Rafting the Zambezi River

I’ve heard in the rafting world that the three greatest rafting day trips are the Nile, the Zambezi, and a hard to pronounce river in Chile. I totally agree with the Nile, having done it just a month earlier, so I was eager to try the Zambezi with Heidi who hadn’t rafted since she was 14 in Oregon. It was a beautiful day and they got us ready by feeding us a big breakfast. I was pumped.

Our guide was Tim and I liked him immediately when he started shifting people around to get the best paddlers in strategic positions. I ended up in the front left and Heidi across from me on the right. It was much nicer having her paddling across from me in a constant rhythm than the guy in the Nile who was as sporadic as they come. We busted thru rapid number one, eager to test out the next 24!

It is low water on the Zambezi right now because we are just before the rainy season. That means the entire river is open to raft and some of the rapids are shallow and scary. We hit some nice drops and bashed thru some sick waves. It was pretty funny watching the other rafts flipping over. By midpoint we had run the river perfect, not flipping once, but I knew there were some big ones to come.

The water felt great. There is no place better for white water rafting than near the tropics. Every splash feels great against your straining paddling muscles. One difference between this river and the Nile is that the current is constant which means a lot less paddling is necessary to cross big calm spots. Also the scenery was outstanding. We were in a deep gorge the entire day. Basalt towers and columns lined the riversides. It can best be described as a lush tropical grand canyon. We passed a few crocs slipping into the water and stopped for a few cliff jumps as well.

Then we came to No. 18 rapid. It apparently has a huge wave after the drop that sometimes the raft can get stuck on and surf. Sounds good to me, I like surfing. We decided to go for it and aimed straight for the wave. We hit it dead on and then hesitated. I could feel the raft slip backwards and start to surf violently. But just for a second before we climbed out and sped off thru the end of the rapid. Afterwards Tim said that if we would have slid back any further we could have been stuck for 15 or 20 seconds before flipping. Maybe next time. Except for Heidi slipping out in a ‘deceptive’ Class 2 rapid, and the smelly Turkish guy getting sucked out and under when we hit a rock we ran the river perfectly. Afterwards Tim told me that it was just wrong that I had done the Nile and the Zambezi without flipping. I think one flip couldn’t have hurt.