Travel to Zambia. Sweet.

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So we did a 9 day tour with Kiboko based out of Lilongwe, Malawi. It was great!

My sister and I left Lilongwe March 1st with another PCV and her dad, a doctor from the UK, a guy from Holland, a driver and one of the managers of Kiboko (which is the name of the tour company we used based in Lilongwe) and we traveled to Luangwa Valley. We stayed at a campsite in South Luangwa National Park for 2 full days and IT WAS AWESOME. Our tents actually had BEDS in them - and ELECTRICITY! It was right on this huge river, and you had to constantly watch out for your food because of the baboons (and the bar owners pet squirrel). I at first thought it was funny that at night we had to be escorted by Zambian night watchmen because of hippos until I woke up in the middle of the night with one moving around just feet away from me outside my tent (I of course freaked out and woke up my sister because the manager had told us she had one fall on her tent before and I was not happy about seeing one walking towards my window at 2 am). I obviously survived, but it’s not really something I have ever woken up to before.

Over the next two days we had 4 game drives, one in the morning and one at night each day. Our first drive, March 2nd, was a rainy one. We were definitely freezing and wet in the back of an open-bed safari truck for most of the morning - but we saw some cool stuff! The coolest was this giant dead hippo that we think had gotten into a fight with another hippo and had its throat ripped out. When we got to it there were already lions feasting on it. Yuck. We would come back later 2 more times and see hyena and then vultures. The smell was one of the worst things I have ever experienced.

The park has all of the big five except for the rhino. So, at the park they "substitute" the rhino for giraffe. Unfortunately because of the rains we never saw any giraffe! Apparently this is the easiest animal to see, but I was fine because we got to see a leopard up close, and they are not always easy to spot. And I got to see hyena, which is an animal with lots of superstition surrounding it in Malawi so I felt like I was seeing a rock star.

We left the park March 4th and visited a local textile mill before dropping off three of our group. By March 5th we had traveled through Lusaka (with a quick stop so that I could buy a 12 inch sub at SUBWAY) and made it to Livingstone in the evening. Saturday we immediately booked 3 activities: Elephant riding for the afternoon (this was the only reason my sister even came to Africa. She is obsessed with elephants) and whitewater rafting the next day - they threw in a boat cruise for like 5 or 10 more bucks.

After booking our activities through the lodge we immediately set off for a view of Victoria Falls. Originally I wanted to travel over to the Zimbabwe side to view the falls but everyone told us that while Zimbabwe is spectacular during the dry season, during the rainy season both sides are awesome. While I had nothing to compare it to, I would say that the falls were definitely spectacular, and I can totally see why they are one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World.

We had a small packed lunch, haggled with curios guys (I couldn't resist) and then were picked up at our lodge for the elephant riding. There must have been 10 or 12 of us on this excursion, and it was cooooool. The funniest and also most disconcerting thing we were told before we met the elephants was that sometimes wild elephants may appear. This is usually fine and the porters will shoot a round into the air to scare them off because their 'domesticated' elephants are used to it - BUT if the elephant takes off just hold on and someone will eventually come out and find you. Crazy. I felt a little better when I realized that all our elephants had a guide that would ride with us. Then we met the elephants, and after a couple volunteered themselves for the first elephant, my sister then raised her hand for us to go on the biggest elephant of the bunch. Not cool. I was prepared to take one of the smaller, female elephants.

I have to say it is one of the craziest things I have ever done...And I was surprised at how hairy elephants are. Later, after riding the elephants (luckily with no incidents of being stranded out in the bush on one) we fed the elephants. Danny, our elephant, slobbered all over me. Gross, but still surprisingly cool.

The next day we went whitewater rafting. I think we made it to rapid 20 before we wiped out. In our group there were three rafts. A bunch of tourists met at our lodge in the early morning of Sunday March 7th and literally we were taught how not to die rafting down the Zambezi River. My raft included my sister, an American and New Zealand couple who had met in Africa on an overland truck, a father and teenage son duo and the Zambian raft guide.

Over an hour lesson about rafting, another hour car ride, an insane hike down to the river and we finally boarded our rafts. We were to do the last half the rapids, something like number 14 or 15 to 25 because the first half the rapids were un-raftable due to the rains.

What was cool was all our pictures were taken by a guy hanging out on the shore waiting for us to wipe out. We passed through rapids named the 'washing machine' or after the terminator movies and it got to where our raft was the only one managing not to wipe out. One raft was incredibly unlucky - it was filled with people who in tae kwon do we'd term 'feather weights.' There was one average sized man with his son and nephew and 3 girls I thought were teenagers (but later found out were actually doctors - there’s no way they totaled 300lbs combined) and of course the Zambian guide. We were constantly pulling someone from that raft out of the water since at every rapid at least one of them would popcorn out.

The other raft was hilarious. In it there was a great Aussie couple that we'd met while riding elephants the day before as well as a couple from Finland who constantly chanted, "Finish! Finish!" Their Zambian guide stood in the back of the raft with an oar in each hand heckling everyone with the help of his crew. The five of them easily outweighed the raft of seven and fared much better, but eventually capsized as well.

