Rafting the Zambezi

Erin and I have both been white water rafting before in Costa Rica and Erin again in West Virginia. We loved every minute of it and were so excited to do it again on the Zambezi River on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe near Livingstone a couple days before Christmas.

The Zambezi has 25 rapids so it took an entire 7 hours or so of rafting to get through them all. Where many rivers in the U.S. flow through valleys in the terrain, the Zambezi flows through a gorge formed from thousands of years of volcanic activity and erosion. This makes the river twist and turn like a snake and the wet and dry seasons make the river rise and fall by dozens of feet. All these features give the Zambezi some of the strongest currents and best rapids in the world.

We met a couple from Australia on the train from Zanzibar and decided to do several things in Livingstone together, including the Devil's Pool, rafting, and a sunset cruise. It was us four in the raft with our guide. We had expected more people since the rafts can hold 8 plus a guide. After the briefing, a group photo, and trekking down the gorge, we loaded our raft just before the first rapid.

These two pictures were taken back-to-back.

I was late to the party...

Rapids are classified in "Classes" from 1-6 with 1 being a little more than a blip in the current and 6 requiring expert training and generally considered too dangerous to even raft. The Zambezi has Class 2-6 with most of them 4-5. The first rapid is a Class 5 so we were thrust right into the thick of it.

Before we shoved off, I jokingly said that if anyone fell out on the first rapid, everyone else was going to give them hell for it for the rest of the day. If I only knew....Our guide mentioned that this rapid was kind of easy so we set off towards it a bit to relaxed but full of anticipation. Big mistake! Since we were coming into the rapid at an angle, the second massive wave of 4 threw the entire rafting over like it was nothing. And who was the first out? Me of course. We all went out and Erin and I were wisked down the river and away from the raft in a second. We both got saved by the kayakers waiting downstream if this situation came up. This first rapid really threw us for a loop so we got a little more serious after climbing back into the raft with a stomach full of river water and coughing like crazy.

The "God help us!" moment.

As you can see, I'm already in the water...

We were both bracing for impact against the rocks that the water was smashing into, but it never came.

Erin and I are about 50-100 feet downstream of the raft here and wondering what the hell happened.

Surprisingly, the next 8 rapids went off without much of a problem. Rapid 8 is another hard one and we almost got vertical but didn't flip. We did lose Geoff off the back but we quickly rescued him and were back on our way.

Holding on for dear life and laughing like crazy.

Rapid 9 is a Class 6 rapid so we had to get out of the river and walk around it. Before we started, I said I wanted to do the Class 6 rapid but after sewing it, I quickly changed my mind. It seemed crazy for anyone to do it, but one of the photographers, who has rafted all over the world, did it in his kayak.

It looks bigger than it really is, but we saw several along the banks that day.

After 9, we breaker for a quick lunch and were then back on the river. The second half of the day was less eventful because of easier rapids. This allowed us to go for a swim during the long stretches between rapids. The currents are so strong, one person could be going twice as fast as another person down the river and only be 5-10 feet away. Swimming surprised us as one of the more fun parts of the day, although seeing a crocodile on the banks of the river every once in awhile kept us a little worried.

GO TEAM!!

We finished the river with no injuries apart from some stiff shoulders and some sore ribs from our life jackets being so tight. They took us out of the gorge in a cable car and served us dinner back at their headquarters while we watched and laughed at the videos they took.

Erin and I decided this is the most fun thing we have done in Africa so far. Kili is a close second, but we feel like it was more of an accomplishment with a lot of work, where rafting was smiles and laughing the whole way (almost).

(Written December 26th)