I’ve never done whitewater rafting before and the Zambezi river is famous for it. I quite like the idea of trying new things at their birth place for places heavily associated with them. Perhaps I should have done what Bhav and Craig did by having their first go at it in New Zealand and on lower class rivers. Rapids are graded 1 to 6 with 6 being a stomach upsetting experience. My insurance covers 1-4.
Rapid 1, about 50m away from the shore where we got into our boats was a grade 4. So much for my gentle introduction. Out of the other 4 boats out raft guide Simba wanted to go through it first. Safety briefing going through my head we paddled our boat towards it.
The rapid was quite long and was at a right angle to us which required us to paddle quickly through it with the aim of not travelling down it towards the rather large rock at the bottom. It started ok, but being perched on the side of an inflatable boat it was a rather precarious place to be, especially when the boat was being beaten in seemingly random directions. It didn’t take long before I was the first person of the day to take a dip. Not the most inspiring start, especially with 24 rapids and the rest of the day to go.
The occupants of our boat consisted of us 3, 2 American student nurses, a Spanish lawyer and our guide. A group of English 18 year olds and some Poles were in the only other boat to do the full day. After rapid 1 I was starting to wish I’d opted for the half day too.
Rapid 1 was definitely the worst, despite me leaving the boat a further 2 times. At least those times I managed to hold onto the rope going around the boat. The final time I went for a swim was when our boat capsized on rapid 13. The whole “experience” was caught on camera and makes for some interesting pictures/footage!
White water rafting from John on Vimeo.
The motley crew
0 Response to “Whitewater Rafting”