unfortunately of course, for those of you with excellent memories, you will recall and deduce that if you have to climb down 1000 steps into a 220m deep gorge, then sooner or later you have to climb back up again. The steep cliffs do not flatten out for several hundred more kilometres. In 5 hours of rafting we had come 27km. So we trekked up the hill and my legs were stiff for days after.
We rafted the Zambezi, we surfed the Zambezi, we swam in the Zambezi, we got Zambezi in the face, we got Zambezi up the nose. We got tossed us out of our boat by the Zambezi, I lost a lens to the Zambezi and finally at the top of the gorge, we drank Zambezi… in the form of the local beer of the same name to celebrate our efforts!!
So if you can count being in Zambia as having illegally crossed a border and barely even touching the ground then I can count having been to Singapore and LA because my planes landed there and I wandered around the airport (or the transit room in the case of LA) for 3.5 hours????? COOL! My country count just went up by 2... LMBAO
ReplyDeleteStrictly speaking as the river is the border, then we were crossing in and out of Zambian territorial waters all day long :)
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