It was at this point, around rapid 20, that my sister decided to invoke the Zambezi jinxing gods and say something along the lines of, "Oh, I wan to wipe out too."

Well, we did. We entered the next rapid sideways and flipped. Now, in training the guides told us we should try not to be a "long swimmer" and should therefore hold onto the "oh s@#% rope" in these situations, so I did. I like to think I am a decent swimmer - I grew up on a lake and swam year around since 3rd grade - so I didn't panic initially about being underwater. So, I held onto the rope as the whirlpool sucked me down and then pushed me back towards the surface, under the raft. When this happened a second time I still maintained my cool, but by the 3rd time the panic set in and I let go of the rope. Reasoning: I'd rather take my chances in the open water and not be suffocated under a raft.

Down again in a whirlpool, and on its release I struggled back to the surface, got a mouthful of water but a gulp of AIR, then back to the bottom again. This repeated itself a few times: gulp of air, incredibly strong current sucking me back under and the struggle to the surface again for air. I was getting tired fast. Then I came to the surface again and a few feet away is the last person I wanted to see in the water with me: my sister. AND SHE IS HAVING FUN!

It's at this point that I realize I'm still holding onto my paddle (and somehow picked up a 2nd one?) so we use it to get together. Just imagine: 2 girls in the middle of the Zambezi clinging onto each others lifejackets, me holding onto 2 paddles, one in panic (me wondering what my parents will do to me if my sister doesn't make her flight home. "Yeah, Africa is so safe, no problem") and one having the time of her life (literally smiling and laughing). We start spinning in circles before plunging under the water again like we were in a giant sink going down a man-sized drain. I think maybe this is when my sister decided it wasn't as fun anymore (I still don’t know if this was because of the rapids or more likely because of my panic level at the time). Lastly, our savior had arrived.

This poor guy. Along with the 3 rafts were our own personal guardian angels in the form of ripped Zambian men in kayaks. If you ended up being a "long swimmer" (you let go of the rope) like my sister and I, these guys had to come out and get you and drag you back to a raft. Any raft will do as long as it's the closest, the rafts would regroup between rapids and shuffle people back into their appropriate rafts.

So this guy had the responsibility of picking up me and my sister, 2 oars AND crossing the rapids to get us back to our boat. My sister took the oars and grabbed the front, while I took the back that didn't have any grips to hold onto. I felt like I was trying to climb a flat, wet wall with the pads of my fingertips. Our rescuer tried twice to cross the rapids before giving up and dragging us to the shore. My sister and I then hiked along the Zimbabwe shore for a while to get past the rapids. My sister was barefoot and of course was nimbly jumping from scalding hot rock to patches of moss or puddles. Me, in my trusty Tevas, just stumbled and sloshed along after her, yelling warnings to watch out for crocodiles and mambas. My sister just laughed.

When we finally rounded a bend we found our rescuer and he had brought a friend. My sister grabbed onto the front of our rescuers kayak and I held onto the other. They told us to grab onto the hook in front of the kayak with our hands and then wrap our legs over the top as well (of course the Aussie raft would make jokes the rest of the time about 'those American girls with kayaks between their legs').

I thought we were home free when I saw our raft just a few feet away...I, however, did not realize that kayaks could be sucked down whirlpools. One second I am looking at my raft, the next I am looking DOWN at my kayaker as the back of the boat sinks straight down into the river. The kayak was sucked into the whirlpool, turned upside down and pushed back to the surface under the raft. Funny how I am back under this raft AGAIN. I was forced off the kayak and sucked down into this whirlpool twice before my arm was able to come out of the water and I can grab the side of the raft. Just as I am coming to the surface I felt someone under me, and when the New Zealander grabs my lifejacket assuring me he's going to get me out all I can manage to say is, "There's someone under me!" I think my raft wasn't expecting me to be freaking out as much as I was.

Anyway, I get yanked in where I starfish in the front portion of the raft, pretzeled in with the New Zealander I had just met. I ask for my sister and classically she tells me to chill out. I then awkwardly extricate myself off the raft floor when my kayaker emerges over the side of the boat (he was stuck under me). This is when I take the time to look around: my sister, the father who pulled her out of the water, the New Zealander who pulled me out of the water and myself are packed in the front third of the raft; in the middle the others had somehow managed to pull the kayak out of the water and my kayaker is getting into it and going back into the river; when he departs I see the last of my crew crammed in the back third of the boat, along with a hitchhiker from one of the other rafts that had been separated from his group.

That was fun. BUT, I was done with getting in the Zambezi so when the guys and my sister all jumped in the river at a calm pool a few minutes later, me and the other American girl both declined (she had apparently not let go of the rope and had been stuck under the boat for a long time as well). The need to stay dry only increased when we saw a crocodile sunbathing on the shore upstream.

After the rafting we had all the drinks we could manage on the drive back to the lodge. Once there they had food and a slideshow waiting for us. That evening many of us met up again and cruised, calmly and on a bigger boat, down the Zambezi and just relaxed. The tour left the next morning and we arrived in Lilongwe a day later on March 9th.

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