After 20 days of camping we finally reached Zambia, country number four on the list. 1 more day to go and I was getting ready to say goodbye to the group of which 19 out of 21 were heading off home or on to another tour. Bit sad really. But we made the most of the 2 days together.
Most of us signed up for the white water rafting along the Zambezi River. That was awesome not to mention hard work. Getting to the river was the hardest task. It was so steep and the make shift steps were perilous. Some people went down on their arses, some needed help but I hung on and managed to get through after a few scares. One of the guys behind me snapped one of the steps and I pictured an avalanche of people hitting the bottom. Luckily my imagination is more vivid than real life. We finally reached the bottom and got into our rafts. We had gone through all the safety briefing already but I was still a bit scared. First thing was to get into the water and get used to the temperature which was cold!
We went through many levels all with funny names of which white creamy buttocks was my favourite…not sure why it was named so. We didn’t fall in once or flip over like other rafts but I’m sure that’s because you could request to be flipped which I was not about to do. Our raft even saved someone from a raft that did flip. The guy looked pale and very scared. We survived all the levels from numbers 11 to 25. I had a couple of hairy moments and one funny one in particular. As I was being hoisted up from the water I was trying to grab someone to hold onto while I lifted myself up and no one offered. So I grabbed the legs of one of my male raft mates and promptly gave everyone the idea of how to give a blow job while white water rafting. It was obviously hilarious as my other raft mates could not stop laughing…for ages. I just hope nobody tells the guys wife because it was one of my more embarrassing moments on the trip.
The day ended with a sunset cruise aka booze cruise. Eat and drink as much as you want…woo hoo. We ate and drank and took photos in different poses every which way…by now they should all be uploaded to face book. The night ended with a very weird disco in the auditorium with some suspect music played by a suspect DJ. I left pretty early and my tent mate joined me at about 2 am but I’m sure it was more 5 am. I had a micro flight the following morning and didn’t like my chances up in the air with a hangover.
This was a wise move as the microflight was a little toy looking vehicle where I had to straddle the “pilot”. I had to put on a padded fly suit which made me look like the Michelin man. It sounded like a small toy helicopter as we took off but we went up pretty high and the views were amazing. We got really high for the waterfalls and then got low to see the elephants, hippos and even the crocodiles on the bank of the Zambezi. I think it was better than a helicopter ride more intimate if you like plus I was straddling a hot German pilot for 20 mins!
Then the first part of the tour ended and we had to say goodbye to the rest of the group which I found sad. It doesn’t happen often but once in a while a group comes along where everybody got along brilliantly and had fun and this was the group. It was just me and my tent mate Lynda left so we headed onto Zimbabwe to continue with the tour and pick up some new people, including my big sister whom I haven’t seen in nearly 10 years. Should be fun and exciting.
