Livingstone and Victoria Falls

After our long journey to Livingstone on the Thursday I was really looking forward to a quiet day of relaxation on the Friday with maybe a little trip to visit the falls in the afternoon – Rob had other plans.

We had talked about doing some white water rafting because we had so enjoyed the experience in Canada with Paris’ family the previous year. Rob had found a deal with a company called Bundu which included swimming under the falls and so at 8am on Friday we were trundling along in an amazing purpose adapted truck for a full day on (and in) the Zambezi.

According to Rob it was his best day ever, I’m hoping he meant on this trip so far (what about the day he met me? Our wedding day? The births of Joe and Ellie???) but didn’t question him for fear of his answer ……… and it was an exceptionally amazing day!

The description had been fairly vague but had stated that all participants needed an average level of fitness. As we followed Mr K, our incredible guide for the day and his agile team down into the gorge we were both already questioning who’s average they had been referring to? It was an incredibly steep, rocky descent with no allowances made. Mr K forged ahead and I followed trying to keep him in my sight as best I could with Rob, showing unusual concern for my welfare, and bringing up the rear. Mr K did stop occasionally to check on us and as we finished the descent and began instead to traverse massive boulders he instructed us to put on our helmets as we were walking directly under the cliff edge and monkeys often threw rocks down on to the passing humans. 🤣At this point we were also allowed to leave our paddles near the raft and having two hands with which to clamber made the journey slightly easier.

After this not so gentle introduction, with racing hearts and sweat pouring off of us, the jump into the water to swim under the falls was a welcome relief and generally amazing.

It definitely cooled our bodies but our hearts continued to race as we fought against the persistent spray and were forced away from the fall by the pure pressure of the water falling. Swimming hard we followed our team and once behind the falls, although the spray continued, the push was not quite as intense as long as you stayed close to the rocks. What had looked like a small fall from the bank seemed overwhelming when swimming through it. It felt difficult to catch my breath and, about halfway through, I had to give myself a stern talking to as I felt a slight panic setting in. The whole setting and experience was outstanding and once through I did wonder if the day could get any better. It did!We spent about six hours actually in (and out of) the Zambezi experiencing 20 different rapids (there are 21 but everyone has to walk around number 9) and too numerous ‘baby’ rapids to mention. Every so often Mr K would tell us we could have a swim, we’d jump in and laugh at him when he talked about staying in the middle to avoid the crocodiles. We stopped laughing when he began to point them out. Most of them were fairly small but Rob and I are happy to include swimming with crocodiles as one of our many new experiences.

Out of all of the rapids it was only number 5 that defeated us! We thought we’d conquered it until a second wave hit us and we didn’t stand a chance. Mr K has been paddling this route for over twenty years and he told us that our spectacular capsize was only his second one in all of that time and there was nothing we could have done. That definitely assuaged our pride a little.The whole day with Bundu was fantastic including our floating lunch and dinner back at their base. We would highly recommend them to anyone heading to Zambia, maybe not someone with a partially healed rib as that definitely took a bit of a battering but otherwise a perfect trip.

An added bonus on the way home was our trip through the villages to drop all of our assistant guides homeand, as if by arrangement, a whole herd of elephants crossing the road as we returned to our base.Day two at the falls was a little calmer, we spent the morning by the pool and organising ourselves before being taken, on Sarah Deo’s very good recommendation, to the Royal Livingstone for lunch. As we arrived the taxi driver pointed out giraffes on the roundabout – we’d spent hours searching for them in Akagera game reserve and now here we’d found two with no effort whatsoever. During lunch and our walk to the falls we also saw several zebrasMonkeysand deerThe Royal Livingstone is in the perfect location with just a very short walk to the falls through their beautiful grounds.It was lovely to go and visit the falls from the top of the gorge rather than the bottom and return to the hotel to watch hippos in the lake whilst avoiding crocs and enjoying a sundowner.For our final night in Livingstone we moved to a new lodge near to the airport ready for our flight to Johannesburg the next day. We spent a lovely evening chatting to a young couple on their honeymoon who gave us some great ideas for the next leg of our journey. 😊