Zimbabwe - Lions, Elephants and Gorge Swings!!

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My adventures in Africa still haven't been fully documented!! This is the second to the last entry for Africa and then back to Europe. 😊 After you've read my long entry for Botswana - ha, we heading into Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls to be exact. We stayed at a cool hostel called Shoestrings and treated ourselves to inexpensive pedicures, massages and of course to the Flying fox, Zipline and you can't forget the Gorge Swing! My friend Maureen has some great pictures of our launches and one in particular of me literally dragging Deb off the platform. So bummed I can't upload that picture for you but I do have a small video of me dropping that I'll post onto FB and it really is me - I promise!

We were able to shower again here and begin the process of taking our layers of dirt, deet and sunscreen off but we still felt ripe with dirt. We walked over to the falls again on the Zimbabwe side and we do admit that the view here though still cloudy with spray was more impressive. You get a wider expanse of the falls and the greatness of how big this natural wonder is. Quite amazing! We mellowed out our first day in Vic Falls and treated ourselves to high tea at the The Victoria Falls Hotel. It's a colonial hotel that basically sticks out like a sore thumb in terms of this high class hotel amidst a down-trodden country. It's interesting how society in general creates their hideaways. Yet we Americans soaked it up - awful I know. Turns out we heard that there was apparently a group of Americans that were having their wedding there. Not sure in terms of whether or not the bride or groom were originally from there, but nonetheless it was quite a beautiful site to have a ceremony.

The next day was the day for true adventure. I had thought about doing the bungie jump from the bridge but thought doing this 1/2 day of adventure across the gorge over the Zambezi river and viewing the bridge was just as good too. 😊 6 of us did it and Lisa K was our photographer and supporter, along with being the emergency holder for all of us that were doing the craziest thing. Mind you it's about 120-190 meters down which is between 400-620 ft. Yeah that's crazy. But the thrill was worth it and the view was stunning. It all started with the Flying Fox, which is basically a zipline but you launch off like Superman and you glide across the gorge. Next from there we did a Zipline across the gorge which wasn't your typical zipline because there was a nice little dip that you did, once you're stuck out in the middle, one of their guys has to come out and pull you back. I was able to take a few photos in the middle and thankfully I didn't drop my little camera - phew!!

Then the unthinkable was next. Now I never bungie-jumped but this was just as exciting. I hear from others that bungie is pretty jerky but this was nice smooth fall into the gorge and you swung back and forth a few times. They then pull you up with their pulley system - you had the choice of going tandem or on your own. I did both and the first jump was tandem with Deborah. Kudos to Deb for conquering her fear of heights by leaping off this. We were able to do 2 jumps and Deb and I went together on our first jump. Turns out that our jump was described as a terrible jump by our guide Brown (he was the master at hooking us up and making sure we were secure), but the experience was fricken awesome. I didn't realize that Deb had resisted at the beginning of our jump, so when I jumped off she was still pulling back. Well that didn't last long as I literally pulled her off and Maureen has the picture of Deb's feet in the air. Oy!! But we successfully jumped and made it back, but during that jump I saw the horizon and the opposite side of the gorge and then all of a sudden I was looking straight down and saw the wall of the gorge we just jumped off of. Was that crazy but man was it cool! We swung down and got ourselves back up to the top safely and Deb survived. WOOHOO DEBORAH!!

Our friend Maureen did a handstand on her first jump - whoa! and Josh leapt off with arms wide open. My next jump was face forward on my own and what a view and what a feeling. Anyway, we all came back safely and had an awesome time.

The next day we walked across the border from Zim to Zambia and with that we walked across the bridge and got another amazing view of the falls and the river. Josh also bought a special drink from Zim for us to enjoy our last night in together in Africa called Chibuku (sp?) or scud. We called it "Sheisse"! We treated ourselves to the luxury booze cruise again and after we got some dinner and returned to our jollyboys hostel. We hung out playing uno and drinking the cursed drink from Zim. The game was that if you were one of those that lost in Uno, you had to drink this awful drink. It was nasty, like drinking dirty laundry water... we still don't know what the Zim's and Zambian people find intriguing of this drink. Ugh!

We parted ways the following day, 5 of our friends went back home to the states and me and Lisa K. flew to Cape Town. I just realized too that I think I swapped the days that we did the jumps and the high tea, oh well. I should probably get back to a schedule as I really have no idea what day I'm on. Cheers!!

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Photos

Great Dane
I think this one was named Taxi

Scrappy
She had another name but we liked Scrappy

Comments

[Eric]

I really enjoyed your Zimbabwe post. I have always wanted to go there. My blog is looking for travel photos, travel stories, hostel reviews, or food reviews. If you have time, us at [e-mail], or check us at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com Continued fun on your travels, Eric