I can't even begin to really describe the last adrenaline packed day of August 22, 2008. As Steph puts it, saying our Zambia leg was awesome would be the understatement of the year. Let me begin my story when we woke up that morning.
If you can recall, we drank until 3am the night before, so waking up at at 9am to get ready, pack our bags (because we were switching rooms that night) and make our pbj lunches, along with mentally preparing for bungee jumping, gorge swinging, zip line, and swimming against the current on top of Victoria Falls was a bit much. But I took one step at a time.
I woke up sharply at 9am to get my stuff together, meanwhile Alan was still snoozing and Steph was narating her thoughts about waking up or sleeping in since she wasn't going to do the bungee, gorge swing, and zip line with Alan and I. Steph is terribly afraid of heights. Literally it was "does Steph want to get up? No Steph wants to sleep more, but should get up." It went on for a few minutes then she decided she was going to come with us. Steph and I beat Alan to getting ready and packed, which is starting to be a trend. Alan was not really coordinated that morning, maybe from the lack of sleep and drunkiness. He kept on pacing back and forth holding a bottle of water. At least he knew what his body needed.
I hurriedly went to the kitchen to make our pbj sandwiches for lunch and hopped into the free shuttle van to the victoria falls. We were all excitedly talking about the bungee jumping, and how nervous I was, whether Alan or I should go first. I was most nervous about the diving in part, and not do a pencil jump because you can seriously hurt yourself. But I took comfort that they will push you off if you need help. I wasn't sure if I could do it myself.
As the excitement of the adventure packed day escalated on the shuttle, Steph and I heard our driver honk and break as we saw a boy on his bicycle cross right in front of the shuttle van. Our shuttle couldn't stop quick enough, so it skid right in to him making a loud crashing noise on the side of the van. Steph and I were sitting in the first row in disbelief. The driver just sat there, but Steph and I started screaming at him, "aren't you going to get out to look at him?" Then, he got out, while Steph opened the door. The street people carried the boy into our van and just plopped him on the floor...I was terrified by then. The people proceeded to pile his bike on top of him and shut the door of the van. Steph and I were nervous and held the bike over the boy so it wouldn't lay on him. Steph said she saw the boy was bleeding through his shirt and he looked like he was trying so hard to not cry and stay stong. Poor boy, how messed up.
So you would think the driver got out to help the boy, no he looked at the boy and then went to a pick up truck in front of us, which was the manager of Jolly Boys, to tell her what happened. They both came to the van to move the boy into her pick up truck so she could bring him to the hospital. We found out later the boy was ok and he had no broken bones. Whew! What a start of a day! Totally a mood killer.
We got dropped off near the Freedom Bridge at Victoria Falls. The area is called "no man's land" since it's the bridge that you can walk over to Zimbabwe. This is the bungee jumping bridge.
On our walk to the bridge, a Zimbabwean guy named Jamie was showing us the way to the bridge and everything about the activities. He was a nice guy, but we learned later that he wanted us to buy things from him. He remembered our names, and cheered us after every activity. He literally stood by us for 2 hours doing this excursion, which I will get to in a bit, so we would buy a copper bracelet off of him. He wanted 150,000 kwatch ($43) at first...then 100,000 kwatch...but after paying for all the excursion I only had 20,000 kwatcha ($5) to spare...so he took it and I have a copper bracelet souvenir from Zambia/Zimbabwe...and supported the Zimbabwean people. Jamie said if he could put Mugabe on a bungee he would cut the cord...yea he is not a fan of him. Steph also bought some sea god necklaces for 20,000 kwatcha from another guy.
Back to the excursion. The three of us stood by the bridge as we saw a girl bungee jump. As I was looking at the procedure I felt a bit more comfortable with it. We don't actually land close to the water at all, we fall halfway from the bridge to the Zambezi river. And I still like the whole idea that they will give us a nudge if we need it...but for the gorge swing we have to jump off ourselves.
Ok we did our payment of $115 for the combo, and Steph was going to be our photographer this morning. We went back on the bridge and they quickly harnessed us in. It was a bit chaotic, for us not them, because there wasn't a moment to think about what we were doing. In retrospect that was good, too much thinking might of made us back out. Alan did the gorge swing while I did the bungee jumping.
Once I got my harness around my chest strapped on, I was handed off to the guy that was strapping my ankles together in the cage where the ledge was to jump off. I felt like my harness wasn't quite tight, and asked the guy is it tight enough, and he said it is tight...sure it is....
