Victoria Falls
We are in the town Livingstone, Zambia.
We are officially in "proper Africa".
The road conditions, the infrastructure, the buildings, the people, all very very poor. But everyone here is so friendly, it's almost scary. You think they want to scam you, but they are just that friendly.
Our first day when we arrived by plane was mid afternoon. We got to the hostel and immediately starting booking activities.
Activity 1- Boose Cruise/Sunset Cruise and white water rafting.
We did the boose cruise the first night. We met a really nice guy from Chicago our age, and a couple from Joburg slightly older. All enjoyed the drink on boats while watching the sunset, we got lucky. The cruise was filled with an older crowd, but as we hung out on the second level of the boat, near the bar, we didn't even notice. The sun set was incredible- See the pictures. They served a chicken and sausage dinner on the boat as well which was very good. As we got all juiced and fed, we returned to dock and headed back to town. We then found a friendly local who took Mark and I to a local bar in town. He told us how the country was very poor, but friendly, but many sufferings as we could tell. We enjoyed our evening, returned the hostel to finish the night with our friends from the cruise.
The second day we visited the falls. We had heard its like entering a giant rain cloud. That's exactly how to describe it. We were soaking wet 2 minutes into our visit. You get to go on a bridge right in front of the falls which was incredible. As it was the end of the rainy season the river was full and that meant the falls were loud and roaring, but with all the water came the mist. It was tough to see the falls at times, but the times you could see it was amazing. As well walked around, you could see people bungy jumping from the near by bridge. You can also visit a place through the gorge called the 'boiling pot'. Only pictures can describe its beauty. The view from the boiling pot was incredible.
The third day was white water rafting. We went with the same guy and couple as the booze cruise as well as a fellow German (it seems 90% of people who travel are Germans, they must hate their country or have lots of money, ill go with the latter). The instructor was very nice and ended his command instruction with, we will hit a cat 5 rapdi, we may flip we may not. Right as we entered the fist rapid, it was just like the movies we were up and down up and down, getting drenched along the way. Finally we got to the cat 5 rapid. We hit it, and IMMEDIATELY FLIPPED THE RAFT. All I remember is falling backwards, opening my eyes and seeing darkness, I kicked as hard as I could to the surface and the 5 seconds it took me to reach the top seemed forever. I about went into panic mode, like the panic mode as a kid when you dove into the deep end and were fight for air at the bottom and come up on the kid on the float and you immediately think your trapped and drowning. As I surfaced, I saw our flipped raft and everyone swimming towards it. We were flowing very fast through the current, but our helmets and life vests worked just like they should. The instructor and I jumped on top of the raft, he pulled a road, we both grabbed it, fell backwards and the raft flipped onto its right side. We all jumped back in, but Jared of the Joburg couple was floating seamlessly down the river. We did have to guides in Kayaks following us along the way and the man in the Kayak grabbed Jared and awaited for us to grab him. The rush was incredible and I can't wait to white water raft again.
Stay Classy America
