Mosi-oa-Tunya (the Smoke that Thunders)

Hey Guys,

Well after a tearful goodbye to South Africa, our car the beloved Roc-A-Rolla, and beautiful Cape Town we took to the skies to our next destination Zambia! Upon our arrival in Livingstone we got settled in our hostel which is run by a girl from the Comox Valley! Small World.

Our main focus of this stop was to check out Mosi-oa-Tunya or the Smoke that Thunders or Victoria Falls. Ok, the falls have a few names depending on who you ask! Before we could check out the falls though we decided to complete some White Water rafting in the Zambezi rivers Class 5 Rapids, since we are now professionals (If you doubt our credentials go back about 15 blog posts to the Salta entry complete with pics of us, the French guys, the raft oh and the dogs!)

Our trip down the Zambezi is going to start at rapid number 10 since 1 through 9 is currently classified as "Instant death" due to the high water volume coming off the falls. As if our adventure wasn't extreme enough, we get to descend into the river valley walking down the sketchiest homemade ladders I've ever seen. It is crazy, the walk down should be sold as "an extreme gorge descent using only your feet to maneuver the craziest ladders ever built by non skilled labour!!!" We manage to survive the walk down and now we're off to conquer some skills that the Zambezi, our group consists of Tyne and myself and two older American guys who are doing a boys trip around Southern Africa for two weeks. So once everyone is in the raft we start to review some skills that will come in handy once we start, well no sooner do we start we get sucked over to this huge whirl pool and the guy sitting in front of me falls overboard and as if by some insane force of gravity I proceed to follow him in! So now I'm being thrashed around in this whirlpool and have the raft directly over top of me making my survival a little tricky but I manage to swim away from the raft and to the surface. I'm ok but the older guy who went in before me looks like he's about to have a heart attack and is now completely gun shy of any rapids which is good since we are just beginning!

With a few paddles we are off and running, the rapids were awesome! We successfully managed NOT to tip the boat or loose anyone else overboard during the trip although Tyne fell for the "look there's a black Eagle" and got thrown in. It was a great day and we both really enjoyed it as well as the Cable Car ride at the end so we would not have to climb anymore death traps!

That evening as part of our Rafting Package we were off on a "Sunset/Booze Cruise" on the upper portion of the Zambezi. The cruise was very nice and we enjoyed ourselves having some sundowners while watching Elephants and Hippos playing in the water. We also had fun watching the British Students who were part of an Overland Tour Group - it is amazing how much Vodka someone can drink within 1 1/2 hours!

The next day we were off to the Falls, after arriving we are greeted with the continuous roar which is the Falls, and once we entered the park and finally got to see them....WOW! The falls seem to stretch out for Miles and drop forever (Actually 100m). We walked along the path and took in all the breath taking views of the falls and experienced the raw power and force. In certain sections where the falls are at their strongest there is a constant mist/rain from the water being pushed back up the 100m gorge! We spent the day taking way too many pictures and enjoying the falls from all the different view points, although the falls are not as big as Iguazu Falls they seem bigger since you can see them all at once, they are truly impressive.

In the afternoon we walked over to the bridge that connects Zimbabwe and Zambia to check out the bungy jumping and some more alternate views of the falls. It was a little sketchy leaving a country without your passport since the only thing they gave us at the border was a piece of ripped up magazine paper with a date stamp on it! But we managed to get back in no problem.

The next day we were up bright and early to start our onward travel to Malawi; this was our first taste of traveling using public transportation in Africa so we were unsure what to expect. Our first leg of the journey was good until after a couple of buses we arrived in Chipata later than we planned. Once there our options for catching a taxi to the hostel we booked were brutal since all the taxi drivers were drunk and while they were physically fighting over who was going to overcharge us the most we were lucky enough to have some of the women who were on our bus pull us aside and tell us to sleep on the bus. So we slept on the bus that night while it was parked at the bus terminal and then awoke at 4 am to continue our travels. We made plans to travel with Irene, a lady we met on the bus that night and she turned out to be our African Angel as she got us across the border and into Lilongwe using local mini buses and taxi's all while paying only the "Local" price. If you didn't know whites have to pay anywhere from double to ten times the local price for most local transportation unless you know the regular price and refuse to pay more. It makes travel sometimes fun and sometimes a pain in the ass but believe me by the end of this trip Tyne and I will be the shrewdest white bargainers ever! Anyways we can't thank Irene enough for her help and although there are issues traveling here lots of people are super friendly and will help you if they can.

That's it for Zambia so until next blog..Malawi, Mzungu's and Missionaries

Cheers,

Matt & Tyne

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