Victoria Falls: Adrenaline Capital of the World

I must say – going into this trip I thought that Victoria Falls was going to be totally lame. It seemed to me like we had way too much time there, and we had to pay exorbitant amounts of money for the extra activities. That said, I think that the three days I spent at Vic Falls were the highlight of the trip, and I will never forget all the crazy shit I did there.

After a hectic morning crossing the border from Botswana to Zambia (which included putting our truck on a ferry), we finally arrived at the falls around 4 pm. Though we’re now in low-water season in Zambia, the amount of water rushing over the top of the waterfall was unbelievable. In fact, in rainy season, you can barely even make out the cliff that the water flows over – it’s just a sheet of water spraying mist at you. Probably a totally different experience to see it in March as opposed to September. We explored the falls from the Zambian side for a little over an hour, and then decided to get crazy. (This deserves it’s own paragraph.)

The view from the Zambian Side

I had heard that there were calm pools of water literally at the edge of the falls that you could swim in. Notice I didn’t say that they were safe to swim in – people die every year doing this type of thing – but you could swim in them. I didn’t believe the myth until I saw people walking right on the edge of the falls, and upon seeing them I knew I had to make it over there. At around 5:15 we trekked over to the high side of the waterfall (the sanctioned viewing area is opposite the falls) and found a few local guides who were happy to take us across the top. We carefully maneuvered across the top of the falls for around 30 minutes, holding hands to keep our balance and fight the strong current trying to take us over the edge. We were told to fall forward if we needed to fall so that the current wouldn’t sweep us over the edge, leading to sure death. As we got further and further away from land the sun got bigger and bigger, closer and closer to the ground – another beautiful Lion King-esque sunset, this one from on top of one of the seven wonders of the world. Eventually, we reached the Devil’s Pool – it is real! – but by the time we had gotten over there the sun had virtually set and it was approaching darkness. Six of the ten people we had walked out with were begging the guides to take us back so we wouldn’t have to walk in the dark (and, as they warned us, avoid the hippos which come out after the sun sets) – not me. I was at the Devil’s Pool – there was no way in hell I wasn’t going in. Our guide showed us the way – jumping off a twenty foot cliff into the pool – and the four of us, powered by the biggest adrenaline rushes of our lives, followed suit. The pool definitely wasn’t deep enough – I hit my foot on the bottom and sprained my right ankle – but my adrenaline level was too high to even notice. We all approached the edge of the falls – literally could see the drop – and decided we had gotten close enough. No point in pushing it too far, we’d seen exactly what we’d come for. I cannot remember the last time I felt so alive as I did right then. An unbelievable feeling. The walk back was definitely sketch – we were fighting the dark and had to rush and I wound up twisting my left ankle as well. Another battle wound. I didn’t care. It was totally worth it.

The view from right next to the Devil's Pool at the very edge of the falls

The next morning I woke up with my right eye almost swollen shut and totally crusted over – hooray pink eye. That wasn’t going to stop me from rafting the Zambezi, hailed as one of the mightiest rivers in the world. Nor were my two sprained ankles, or my surgically repaired shoulder. I wasn’t missing this rafting trip for anything. Our leader fashioned me a hilarious eye patch (unfortunately I have no pictures since we weren’t allowed to bring our cameras rafting – if you wanted pictures you had to buy them) and off I went, the ultimate gimp, to raft the Slambezi. With one eye. I’ve been rafting before and have seen what I thought was some serious white water. Nothing compared to the Zambezi. Nothing I could’ve imagined could have prepared me for the Zambezi. Their Class IV’s would have been Class V or Class VI in the US. Their Class V’s had 14-foot waves crashing down on you. They wouldn’t even let us raft their one Class VI – rapid 9 – since it was “bad for business”. Most of the river wasn’t extremely technical, just insane amounts of white water that would flip you whenever it felt like it, no matter what you did. Every single boat flipped at least once throughout the day. We flipped three times.

