This morning I joined the other volunteers on a rafting trip down the Zambezi River. The others had left the previous day to go camping and rafting but I only wanted to raft for a day so our coordinator arranged for me to meet up with the group early this sunday morning. Our driver Benny and I piled into the van and he preceeded to drive me WAY into the middle of nowhere. I was suppose to meet everyone at this really remote lodge in the middle of the bush. It was a 20 minute drive alone just to reach the lodge (via dirt path) after the turn off from the main road. Benny then just dropped me off and told me to wait at the lodge.
I sat there for ages and there was not a single guest in site. I guess the lodge was closed and there was no one around and I was in the middle of nowhere by myself. Yeah–i started freaking out a bit. Eventually the group pulled up in their rafts and I boarded.
We rafted for 6 hours and I saw tons of wildlife. The raft guide kept telling us stories about how territorial hippoes can be and the fact that we were rafting right next to them was scary. At one point we were so close to a hippo I actually saw inside his huge mouth! The guide obviously at that point yelled “paddle faster!!!!!!”
The scenery was amazing and at the end of the trip were we literally only a few thousand feet from the very edge of the falls. I gotta say the current kept speeding up and I was sort of terrified that we would get caught up in a really intense current and I would be the first dumb American to go over the falls! Thankfully we managed to make it to the shore! It was a great trip!
