High five, still alive!

I'm a millionaire!! 1,000,000 Zambian kwachas (approx USD$200)

Greetings from Livingstone, Zambia! This is the final destination and it's been one hell of an adventure. I have a whole newfound respect for Dr Livingstone for doing this journey in the mid 1800's. It's tough terrain to cross (yes, even in an overland truck) and requires nerves of steel to deal with feisty wildlife, money-grubbing
"officials" and adventure sports. OK, so there may not have been adventure sports in Livingstone's day, but I am on holiday after all :)

Livingstone town is named after Dr Livingstone, the first European to  set eyes on the Victoria Falls. The locals call the falls Mosi-Oa-Tunya, "the smoke that thunders", and at 1.8km in width it is the longest single stream waterfall in the world. Zambia has about 20% of the falls, with the remaining 80% belonging to  Zimbabwe. The Zambezi river, which feeds into the falls, runs through a treacherously steep gorge and forms the boundary between the two countries. The falls are a spectacular sight and the spray that flows upwards can be seen f or miles around. This makes it a popular tourist destination and a converging point for overland trucks on northbound and southbound routes, which in turn has helped make this an adventure sport hotspot. On arrival at the Waterfront campground we were shown a DVD of all the activities we could do, including things like helicopter and microlight flights, white water rafting, river boarding, bungee (of course), lion encounters, elephant safaris, game drives, village visits, and the list goes on. The hardest part is trying to figure out how you're going to fit in all this cool stuff in 2 days, and how you're going to pay for it all...

My adventure began on the first night we arrived at this campground when I was innocently walking through the carpark and spotted a vervet  monkey sitting on the railing. We'd been warned there were cheeky  monkeys that like to steal things and cause trouble, however I wasn't prepared for the violent attack on my behind by the wingman (wingmonkey?) who snuck up behind me when I was taking a photo of  monkey #1. Luckily his teeth didn't get through my jeans because I haven't had my rabies shot and I don't expec t there's a world-class hospital here in town. This episode has caused an even stronger dislike of monkeys that I had already fostered in Japan at Arashiyama, and I even lay awake in terror last night (admittedly, after a few
beers) listening to the scufflings outside my tent and shadows dancing on the tent wall. I don't think I'll ever be the same again.


Yesterday a group of us got personally introduced to the mighty Zambezi river on white water rafts. I've done this a few times in NZ  but this was definitely the most exciting; we somehow got paired with the 2 craziest guides on the trip who were intent on giving us the FULL Zambezi experience and hitting the biggest rapids in the most extreme way possible. We hit some grade 5 rapids aptly named "The Terminator" and "Oblivion" and flipped the raft a couple of times. I  had a bit of a panic attack when I got stuck under the raft while they flipped it back upright, swallowed quite a bit of Zambezi water and  lost my bravado after that. But it was a great trip, very scenic, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat! Enjoyed a lovely sunset cruise with the Gap team that night which was our farewell dinner. Most of them are continuing to Johannesburg but this is the end of the line for me and a few others, so there were a few sad goodbyes.











This morning was the highlight of Livingstone. We did a tour of  Livingstone Island and learned about this history of explorations. The island is located just off the Zambia side of the river and sits right on the edge of the falls. Our guide took us right to the edge of the falls, we were literally looking over the edge and got absolutely drenched by the spray. We were even allowed to swim in the pools right on the edge, not even 1m away from the dropoff!! Truly an amazing feeling to stand on the edge and look over.


 
 
Tomorrow the adventure ends, back to real life, goodbye Africa :(  It's been an amazing journey and I will definitely be back one day!