Days 46 to 49 - Vic Falls

I have a hard job of trying to sum up our very packed three day trip to Victoria Falls but I'll try my best...

We arrived at the falls at around 3pm, checked into our hotel and headed out to the main street to book whitewater rafting for the following morning. As we walked the main street we were bombarded by people telling us to raft with them because they would give us a good price. We had 9 people in our group wanting to raft so companies were very keen to get us on their side. We met with one group and were quickly confronted by a man yet again promising a good deal. We met this particular guy later that afternoon and scored a pretty good price for rafting the following morning.

Alex, Jonno and I at the Boma restaurant

For dinner we headed to the Boma restaurant, which is about experiencing as much of the African culture as possible in one night. We were dressed up in African man dress things and given some blue face paint to bring out the inner braveheart. We were treated to African dancing, singing, story telling as well as drumming, which everyone in the restaurant got to join in on with their drum which we were given throughout the night. Along with the great entertainment we were treated to some super tasty African meat. Kudu, warthog, croc tail, Boerwors, Buffalo steak and the Mopani worm. Alex (who had already eaten one) sternly told Jonno and I that we were not to leave the restuarant until we had eaten this worm. Successively swallowing the worm was worthy of a signed certificate signed by the Mopani worm chef...Any food that is worthy of a certificate once eating it is bad news in my bad books. Jonno and I in our wisdom decided to beat this worm challenge straight up. I was mentally preparing myself by telling myself to expect a large juicy worm that would explode in my mouth. My preparation was all wrong. This worm was like chewing on charcoal. The taste wasn't bad it was just near impossible to swallow. However, we succeeded and proudly walked out of the restaurant with our certificates ready to add it to our resumes when we get home. Jonno and I celebrated by going all out for the main meal and order everything available. Alex, who has previous Boma experience laughed at us along with the chefs who were all too happy to give us everything. Our eyes lit up as all different kinds of meats and sausages were piled onto our plates. We were overwhelmed but a little excited to eat so much meat!

Team 'Titanic' ready for the Zambezi

Day 2 of our Vic Falls trip started at 6:30am where we were picked up for our rafting debrief before we took on the mighty Zambezi river. We signed our indemnity forms, which were full of 'importnant' information according to the form and headed off to the falls. We made our way down the gorge where I saw Alex land on his rear three times in quick concession. We got into our raft where Alex and I were all too happy to take the front and were given a 5 minute crash course in whitewater rafting. Ahead of us were the back half of the Zambezi rapids (11 to 23). We cruised through the first few and were super confident heading into rapid 16...which by memory was a three part rapid named "The three ugly sisters". We headed into the rapid sideways, which I don't think was the plan and were hit by a large wall of water, which threw me into Alex pushing him off the boat who was quickly followed by both Jonno and I leaving our two Irish mates (Damien and Neil) and two instructors onboard.

Jonno posing while the rest of us row

Jonno was the only lucky one and managed to grab the safety rope on the side of the raft while Alex and I were lost in the rapid. We managed to get back in eventually and had massive smiles on our faces. We wanted to get thrown off and we got our wish! Apart from rafting through rapids we were given a chance to jump off a 20m cliff face into the river, which we all jumped at the chance to do. We also did a LOT of throwing each other out of the rafter...so much so that our instructor said Jonno did more swimming than rafting. Rafting was awesome fun...on the other hand the walk out of the gorge wasn't that crash hot. It was hot, steep and zero fun. We did make it though and were welcomed to lunch and cold drinks at the top of the gorge. That night we headed out on a sunset cruise on the Zambezi. We went up and down the river spotting a good number of hippos, a crocodile, elephants and a postcard standard African sunset.

Sunset from the cruise

Jonno, Alex and I at Victoria Falls

On our last day in Vic Falls we decided it would be best to actually go and see the falls. But before we did that Alex, Jonno and I headed to the gorge where the gorge swing, flying fox and zip line took place. It was there I decided that I valued my life and would just do the zipline while Jonno and Alex put their names down to do all three adrenaline experiences that afternoon. We eventually made it to the falls and understood pretty quickly why it is one of the greatest natural wonders of the world.



The magnitude of water and the sheer size of the falls was breathtaking. At each viewpoint we would get more and more wet from the mist of the falls as we stood and stared at this awesome God-made creation. After our visit to the falls it was time...time to head to the cliff face and swing across it, jump off it and fly across it. Jonno, Alex and two others who we were travelling with were crazy enough to do all three, while I was happy to take one for the team and take photos of their final moments. They all survived the flying fox and even had the nerve to say it was a bit boring. Next was the zip line, which had come much quicker than I would have liked. The others decided that I had to go first seeing as I was only doing one activity but Jonno decided he needed another burst of adrenaline and did the gorge swing before I had a chance to go...I was so upset. The gorge swing was crazy. A 70m free fall in 3 seconds along with a further drop and ridiculously long swing across the canyon. Jonno made no nose and to be honest it didn't look like he was moving for a while. He eventually yahoo'd and we were all relieved to know he was still breathing. We each survived our gorge swings and zipline runs with the crazy people agreeing that the gorge swing was the greatest rush ever.

We ended our time at Vic Falls with Des and Pete's crew (13 people) with burgers and our whitewater rafting DVD and photos, which provided a lot of laughs. We were up early the next morning packed and ready to leave Vic Falls by 8:30am for our 6 hour drive home to Bulawayo. As good as our little African tourist adventure was, we were ready to go home to see Deb and the girls as well as our family out at SJC. Deb had a lasagne and salad dinner prepared and ready for both Des and Pete's crew and us. We headed to Des and Pete's for dinner and shared stories as well as traded a lot of photos between each other. We were pretty tired and ready to sleep after a long day but somehow Jonno and I got sucked into a game of 'Phase 10'. Little did we know that this was a loooooonnnnngggg game, which led Jonno and I to what some people might consider 'cheating'. This needed to be done so we could win the game and go home to bed. We all agreed that we would play one more round and the first person to get the required cards won. After a few dramatic coughs and singing songs with the lyrics being the specific cards we required, Jonno slipped me the three cards I needed and I laid my cards down to win and more importantly end the game. The other players were amazed at my hand, which both Jonno and I responded with "It was just a really lucky hand". Not even the padlocked gate (thanks Alex...or Khulu) stopped us getting to our beds where we crashed quickly.

Sorry for a long blog...It was hard to get so much into a small space.

Andy