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I survived!!!
White water rafting on the Zambezi is fantastic!!! Unfortunately, we had a woman in our raft who had rafted the Zambezi before and was very nervous to say the least. She didnt want to enter to water at rapid number one cos it had scared her before so we had to walk round it and jump into the river and swim to our raft!!!! Not quite the start I was expecting but it had it's own excitment jumping into a fairly fast flowing Zambezi from about 8ft high rocks. We had a bit of a joker as our raft leader ( there were about 8 rafts in total) he sat at the back shouting the commands to ride each rapid, after rapid no. 5 he just disappeared. We had lost him off the back. We were just drifting down the river, heading for the next rapid.... the other rafts were trying to paddle to us.... it was beginning to get a little scarry when suddenly he appeared at the front of the raft and dragged one of us into the river... his idea of a little joke. He also pulled other rafters from other boats into the river by hooking his paddle handle into their life jackets.... At one point he told us all we could leave the raft and just drift down the river on a quite area. Once we were in and a bit away from the boat he started telling us about the crocodiles and snakes that swam the river... I joked that I could see bubbles ahead ... my punishment was, when I tried to get back in the boat he grabbed me to lift me out but instead dunked me deep in the water 3 or 5 times!!! His name was Boyd and we did have a bit of a laugh.
During the rafting we had helicopters flying very low through the gorge which came in handy as on rapid number 8 one of our crew was flung out of the raft and actually dislocated his shoulder. He had to be airlifted out!
So I can say I have rafted 8 of the toughest rapids in the world (arguably).
In the afternoon we did the Gorge Swing. I actually didn't know what we had signed up for and soon realised that this is almost a bungee jump only the rope is not elastic and you swing out of the drop rather than bounce. There were 5 of us ... an odd number... 4 went together in pairs which left me to do it alone .... well YEE HAA!!!! You just stand on this platform which is about 100m high and step off looking straight ahead. Did it twice .... amazing, terrifying, exhilarating ... good practice for bungee (maybe). With that in the bag we went on to do Superman . Strapped into a harness you run as hard as you can off a platform over the canyon.. If you reach the other side you get your money back... It is basically a zip wire going straight over the gorge. Not as exhilarating as the swing but good fun.
We ended the day with a Rap Run .... a 53m abseil facing down rather than up... a bit mission impossible like. So you walk off the cliff facing down then bounce your way down. Good fun.
All in all it was a really good day.. We had to walk out of the gorge 4 times which in itself was no mean feat. There were 350 steps out of the gorge after the swing, rap jump and superman and at least 500 from the white water rafting ( I'm pleased to say that I could climb it better than most of the 20 somethings).
Today was a lot quieter but lovely. We had a lion encounter this morning. We walked with 3 lions who are being rehabilitated back into the wild. They were all 15months old so quite big but everyso sleepy. Lions can sleep for over 20 hours a day and can often go for over 3 days without food. We were able to stroke them and walk with them... such a privalidge. Then this afternoon we rode on elephants. Again this was a bit of a dream for me. I think elephants are my favourite animal. My elephant was called Marula and he was 25 year old but the high light was the little 16month old baby that walked behind my elephant nearly all the way. Truely adorable. If I could bring back one souvenier it would be that baby elephant .
Tomorrow we leave Livingstone for Botswana and Chobe National Park. We join our new truck which has 4 English girls on it. We have already met them and they seem great laugh.
It has been a great few days in this amazing playground. Definitely a highlight of the trip so far.
xx
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Yvonne Grayson This is a retype as I thought I had saved the last one - well here goes again Anne. Original message said: ME GAD Anne - you'e mad!!!!!! Would love to try white water rafting but don't think I've got the guts to do the bungee jumps with or without elastic. Obviously they don't have the same health and safety regulations over there!!!!!!! What a relief! Just showed Eddie the photo of you SMOKING - he is rather interested in seeing you on horseback in a bikini - heee heee heee! I am surprised to can ride an African elephant normally it is only the Inidan ones that will allow you to do that. I JUST LOVE BABY ELEPHANTS TOO! MY FAVOURITE. ENJOY MY FRIEND XXX P.S. Eddie just said "forget the bikini" ooooh heck!!! Hi Yvonne .... the bareback riding in a bikini was certainly an experience. Unfortunately, even though it was a lake the waves were very big and strong ... lost have my bikini bottom ... showed off a bit of butt ... not very dignified teehee. Good to hear from you. I am sort of keeping up to date with facebook but dont have long to play on it as I'm always on a metre. Because I am accessing it from different computers I get asked security questions which always involve identifying friends in photos.... sadly some of my photos are off animals and I have been tagged on them so that i can show them... this means that I quite often get my friends wrong so cant get into facebook .... it;s a real pain. I have just paid for an hours internet and didn't get into facebook again!!!! Think I said Sarah Wade was a baboon and apparently that's wrong...hee hee. xx
sarah wade Hey you survived it all then and well done. Sounds like everyday is turning out to be better and better. Glad the lions and elephants went well knew how much you were looking forward to that. Keep the blogs coming its my night time read!!! xxx
graham Hiya Anne, I am overjoyed that you loved the rush of the rafting, its so much fun, I had a similar thing regarding your paddle man, he just tipped us over a 15 ft drop :-))Your certainly packing a lot in, bring on the rest of the world, your going from strength to strength, keep it going, reading your blogs is a lovely highlight of a day, take care, best wishes, The Bear xx Hi Graham, glad you're enjoying the blogs and thanks for keeping in touch. x
Sarah Matthews Hi Anne Sounds just fab - although being scared of heights I don't fancy the swing or the rap run! Trying to avoid the man flu my hubby has had all week as I'd hate to miss the Stansted Slog on Sunday. Will keep taking pics of running so you know it's getting darker and colder here. Love Sarah x
Saul I am so glad that you had a grand visit to Livingstone. Come back again and thanks for sharing your experience. http://www.livingstonetourism.com
Ann Carty Hello Anne,What an absolutley wonderful time you had at Victoria Falls. I'm amazed you're still in one piece! Are you training to be "Stunt Woman Extraodinaire"?I love all animals, but have to agree elephants are am amongst my favourites - I'd have loved to be there with you for that ride!Looking forward to the next installment.Ann x x Hi Ann. Great to hear from you. Hope you had a great time in Canada. I am running fairly regularly but not very far. There are two lovely Norwegian girls on my truck who are extremely fit. I have done a bit of interval training with them which is really good as we spend long days travelling on the truck ie. we have 12 hours to do tomorrow!! So good to hear from you...wish you were here. x