A date to remember. Deciding not to chicken out at this late stage, seven of us set off at 06.30 for the Zambesi and before any rafting could start, a long walk / scramble down into the bottom of the gorge (or should I say canyon?). This is somewhere that has not yet heard of Health and Safety.
We donned our helmets and life jackets, grabbed a paddle each and climbed in to our inflatable raft, with our "captain". A bit of practising and then we were off. The cliffs of the gorge soared above us, while the water below us was between 30-50m deep - quite awe inspiring.
There were 16(?) rapids of varying horror. We got through the Washing Machine, and then Terminator 1 with Oblivion still to be negotiated, but then came up against Terminator 2. Suddenly, the whole raft was tipped upside down, with all of us cascading into the maelstrom. I could of course go on about this for hours (and probably will when I arrive back home) but suffice it to say that we were rescued by another raft, but that I was hauled out stark naked from the waist down. I have given up trying to include photos in these blogs, but shall try to send just a couple to show us in our raft and then "somewhere", with the raft upturned - just to give you a flavour, but I guarantee that nothing, nothing, can get across how I / we felt. Horrifying as it might have been before we were rescued, our "flipping" (correct technical term, as used by we experts) was the icing on an unbelievable cake.
Then, some two hours and 20k after we set off, we were climbing back up for lunch. All of us (and certainly including me) were ecstatic that we had decided to take the plunge (and then literally!). Jitka (who has done six bungee jumps and is probably in her twenties) said that she was "so proud of me, being so old" - perhaps the best compliment I have ever had in my life!
Then, just to add yet more icing, we took a helicopter ride over the Falls themselves. What a view! (I was given the front seat by the pilot, so even better).
Impala and warthog steaks for dinner.
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