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Kaapstad

Monday, March 11th, 2013

This will be my last short post about the trip to Africa.  It was such an amazing trip that writing about it has been tough. It’s too hard to describe everything that happened, so I’ve been putting it off.  However, I just wanted to write one final note about our last stop, Cape Town.  It’s such an interesting place – the city itself is very diverse.  We ate everything from great sushi to Nando’s chicken.  The harbor area where we stayed is a good mix of touristy restaurants and working port.  We spent our last few days wandering around the city, walking on Table Mountain, exploring the wine regions (and doing a little tasting of course), and finally visited the beautiful coast and Cape.  A nice way to end our time in Africa!

The Mighty Zambezi

Sunday, March 10th, 2013

Continuing my long overdue blogs about our trip to Africa…  After more than a week on safari, we thought it would be nice to have some “down time” and go see Victoria Falls since it wasn’t too far away.  It was near the end of the dry season which meant that the volume of water was very low.  The bright side of the low water is that there is less spray and you can get some really nice pictures.  The other advantage is that the white water rafting is supposed to be at it’s best.  Just below the falls the Zambezi River (without exception, always referred to in Zimbabwe as the “Mighty” Zambezi)  drops into a narrow deep gorge.  During the high water season, some parts are un-navigable, but during the low season rapids are formed when there is just enough water over the rocks.

We have gone rafting before a number of times in the US and New Zealand, so we thought it would be a good way to see the river.  Normally the trips that I’ve been on have a couple of class 4 or 5 rapids, more smaller ones, and lots of time to float, swim, or paddle leisurely for a couple of hours.  To say that this trip was more intense is an understatement.  Over 4 hours there were 19 rapids, nearly all class 5.  They just kept coming one after another until I literally couldn’t lift my arms to paddle anymore.  Needless to say in that condition the raft ended up flipping and we all went for a short, but exciting swim.  To his credit, our guide nicknamed Colgate was fantastic – serious about safety, but had us laughing with his stories about how each of the rapids got their names (Devil’s Toilet Bowl might be obvious, but Creamy White Buttocks refers to all the tourists who fall into and lose their swimsuits in the churning water).

In the end we survived the rapids, the crocodiles, and the walk up the canyon to tell the tale.  One more parting view of the falls: