The following takes place from the 26th November through to the 1st December 2011. It involves 2 long drive days through Zambia to our base for a few days in Livingstone and a few days of adrenalin activities!!
The 26th and 27th were 2 long driving days. We stopped at the Malawi capital of Lilongwe for a little shopping to replace supplies before crossing borders into Zambia. Our 2 campsites were Mamarulas and Eureka's and both came with a huge amount of insects and giant Christmas beetles!! Whilst playing cards at one campsite we got completely swarmed by a large swarm of moths - certainly an experience!! Also briefly stopped in the Zambian capital of Lusaka before heading to camp to watch England lose the Rugby to South Africa. This was our last night eating as a whole truck as our next few days in Livingstone we would have to sort out our own food and eat in the restaurant there. Also when we leave Livingstone we split - some off to Cape town and some of to Jo'burg.
On Sunday 28th we made it to our campsite in Livingstone called the Waterfront via a stop at the Victoria falls!! Walked by the falls - impressive in size but the water volume was low as it was dry season so it wasn't as mighty and impressive as I thought it would be but still impressive.
At the Waterfront campsite we were talked through all the activities we could take part in (and there were a lot!!). As we would be so busy Sophie and I decided to upgraded to a pre set up tent - slightly larger with beds a fan and a plug socket. Good investment. After doing this the activities i went for were - a day's white water rafting on the mighty Zambezi, an adrenaline day - flying fox, abseiling and the gorge swing. To follow that day everyone on the truck booked the sunset/booze cruise as our last real night together as a whole truck!!
Monday 29th began a few hectic but truly memorable days of fun, adrenalin, drinks and food!! Monday was our white water rafting day and almost everyone on the truck opted to do this. It consisted of 25 rapids graded 1-5 along the mighty Zambezi and would take all day to complete. This is the activity that I really wanted to do despite my before mentioned fear of drowning and inability to swim. Swimming ability wouldn't matter here because if you feel in no matter how good a swimmer you were you would be at the mercy of the river and rely entirely on your life jacket (my new best friend). My boat would be crewed by; Choongo (the guide), Vicky, Sophie, Amy, Jason, Jade and myself. Our guide talked through the basics i.e. paddle hard when he said and duck and hold tight when he said!! Jason and I chose to be at the front of the boat and i really enjoyed it there!! The first 7 rapids went by relatively well - no mishaps on the rapids themselves (even the grade 5's!!). Vicky managed to fall out on a calm bit and i was pulled out by a guide into the water!! We rescued a few evictee;s from boats that didn't do so well over the first 7 rapids. Our first drama came at rapid 8!! A grade four that our guide described as a 50/50 chance of staying in the boat. We took those odds and lost big time!!! We rode the first few undulations and then hit a particularly big waves which completely flipped our boat. Everyone overboard. I was under water for what seemed like a long time (again really not my favourite place to be) and finally resurfaced only to find myself under the upturned boat. Vicky and jade also appeared under the boat. We pulled ourselves out only to be pummeled by numerous waves - really hard to catch our breath! Our guide talked us through flipping the boat and we all on back in unscathed!! After that nothing in the rapids would scare me!! We walked past rapid 9 (a grade 6 you can't do commercially) and continued along the rest of the river. Pulled numerous people into the boat but one time i slipped when pulling Vicky in and got a mouth full of helmet and bit my lip!! Good move!! We managed to loose Sophie at rapid 13 - not for long before the guide pulled her back in. Luckily he saw her as no-one else had a clue she'd gone in as we were focused on surviving the rapid. Then I came to my nemesis - rapid 18 named Oblivion!!! This was another one we were given 50/50 odds for. I was now at the back to give Amy a chance at the front. We hit a whopper of a wave which ejected me (Back flip style - legs over head) and jades (head first) into the rapid. Jade popped up by the boat. I was once again under for what felt like ages and popped up way left of the boat and well away from any boat. So essentially i had to ride the majority of the oblivion on my own in my life jacket. I took a pounding from the waves but remained remarkably calm and actually enjoyed it - was quite amusing looking over to my boat to see the panic on the faces as they saw the non swimmer bumping along and paddling themselves frantically over to try and get me!! We got to the end without any further drama's and ended a fantastically enjoyable day!! Loved every second of if.
Tuesday would involve height related activities on the 'adrenaline day'. 3 activities: abseiling, flying fox and the gorge swing. Abseiling was ok but didn't overly enjoy it. The flying fox involved running up to a gorge edge and jumping whilst attached to a zip line and shooting across the gorge. This was fun but not particularly adrenaline inducing. The same could not, however, be said of the gorge swing. This involved taking a step of a platform and free falling 53metres/feet (i forget which one) in 3.5 seconds before the rope tightens and swings you across the gorge. I volunteered to go first (idiot) but didn't exactly do it correctly - you are meant to go feet first but as i took at step my following leg got caught and i ended up going down horizontally - scaring the hell out of the guides and the people i was with. I really enjoyed it - great fun. When i was told i did it wrong though i was a little more worried about the second one. But i took a much bigger step the second time and once again enjoyed it. The feeling as you stand at the edge is horrible though - thinking shit that's a long way down, at which point the guide said ' did i tell you to look down!!). The fall was over very quickly and an amazing feeling and swinging bit was quite fun actually and peaceful although the harness was very tight so slightly painful!! We all did the various activities (Vicky, Sophie, Jason, Jade, Rob, Bec and Anna) but had to get back for the cruise to leave at 4:30. So we told the driver of this open top jeep to 'drive it like he stole it' and so began a hairy high speed race on bumpy roads, wind in our faces back to camp. At this point i was thinking - 'if a bug hits me at this speed will it go all the way through my head?' Anyway the drive was almost as much of an adrenalin activity as jumping off a cliff!! We survived and hurried to our sunset/booze cruise which would be our last real night as a complete truck!! It proved to be a great last night as a truck and a great way to finish our journey as a 23 before we split up. It was a very enjoyable night!!
The final day in Zambia was a lovely relaxing recovery day spent in the sun!!. Nice and chilled. I did learn one thing though - if you are lying in your tent face up and see an ant don't smacked it as it leads to a shed load of ants falling all over your face!! Not a good move!! Anyway we met met our new crew as just over half of us from Shashe would now be joining a new truck whose name i forget, which is an indication for how little i cared for it compared to Shashe!!
