Day 7
The Zambezi River
Distance: Approximately five kilometres … wet
It’s been a few days since my last post. I have had them all lined up but publishing has been thwarted by slow-to-no internet connection. So, yes, it’s taken all of six days for me to resign myself to Africa time. I am currently sitting on the shore of Lake Malawi at the Sunbird Livingstonia Beach Hotel … they have Wi-Fi and buffet breakfast, I’ll be here for a while.
So, back to Day 7 of the Put Foot Rally – white water rafting time! Rafting on the Zambezi River has been on my adventure list for years. I’ve finally ticked it off and five days later I’m still buzzing like a fridge from the experience.
There were sixty-odd Put Footers on the water, six or seven in a boat. The climb down to the river was already treacherous, a makeshift ladder streched and wound its way over loose gravel down to the river bank … there was a bit of falling over. Once we got into the water the carnage continued. The river was high, so the rapids weren’t in full force, but everywhere I looked teams were being tossed about, paddles were flying and helmets were bobbing around on the surface. It looked a little like the battle of Normandy … Tom Hanks’ version anyway.
We (Mike Sharman, Kim Hinrich – aka Daddy – The Dolittles and myself) got the hospital boat, the one with the stretcher on it in case of emergencies. For some reason our boat gravitated to Bob Skinstad’s boat (through no furious paddling in his direction my part, promise), and we pretty much enjoyed watching each other get annihilated all the way down. It thought it best to illustrate the carnage with a play by play …
Play by play action
Team Fawsome (please note how, like a bunch of amateurs, we’re so busy cheering about how we cleared the last rapid that we barely had time to pull it together for the next, which is why it went pear … I’m sure).
Team Acclimate (I won’t get into why Bob’s team was called that)
We were in front, so literally about three minutes after Acclimate got sucked through the washing maching Bob came, well, bobbing down the river holding on to his oar. We rescued him … pleasure boet.
The following day we stayed in Livingstone for the Shoe Drop at Senkobo Basic School. It was an incredibly humbling experience as well as a day of fun and games and lots of handshakes … but more on that in my next post.
