Weekend at Livingstone and Victoria Falls

First off, apologies to friends and Momma for scaring you all into thinking I had drowned or been kidnapped this weekend. Jen's internet wasn't working Thursday or Friday before I left so I couldn't remind everyone that I was leaving...and I wouldn't have internet for the weekend so I wouldn't be updating the blog while I was gone either. So, I'm alive and well! I didn't realize so many people were religiously following the blog!

I started the weekend with a bus ride to Livingstone. I took the 9AM bus on the Mazhundu Family Bus service, which is known for being prompt, reliable, and well run. Evidently the 9am bus is the "luxury" bus; I found it to be quite comfortable but didn't realize how luxurious it was until I rode the 730am bus back to Lusaka today. The 10 or 20pen (or about 5 dollars) difference between the "non-luxury" and the "luxury" was more than worth it the first time around. The luxury bus is exactly like the Greyhound buses in America but without the scratchy carpet material on the seats. The non-luxury bus? Cramped, hot, smushed, sweaty. I was miserable for nearly 7 hours. SEVEN HOURS. That's all I'm gonna say about that...

Upon arrival to Livingstone Friday afternoon, there was a mass of taxi drivers trying to take the backpacker to Jollyboy's. Jollyboys is a two minute walk from the bus terminal so after shifting through the crowd I walked to the very popular hostel around the corner. Enclosed in a cool fence and gate is very well designed hostel with a restuarant/bar area, pool &patio, shaded "chill out" zone with tons of pillows and people reading, the dorm rooms, and tent area. I shared a room with two kayakers from London and an aeronautical engineer from South Africa. I spent the first night getting to know my roommates and a diverse conglomerate of people that were staying there. Throughout the weekend I would get to know

• Luke, an investment trader from Australia that spends majority of the year traveling
• Trent, a student at a university in Cape Town who has been traveling extensively throughout Africa; I spent a lot of time trying to convince him that not all (some, yes) Americans are dumb and exceedingly arrogant
• Neil, the aeronautical engineer and very nice gentleman
• Nick and Chris, the two quiet kayakers that were either kayaking Rapids 1 to 7 or reading at Jollyboys
• Slovenian Viakaapstad guys Borix, Gamon, and Apa who had rode from Slovenia through Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and down the eastern coast of Africa for the past few months on their motor bikes; they had some crazy stories! Borix is the dentist, Gamon worked as a factory manager, Apa is a mechanical engineer
• Victoria and Heather: two Norwegian girls who were visiting Victoria's cousin in Livingstone; Victoria lives in Lusaka so I may be meeting up with her sometime later

Saturday I went whitewater rafting with Safari Par Excellence or "SafPar". I joined a group of 5 young Norwegian friends who all had assumed I could speak Norwegian because my name is Norwegian in origin. Eventually I caught on that they were trying to talk to me; thank God they spoke English! There was another raft of 6 people (a mix of Victoria & Heather, a South African couple, and a couple from China) that were also on the trip. Our guide Boyd was enthusiastic, wild, and full of crap just like every other raft guide I've ever known. I called him out on the bull crap lines he used as scare tactics or just random jokes. I wasn't nearly as gullible as the other girls in the boat so Boyd quickly realized I am a raft guide as well!

We started at Rapid #7b because #1 to 7a have too high of water levels for commercial rafting. The trek into Bakota Gorge at the put-in was quite steep. We followed a porter, a guy paid to carry the safety boater kayak down to the river, over the rocks and narrow path. Carrying a kayak is difficult, especially the way he held it, and the path was not easy to navigate and maintain balance either. This guy was really impressive--never once slipping, dropping the boat, hitting the boat against limbs while all of us were struggling to make it over the huge rocks with just our paddles in hand! After getting oriented in the boat we started down the Great Zambezi River with Zimbabwe on the right and Zambia on the left (Zim and Zam).

Our Nor-merican crew was gung-ho and made it clear we wanted to "go big" whenever possible. Boyd made the trip loads of fun, including a purposeful flip at a Rapid named "Gnashing Jaws of Death"--charming name right? No worries, no one was hurt the entire trip. The upper rapids are all Class 5 to 4 (except for Rapid 9/Commercial Suicide which is a Class 6 and we portage around it) but as you continue downstream the rapids become easier to Class 2 and 1. At a flatwater area we jumped off a 6-8m high cliff into the water; there was a large debate about exactly how high it was but whatever height it still hurt my butt when I didn't make the flip all the way around to get my feet down in time! We were able to swim outside of the boat through a lot of the last few rapids because the water is so deep and the rapids are so simple. It felt like we were swimming through the ocean. Occasionally a whirlpool would snag me out of the current and roll me around before I got bored and swam back into the main current.

The gorge is absolutely gorgeous. The river was amazing. The water felt great. The sky was bright and the sun brilliant, which of course ended in a brilliant sunburn! Boyd and the Norwegians had me laughing the whole day. I was reminded why I loved rafting on a natural river. Why I love the mountains. Why I needed to do this trip. For some of you, you'll understand how significant of a moment it was when I realized how happy I was. I fell in love with the Zambezi and was grateful to remember how to be so care free. Beautiful day on so many levels.

