Safari Adventure Days 12, 13 and 14…Zimbabwe!
Friday, August 25th, 2006After Botswanna we then crossed into Zimbabwe. Let me say that this is one of the craziest countries that I’ve ever been to in my entire life. For those who don’t know much about the history of Zimbabwe it’s absolutely crazy. The president, Robert Mougabi,(not sure if i spelled his name right) is one of the most controversial leaders in the world. After realizing that his people were losing faith in him he decided to kick all the rich white farmers out of Zimbabwe and give the land back to his people. After the people acquired the land that the white farmers had and they didn’t know what to do with it the country took a downward spiral which continues to this day. The daily inflation rate hovers at around 1,000%. When we arrived we were briefed by our hotel that it was best to pay in U.S. dollars as their currency was going through a change and most people didn’t accept it. Ok, hold on, can you repeat that once again? Your country doens’t accept their own currency? Are you freaking kidding me? when you look at their notes they have expiration dates on them…wow! One of the most frustrating things is being in alot of these countries and being told that the only currency they accept, is the currency from your country, not their own, the same currency which you don’t have and can’t get access to. The mighty U.S. dollar reigns supreme regardless of the fact that it continues to drop in value. On top of the fact that they only accept U.S. dollars or other foreign currencies if you don’t give them exact change they will not give you change in U.S. dollars and will instead give you change in Zimbabwe dollars which they then tell you is if no use…absolutely amazing. When we arrived the exchange rate was $1 U.S. to 250,000 Zimbabwe dollars. They were in the process of cutting off the three zero’s at the end. Aside from all that it is still a beautiful place. We were staying in the small town of Victoria Falls. Apparently they have one of the 7 natural wonders of the world…i was tired though so i didn’t check it out…yeah, right!The falls is absolutely off the charts. One of the most amazing things i’ve ever seen. It stretches almost 2 kilometers wide. I don’t even think a video game could do this place justice, it’s that beautiful. Wondering around atop the falls and taking photos of it was quite a thrill. What a breathtaking place. I really felt quite privelidged to be here.The next day I arranged to go white water rafting down the mighty Zambezi river. They don’t call it the mighty Zambezi for nothing. We awoke early, were briefed about the day and then proceeded to sign our lives away. We were driven down to the river where we grabbed our gear and then hiked down the canyon to our raft and our guide that was awaiting us. We hoped on board the boat with the falls just behind us, beautiful. We did a few excercises and then jumped into the river to get a taste for how cold it was, not too bad, then we were on our way. We had 23 rapids ahead of us. 8 of those would be class 5. For those that are not aware a class 5 is ridiculously huge. In school the girls used to call me a class 1, I could never figure out why. What did i have to do with rapids?Anyway we headed down the river. I sat in the front right of the boat which I later regretted. We hit the first few rapids intact and it was incredible. We got to our 4th rapid, morning glory. I believe it was a class 4 but still deadly nonetheless. As we headed down our boat dropped into the rapids and the next thing I knew I was swallowing about 50 gallons of water per second. I couldn’t breathe and i was getting pushed under water by our raft which was flipped upside down. I thought it was all over, honestly. Somehow i manged to get underneath the boat and get some air. Then i grabbed the rope on the outside and pulled myself underneath and back up again. I had escaped the jaws of death. Our guide flipped the raft back over and we were back on our way. We moved further down the river and slammed into rapid after rapid. I gave way to let someone else sit in the front as It is alot of tough paddling. The first rapid we hit while being in the back threw us over again. I got tossed right under again and then thrown down stream. I was picked up by the kayakers who follow the boats and brought back to safety once again. We cruised down further and I luckily managed to stay on the raft the rest of the time as I watched others get tossed out on a regular basis. It was such an amazing day, we had a great time. I honestly am not sure if i could do rafting anywhere else that would compare to that.
Photos of my safari adventure are now posted on my photo page…enjoy!
Gagnonius