After leaving Botswana, we headed to Livingstone in Zambia. The city does not offer much, except for a very nice market where you can buy local crafts. Obviously, the main attraction of the area is the Victoria Falls; Livingstone has recently become a tourist center for extreme sports, making it the backpackers-Mecca.
Bungee jumping, the Flight of Angels, Zambezi rafting are just some of the many activities you can do.
We chose what we thought would be the quietest and less reckless activity: rafting. If a good beginning bodes well, from our descent to get to the meeting point, we already realized that perhaps that type of rafting would not be exactly what we had in mind. In fact, more than once we have noticed how, in these countries, the sense of danger is practically non-existent. And that’s how, as we were going down with a gradient of 99%, my legs started shaking with tension. I could not control them until the guide gave me his hand and helped me find the balance again (not only physical but, especially, psychological).
Once we reached the riverbank, the rafts were already there waiting for us. The first recommendation from Ale – a rafting veteran (he barely did it once in Veneto) – was: “When you get on, put your feet under the protection device to avoid falling into the water”. It was my first time. We got on and… “But, where are the protection devices?” To our surprise, there was absolutely no grip, neither for the hands nor for the feet. I figured that it would probably have not been necessary, but when we first faced the rapids, our hands and feet had surprisingly developed a certain agility in less than a few minutes… well, maybe seconds. Too bad, at the following rapid, we all dived in the river.
For a moment, while the weight of Ale’s body pushed me underwater, I also thought that it would be the last memory of my life. Then luckily, thanks to the law of dynamics, I re-emerged on the surface and few seconds later we were all touching the raft.
We came to the point where I could not take it anymore. Today I consider myself a lucky person, if I’m here to write about this adventure.
