When anyone says the pickup is at 7am, my advice to you would be "skip it". After all, nothing can be so good it warrants arising at 6am, can it? The answer, surprisingly, is yes it can and white water rafting on the Zambezi is one of those things I would advise anyone to make the time for, however early it begins.
After our early pickup we were taken to a site at the top of the gorge for the safety briefing and equipment issue. In short, here's a helmet, paddle and life jacket, and here's what to do when you fall in. (Note when, not if...)
After that it was a short walk down some very steep steps to the gorge bottom where some placid water before the rapids allowed us to board our rafts and receive some very basic instructions from our boat master James. Our crew consisted of myself, Travis, a couple of professionals from Cape Town called Dean and Deirdre and two South Korean chaps whose names escape me so if they are reading this please accept my apologies. After learning how to row forward, backwards and turn we got to practise getting back into the boat. This sounds fine in theory but in practise it first involves getting out of the boat in order to get back in! Surprisingly the Zambezi is very warm and this exercise was actually quite pleasant.
Once all this was complete it was time to start. Little did we realise that the first rapid was a) a 4+ and b) only about 100m away and went round a bend. At this point I can exclusively report that the first rapid was not our finest hour and was in fact the low point of our day. We managed to flip the raft completely and all ended up in the water where we found ourselves being swept into the rocks at the outside of the bend, as was the raft shortly afterwards. Not a pleasant experience and I think by the time we were all back aboard some of us (me included) had been pretty well , spooked by the experience. Travis (the bastard!) remained calm and collected as ever throughout the experience. James then gave us the good news - we were still above the rapid and got to try again! Thankfully we scraped through on the second attempt and after a quick team talk we managed to really get it together through the next 7 rapids to the point where we were going through first and acting as rescue boat for others.
We then left the water and began a long'ish trek around rapid 9, called Commercial Suicide because that's what it would be if you took the punters through it. (I didn't mention it yet but every rapid has it's own name and rating. Ratings are from 1 to 6 with + ratings to denote mid way. We were passing 18 rapids but only rowing 17 as rapid 9 was rated 6 and we were not allowed to do that one. I will list the names later but they generally seem to be designed to scare the bejesus out of the rafters!) After that it was back in the water for the final 9 rapids, not counting the ones too small to qualify for a name.
I think at this point James felt we were getting a little cocky and needed bringing down a peg or two. We were approaching a series called the Three Sisters and the Mother. The sisters were rated 1+, 2 and 2+ (or 3) respectively and the mother was 4+ I think. Now I'm not saying James did or didn't flip the boat deliberately, but somewhere between the second and third sisters we all found ourselves in the water and had the somewhat dubious pleasure of floating through the last of the sisters and the Mother sans raft! It was at about this point in the day that the first crocodile was sighted. Thankfully most of us were back in the boat at this point and attempting to rescue a chap from another boat. When the cry of crocodile was made we all turned to look and the poor chap had to wait in the water till we had all seen the beast. (I should point out it was only a tiny croc of 1m or so and that at no point was he in any real danger.)
I am happy to report that we only suffered one further mishap during the trip which was on rapid 18, a 4+ which left us all in the water! including our boat captain. At this point we were confident enough in the water that we all enjoyed a pleasant float down the Zambezi for some distance before we were reunited with each other and the raft. The final rapid was a 2 or 2+ and after that we rowed to the landing point and disembarked. At this point the nightmare began.
As we left the raft we were each issued with a 300ml bottle of water and left to ourselves to complete the 250m climb back to the top of the gorge. This took place in the early afternoon heat and was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. If it hadn't been for the 2 guys from South Korea who stayed with me and shared their water once mine had gone I'm not sure I would have made it to the top at all. When I finally did summit Travis was already there and looked to be well into the provided lunch. After draining another bottle of water I managed a chicken leg and a beer before we headed back to town.
All in all a most excellent morning and great fun although very tiring. The only downside was the dunking on rapid 1 washed way most (all) of my sunscreen and I now have the most awful burning just above the knees on both legs but it was worth it!
