This was the
phrase our rafting guides told us before every rapid. From the beginning I had a feeling it meant more than just floating over the
water…
Day 3 greeted
us with a chilly start; but no matter.
By 9am it’s hotter than a banshee and besides, we’ll have the cool
Zambezi River to cool us down.
That’s
right. Today is WHITE WATER
RAFTING DAY!!!
I’ll admit
it. I was nervous. REALLY nervous. I’ve been white water rafting before,
and loved it. Every minute of
it. But from Matt’s recollection,
the last rafting trip we took was “pshaw! That was NOTHING!” This is Class 5 rapids. It’s gonna be AWESOME!”
Hmmm, I’m not
entirely sure what he meant by saying our last trip was “nothing” because I
felt it was certainly “something.”
I mean, I’m all for the rush and stuff, but to say that what we did in
Colorado on the Arkansas River was “nothing”? And that this was
something?? What does that mean??!!??
Are we going to drop 50 feet over falls or something? Yikes! Maybe I don’t want
to do this…
It didn’t help
to have the rafting guides sit us down before we headed out to give us our
“safety briefing.” Now I know,
being in the tour-guide business, you have to give the worst-case scenarios so
that people smarten up about taking on Mother Nature. I know all about that.
But still, hearing how we can flip in these waters, how these rapids
“are bigger than all of us put together” and how there are crocodiles in the
water so we must keep a sharp eye out really kind of killed the excitement for
me.
Oh yeah. Did I not mention the crocs
before? Oh yeah. About that. Well, apparently there are freaking crocodiles in the Zambezi River. Seriously? “But don’t worry, they aren’t where the rapids are. Crocs only like calm parts of the
water.” Oh, well then. That makes it all better.
What the hell am I thinking? First I’m agreeing to do a Class 5 rapid rafting trip, where I could drop down falls anywhere from 50-100 feet, and then I could flip out of the raft, where the “water is bigger than me” and therefore drown, if I’m not eaten by a crocodile first??
Maybe I should
just bag it…
But I
can’t. ‘Cause I can’t be a
wimp. So I’m going. And I’m nervous. Like, really REALLY nervous. I’ve managed to make it so big in my
head that I’m going to ride rapids that drop 1000’ and I’m going to be flipped
over on purpose by the rafting guides and that basically I’m just going to be
in agony for the next 6 hours as we go through twenty five rapids.
But I follow
the group. And we walk down down
down to the river. We must have
walked down 1000 steps (GREAT leg workout!!) and then over rocks and boulders
to get to the starting point. And
then we get in the raft (that was easy, thanks BVI dinghy!!) and then we
start.
I have to say,
the view from the water looking up the gorge was absolutely breathtaking. It made me forget that I was about to
plunge 1500’ into the depths of Crocodile Dundee. And our 2 tour guides spent about a half an hour practicing
rowing with us, and spinning the raft, and “getting down” in the raft (I had no
idea why we did that exercise) before we hit our first rapid:
“Okay guys, our
first rapid guys, is a class 5.
Row forward as I tell you, and if we flip, hang onto the rope.”
Oh no, here we
go…okay, let’s just do this!!
Oh…
My…
GODDDDDDDDDD…
That.
Was.
AWESOME!!!!!
I loved
it! I remembered exactly why I
loved rafting again! It was so
much fun and the water, while chilled, felt so good and the ride was
exhilarating! It was fantastic!
Okay, I can do
this. BRING IT ON!!!
24 more rapids
to go. I can’t wait!
The rest of the
rapids were even more exhilarating. And before every rapid, our guide was there to tell us, "Okay guys, our next rapid guyyyys, is a class 5. If you fall out of the boat, hang onto the rope."
And from there we were left to the fates of the water whether or not we would flip. Happily, our guides were strong (working there for 12 years you would gain a wee bit of strength!) There were a couple of big ones in there that were one of those “oh my
god!” moments where you thought we might flip, but by that point I felt so much
more comfortable that I thought I would be able to handle a raft flip. I did figure out why we practiced the
“get down!” part…during the especially rapid rapids, the guide in the back
steered us using 2 wooden rows as we just crouched down inside the raft and held on for dear life. I must say he did a fantastic job as we never
once flipped.
I did fall out once though.
You know how
you have a feeling before something happens that something is going to
happen? We were approaching rapid
17 called “Oblivion” (aptly named) and the tour guides even said that this
rapid was 50/50 in that we could flip if we didn’t get in the right
position. And it was the second
wave of water that the raft almost didn’t
reach over that I slipped out of the raft. And into the water.
It was one of
those moments where my mind told me not to panic, that the rapids were fierce,
but just let them carry me down.
Of course, my mind forgot that at some point I would need to come up for
air, but ah, details. But I did my
best to let myself be carried down, and at the same time try to watch out for
rocks and steer myself more in the middle of the river.
A few seconds
later and a heck of a lot of water coming out of my nose and lungs, I met up
with our kayaker, who was on hand for this very reason: to pick up anyone who
fell out of the raft. I grabbed
onto his kayak strap and held on as he rowed me back to the raft.
And I was
okay! I survived. I won’t lie, it’s scary to be thrown
into raging rapids like that, and know that your breaths are precious as you
don’t know when another round of water is going to slap you in the face, but
you just have to remain calm and “enjoy the ride.”
A-HA!
(By the way, we
found out that the river is approximately 100 feet deep at this time of
year…the low season. During high season, the water depth gets
to about 250-300 feet. So my fear
of hitting rocks below was one that didn’t exist. Nor was my fear of dropping in falls 50-1500’ a farce. I’d forgotten that rafting was riding
through rapids, not falls. Oh, and
the crocodiles? We saw 3, all
lying on the rocks on the side of the river, snoozing in the sun. And our tour guides knew the area well
enough to know when we could swim in the river, and when we shouldn’t. Whew!!)
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