“GET DOWN!” With barely a moment’s hesitation, we all hit the deck and held on for dear life as wave after wave crashed over us. The blind faith we had in our guide’s instruction was immense, especially considering we had met him mere minutes before.
26km. Twenty-five rapids. Nine class 5 rapids. Welcome to the ‘Mighty Zambezi River’ – the world’s wildest white-water rafting experience.
Having arrived in Zimbabwe the day before, this was our first, major activity at the beautiful Victoria Falls. The sharp chasm and accompanying Zambezi river acts as the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe and is an impressive sight to behold. In the high-water season, the falls turns into a massive curtain of water that disappears into a dark abyss eclipsed by spray. In the low-water season, however, as the river become a turbulent, wave machine, the rafts dominate the waters below.
Leaving our accommodation early that morning, the nerves began to swell. Last year, I completed my first ever white-water rafting experience in Alaska. It did little to calm my nerves to hear that that was child’s play compared to the Zambezi. This place was the stuff of legends. An infamous challenge to conquer. And conquer we almost did.
After a short safety briefing, we descended down a series of extremely steep and questionable stairs into the gorge. By the time we reached the rafts, I was more than ready to take to the water, regardless of the size of the rapids or the crocodiles. At 40°C, being out in the sun was a brutal punishment.
Within the first few rapids, a clear routine was established: stop twenty metres or so away from the top of the rapid, guide gives rapid name, grade, general navigation instructions, chances of capsizing (almost always at least fifty-fifty) and tells us what life threatening structures to avoid if we do end up going for an unfortunate dip. After a great deal of arm-deadening paddling, yelling and gripping the raft’s guide ropes until our knuckles turned white, we were celebrating our safe passage on the other side.
Everything proceeded as planned until Rapid #18: Oblivion. As the final raft to enter the rapid, we had already watched two of our fellow rafts annihilated by the washing machine of water. Paddling hard we descended into the rapid, made it over one, two waves before the third pointed our raft towards the heavens and dumped the contents into the river. A domino effect had caused the people at the front of the raft to clear out those behind them and thus I found myself fighting to push a seemingly immovable weight off the top of me as I scrambled towards the surface.
Spluttering, I finally reached the surface and gasped in my first breath of fresh air. Lucky for me, I had surfaced right next to the raft. Looking around after being heaved into the raft I located a number of my other comrades more than a hundred metres downstream, being rescued by other rafts and safety kayakers. It was chaos.
More than five hours after our departure, we finally reached the end of our journey and secured our rafts before beginning the hike out of the gorge. What normally would have been a manageable hike quickly became a seemingly impossible feat. With tired muscles, the sun beating down, no water and little energy, every step caused my body to scream in pain. Heat stroke quickly began to take effect as dizziness and nausea wracked my body.
Sometime later, after having to be practically dragged out of the gorge, we collapsed in a heap. Exhausted, skin blistered with sunburn, muscles screaming but feeling strangely exhilarated, we cheered weakly and fist-bumped in commemoration of our conquest.
We had survived the Mighty Zambezi River.