The next couple days in Zambia were spent seeing Victoria Falls. The first day, we took a speed boat over to Livingstone Island, which sits just above the falls in the middle of the Zambezi river. Our guides walked us around and told the story of the first European to see the falls, Scottish explorer David Livingstone. I loved it because we walked barefoot in the mud. After the tour, they served us a great breakfast right there on the island.
Our speedboat left from this amazing hotel called The Royal Livingstone that had a great patio bar set up right on the river. When we came back from the island, Todd and I had some drinks while we started talking about the looming reality that is unemployedness. It looks like we are probably going to head to Nebraska to do our job hunt from there since all we have down in New Mexico is an air mattress and a couple forks. It's going to be madness in the next month!
The next day we went to the actual Victoria Falls National Park on the Zambia side to walk all the trails. We rented some smelly ponchos and wandered a path puts one directly across from the falls. The mist was so immense and powerful, it was like no rain I have ever been in. My contacts kept swimming around in my eyes. It was total inundation. I wish I had my swimsuit I would have just played in it like a little kid.
We extended our walking below the falls and along the ridge of another gorge however, the mission of the day was looming: bungee jumping. There is a bridge connecting Zambia to Zimbabwe just beyond the falls where you can choose your adventure among bungee jumping, a gorge swing and zip line. I did not think that I wanted to do it at all but I woke up that morning feeling bold.
It turns out that you can't do the bungee tandem (too broke and scared to do it separate), only the swing, which is nearly the same amount of free fall but instead of bouncing you swing. We had to walk all the way back to a cafe to sign up and somehow it worked out that when one of us wanted to chicken out the other didn't and that back and forth took us all the way to the ledge of the bridge. I even had a moment two feet from the "plank" where I said, "Wait. Hold on." And the man running the swing said, "No, don't do that. " And I said, "Okay." And then we were fucking falling! Sorry but there is no more of an appropriate time for swearing. It was a terrible feeling in all honesty. We fell at 160 mph for four seconds and my stomach could just not take it. Todd managed to yell, "Ohhhhhh myyyyyyyy gooooooooooodddd" the entire way down while I just made this really odd, constipated noise. It was nuts. I will probably never do it again but I'm glad I did.