That afternoon I went to the local curio market to kill some time and see more of Livingstone. I was so proud of my haggling skills that I learned from my trip to Namibia two years ago. I got a guy to come down from 85,000 kwacha to 25,000 kwacha on a gift for a friend. The exchange rate is about 45000 kwacha to the dollar. In Livingstone and Vic Falls stores and hotels often use the US dollar out of convenience for the tourists and because the inflation makes it ridiculous to be carry around that many notes.

I joined Nick, Chris, Neil, and this Japanese newbie kayaker guy for dinner at Olga's, which is an Italian resturaunt, NGO, community school all in one. The food was authentic and the pizza massive, so naturally I had a "to go" box to put in the fridge at the backpacker hostel. And since I had on a white shirt and a solid 10 minute walk back to Jollyboy's, it was only mandatory that I experience my first rain in Zambia. It is their "rainy season" but they haven't had any of it since I had arrived. Too cheap to pay for a cab, too stubborn to wait for the monsoon to ease up, and too feminist to wait for a guy to give me his jacket---I ran for it! The box and I were completely soaked by the time I made it up the hill, but I beat all the guys back AND the pizza wasn't soggy. Success!

The next morning, Sunday at 6am, I went to Thorntree Lodge and Preserve where orphaned elephants have been trained for tourists to ride. I thoroughly enjoyed riding Lewa who is a 20-25 year old mother of Nande, who is about 2 years old. The South African couple from rafting the day before was there and it was nice to see some familiar friendly faces. The wife and I shared the sentiment that we felt odd exploiting a wild animal for the sake of our enjoyment but felt better about the fact that they had been raised in this semi-captivity way of life. I took a ton of pictures of the 6 elephants, including the two babies. We waded across a part of the Zambezi at one point. Nande had to swim since she wasn't tall enough to walk--so cute! I asked my guide who was directing Lewa a ton of questions too;

Fun fact: the elephants can get drunk off eating the fruits of the Amarula tree. Amarula is a unique Southern Africa liquor that tastes absolutely wonderful; I had a sip or two of it when I visited Namibia with Wofford students in 2007.

Fun fact #2: Elephants don't have bones in their feet. Instead they have a 6inch cushion of tissue that act as a pad for their tibia. Elephants could be very sneaky creatures because their walk is so quiet but the whole knocking down trees thing and large size makes that that possibility difficult one.

Right after the elephant ride, the driver dropped me off at the entrance to the Zambian Victoria Falls National Park. On the way, the van dropped off the other elephant riders at hotels like the Royal Livingstone and Zambezi Sun. After seeing the big production in the lobbies and ridiculous outfits of the hotel employees, I am so so so glad I couldn't afford to go there. It's all staged so I hope people don't come visit there thinking they're getting the "real deal" of authentic African culture. Anyways, I was wandering the paths around the falls and luckily ran into Trent and Neil who had taken the free ride from Jollyboy's to the falls.

Victoria Fall is also called Mosi-oa-tunya which means the smoke that thunders. The smoke refers to the mist from the falls that drenched me like the rainstorm form the night before. The water hasn't risen to the point where the individual cataracts are undefinable but eventually there will be so much water that the entire width of the waterfall is one big overflow of water. During low water season, there's very little water pouring over the edge of the falls. There's even a few places you can swim up to the edge of the falls to look over; unfortunately the water was too high to go swimming in the notorious Devil's Pool which is close to Livingstone Island.

Neil, Trent, and I also took the steep trail that is the put-in for Rapid #1, the Boiling Pot. From here there's a great view of bungee jumpers jumping off the bridge above the water. We spent quite a bit of time watching the water and sitting on the water's edge. Trent told me of his efforts working with BEN bikes in Namibia, Zambulance, and his idea for a bike oriented-NGO of his own as well. It was interesting to here another perspective on the mission of globalbike. There are a lot more we should have discussed but the trail got really hard to climb back up that talking and climbing was difficult!

Ate Zambian lunch at DaFusion, including the staple nshima

slept, read, tanned the rest of the afternoon. realized that unless you're spending an absorbant amount of money on some high adventure activity there isn't much else to do in livingstone

for dinner I ate my leftover pizza and watched Zambia play Cameroon in the African Cup. They lost 3-2 in a tough game but the keeper should have caught that last goal. Zambia is now slated to play against Gabon sometime later this week. Fun to watch football with a bunch of internationals and Zambians cheering at every exchange of the ball!

talked about American pop culture and movies (Slovenians know a lot of movies!); African travels; South African college life; learned SA words like "graft" "wank" (which is actually not a very nice word) "sunnies"--words I plan to use on a regular basis from now on

Tomorrow I start working with Grassroots Soccer. They are an organization founded by professional soccer players in 2002 who leverage the huge football fanbase to educate youth about HIV prevention. They do a lot of work in the refugee camps outside of Lusaka. It will be interesting to see how their organization utilizes the excitement over the African Cup and World Cup to further their mission.