The guy that was in the cage sat me down and started wrapping two towels around each of my ankles and told me this was for comfort for the second harness around my ankle. If the ankle harness fails I have the chest harness as a backup. Backup??? Of course I asked did they ever need to use the backup, and he said no. I was scared shitless then, and excited at the same time looking at how far down the ground was. When my ankles were being tied up, a camera guy asked me for my last words...last words??? I studiply can't come up with anything cool and said, I am very nervous and hope I would have a lot of fun. Then he asked where I was from, so I told him New York City. His response was, if you can survive New York you can survive this...my response was I sure hope so...
I was instructed to stand up after being all strapped on...then shimmy my way close to the edge, turn left (had a bit of trouble remembering which side was left), look into the horizon and take shimmy steps towards the edge. Everytime I looked down they screamed at me to look onto the horizon. Got to the edge, they said spread your arms out and when they scream 1-2-3-4-5 jump...dive in. 1-2-3-4-5 jump...ahhhhhh!!!!! Hahaha I did it. It was awesome! The back swing was a bit crazy and then it slowed down...then I was just doing a dead hang upside down on the cord. It was an awesome feeling and great view of the gorge. I felt so small in this huge gorge. I was just hanging there...then I felt my ankles slipping, I knew there was a reason why I didn't trust the towels, so I kept my ankles flex thinking that was the sensible thing to do. And...why am I still hanging and no one is coming to get me?
Eventually I heard some guy on the side called out to me and asked if I was ok. I replied, I'm fine. Did you have fun? Yes it was awesome. So I'm going to let you stay there for 2mins ok? Ok... Still doing alright? Yes. You want more time? (Mind you I'm stilll doing a dead hang thinking I'm going to slip off) No you can get me off. Ok, I'll give you 5 more mins. No really you can take me off now...and eventually he did. His name was Nick, my hero.
Nick got me out of the dead hang and got me on the bottom of the bridge where I had to climb up a ladder to get to the second layer, which was terrifying because if I slipped I would of totally fell off the bridge. Nick asked me if I liked it, and I said it was awesome. He said really, do you want to make a deal with me? What deal? I'll tell you after your swing.
Mr. Croc lead me up to the top of the bridge where I had to do my gorge swing. I was all pumped and ready to go. I heard Alan was terrified.
Once again, like an assembly line, I got strapped into my harness, and walked over the ledge. I saw the guy that helped me on my jump, so I asked if I jumped or was pushed...couldn't really remember. He said it was a little bit of both...I got a little help. Enough chatting, walk over to the other side of the cage to do the swing. Oh ok, as I was about to trip on a cord dividing the bungee cage from the swing, another guy that worked there standing outside the cage said hold on, walk over the cord. I did and just stood there. He grabbed my harness from up top and walked me to the corner of where I was supposed to be standing..."There you go."
So the gorge swing guy started to give me directions as he was strapping me on. He said hold onto the cord that was attached to my harness, and he would count 1-2-3-4-5 swing. I had to walk off the ledge myself. Once again I was confused, do I hold on to the cord the whole time, just for a little...what's the deal? I just need to hold it the first 5 seconds of the free fall. Ok - I can do that. 1-2-3-4-5 swing...jump....whoooooo....ah nice! My heart dropped for a second with the freefalling, started questioned whether the harness would catch me, and it did! I was swinging back and forth or a bit, while I was enjoying the scenery. It was surreal...and tranquil...much more enjoyable than the upside down dead hang on the bungee cord.
I could hang there for hours...but Nick broke the silence and got me back onto the bridge. Then he asked, "still want to do a deal with me?" "What is the deal?" "We go jump tandem." Sounds convincing but I refused the offer.
Once I got back on top of the bridge, I heard Steph jumping up and down, excitedly saying, "I think I want to do it too, will you pay for me?" What a silly question. We went to the bungee guys and asked if we could still squeeze Steph in before their lunch break. The guy was hesitant at first, but after a few moments of Asian girls begging, he said ok - hurry up.
Steph and I ran to pay for her combo, at first she just wanted to do the bungee. I told her I preferred the swing over the bungee and she should just do all three. We only brought exact money to Victoria Falls, so I didn't have that much Kwatcha to spare, but I had my Visa...which they didn't take because the machine was broken. How unlucky! As I was trying to convince the lady to not shut down the computer and that we would get the payment together, Steph went to find Alan for money. Kindly enough Kellogg Vas was there and offered to lend Steph the full payment...as a bonus to repayment steph offered to switch asshole spots with her twice whenever we play again. How nice of Vas! So Steph had a chance to experience this excitement too, while Alan and I watched her from the other side of the gorge where we would do our zip line. I am so proud of Steph doing this because she is so afraid of heights.
Steph and I preferred the gorge swing over bungee, while Alan preferred the bungee. We all thought it was well worth it though.
The zip line was a piece of cake, very relaxing with a nice view of the gorge and Zambezi river. A perfect icing on top of the cake (even though I don't really like cakes).
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