While rafting the Zambezi you are at the mercy of the river. Mother nature is stronger than measly humans. If the Slambezi wants to flip you, it will. Nothing you can do. (I know I just said that but it needs repeating – think about your rafting experiences and how foreign this seems.) Our guide, Tembo, has been working as a guide for ten years. He’s flipped eight times in one day before. As we would approach a rapid he would describe it to us – what the rapid was like, what we needed to do, and almost every single time he added at the end “and then we’ll see what happens”. Only so much you can do to fight mother nature. We managed to make it through the morning totally unscathed, despite being warned that it was the more difficult and scarier part of the river. After lunch, our confidence was high, and we got straight rocked. We got flipped on the third rapid after lunch, named Mother. It shook us all up – I got stuck under the boat for a second, and when I finally made my way out got submerged under waves and was struggling for breath through the end of the rapid – but it was definitely good to get flipped once to get a sense of what it was like. Then, on rapid number 16, named Terminator 1, one of the guys in our boat got thrown at the top of the rapid. We got him back in, only for our boat to be flipped under three seconds later. We all floated down the rest of the rapid cracking up that we had managed to flip again. But it wasn’t the end – we flipped at the very start of the next rapid, aptly named Terminator 2. I swallowed a huge amount of water because I was laughing so hard that we had flipped again. This time, however, the joke was on me – I got a huge gash on my nose from the raft hitting it and a huge gash on my elbow from scraping it against a rock. All worth it. After three flips we had had enough, and after that we were intense even on Class IIs. Definitely the most intense day of rafting I’ve ever had in my life.

After going to the doctor the following morning to get my pink eye medicine (they didn’t know how to work a credit card machine, so I had to do it for them), our whole group crossed the border (the bridge that you see above, which people also bungy jump off of) to Zimbabwe. We first went to a local market, where we were hassled incessantly to buy or trade for their goods – so much so that it became uncomfortable. Everyone tried to guilt trip us into trading for their stuff, and it definitely worked. I wound up with a lot of useless shit, but it makes for a funny story.

After the market, we went to see Vic Falls from the Zimbabwe side, which we had heard was far more badass. Indeed it was – you can see five parts of the falls from the Zim side, as opposed to only three parts from the Zambia side. I got totally drenched walking along the path opposite the falls – the flow on the Zim side is so much stronger than it is on the other side. The weather seemed almost rainy, despite the fact it was totally sunny away from the falls. I could barely see the falls through the mist; I can only imagine what it’s like during rainy season. I hadn’t truly appreciated the might of the falls from the Zambia side, but this made it totally clear. So much better than the Zambia side, no matter what any Zambian will tell you.

The falls from the Zim side - notice how much mistier they are

The next morning, the last of our trip, I decided to get really crazy and go hang gliding over the top of Vic Falls. It wasn’t exactly hang gliding, since we had an engine to get us to cruising altitude and didn’t have to ride the thermals to start, but after we got up there we turned off the engine and rode them. It’s pretty crazy to feel the differences in air pressure smack you in the face. The ride over the falls was, of course, unbelievable, and allows you to appreciate the beauty and extent of Vic Falls unlike looking at it from the ground. There’s just a giant gorge in the earth – it drops off out of nowhere and comes back up on the other side just as quickly – and such a huge volume of water flows over it (I think my guide told me 500 kiloliters per minute, but that seems low to me). From on top of the falls you could see the beautiful rainbows rising really high – higher than the falls themselves. You could also see the mist created from the water hitting the river below – that, too, rose above the falls. To top it all off, we saw a huge pack of elephants, as well as a huge pack of hippos. I can’t think of a cooler place to go hang-gliding, and I definitely don’t think I’ll ever do it again since I felt really weird afterwards for a few hours, but there was no way I wasn’t going to do it while I was there. That became the theme of Vic Falls – “I’m here, there’s no way in hell I’m not going to do (insert crazy activity here)”. I’ve never felt so alive in my life as I did after leaving Vic Falls. If you are an adrenaline junkie and haven’t been, book the next flight. You will not regret it, unless you accidentally slip and go over the edge of the Devil’s Pool.