Zambia

A few days ago I went White Water Rafting in the Zambezi at Victoria Falls.
The night before I went I was talking to a girl at my hotel who had gone rafting that day. She said that everyone in her raft, including her, quit halfway through the day. They had communication problems because half of her boat only spoke Spanish and they flipped on every rapid. That was a great thought to put in my head.
I went rafting. My raft was half full of Italians who did not speak any English. What a great start. We cued up to go through the first rapid. A number 3 or 4 (6=too dangerous, only done by Kayaks). We lost the Italian at the front of the boat. I do not even know how he went out, I do not think he had any common sense. Our guide changed positions of a couple of us. He switched a big boy who was sitting in front of me to behind me. I was now behind the Italian who was STILL too shaken up to paddle (he was 28 years old). Great. I did not plan of flipping the raft and had to take action. The Italian in front of me, once he actually started paddling, would go forwards instead of backwards, stop paddling when the guide said to paddle hard, etc. I ended up hitting him in the back quickly to make him paddle quickly, giving him one good smack to get him to stop paddling, etc. It worked, we did not lose anyone else and we did not flip. The Italians and the big boy only booked a half day. There was only myself and an American girl left on our raft. After lunch we joined another raft. This one had flipped on almost every rapid. Half of their group members quit at lunch, they could not handle it.

The American girl and I thought we were about to have a hell of an afternoon. Once on the raft with these women we realized why they tipped so often. They did not paddle simultaneously; half the time they did not even paddle at all. We started barking out orders like drill Sargent's. It worked. We did not flip at all although the American girl did topple out of the raft but she did hang on, we did not have to fetch her. By the end of the day I really wanted to flip, maybe next time!! Rafting was too easy although I did earn a blister and I lost my voice.
The next day a rock climber guy at my camp went rafting with a bunch of his friends as a bachelor party adventure. One guy dislocated his shoulder and another broke his leg and had to be picked up by helicopter and flown back to South Africa. Do I still want to go back and flip the raft? You bet I do!!!

I went back up to Lusaka to attend a wedding Chezela. It was the Chezela for Mutinta, the sister of my friend Maston from back home. The party went on all night, until 5am. There were traditional drummers, many speeches and words of wisdom that were washed down with lots of drinks. When the bride to be was presented to the guests, she was dancing in a long line of women, covered by cloth so you could only see her feet and she was placed under a hut where she had to remain all night until 5am.

I have been going back and forth between Lusaka, Livingstone, Victoria Falls, Masokotwane village and Mukini village. I have attended football matches that some of my "cousins" were playing in on the dusty pitch and reading a lot. A couple nights ago I went to the Royal Livingstone to watch the sunset and sip my first glass of champagne since I have been here in Africa. It was really nice except for the "guests" who would throw a fit and anything they could get their hands on every time they saw a monkey on the deck. If you do not like the monkeys, get the hell out of Africa! Tomorrow morning I am off to the eastern Provence where I am going to attend some big meeting with Chiefs and Presidents. I hope there is lots of good food! : - )

I went to Cohara Bassa in Mozambique to go Tiger fishing. The water is part of the great Zambezi and was full of fish, fish eagles, hippos and crocodiles! Our boat got really close to the hippos and crocs!! We could even see lots of baboons on the riverbank. In order to catch a tiger fish, you have to use a chunk from another tiger fish as bait. They have a mouthful of GIANT teeth, (I kept a tooth from each fish that I caught).

So far in Zambia I have been to the Victoria Falls and a Zoological Park. The water at the top of the falls was a bit low. I climbed through the water and jumped up on a large rock meters from the drop! Exciting! There were also many baboons around. I saw a couple of them mate. They put on a display about 5 feet away from me!

While on a drive through Mosi-O-Tunya Zoological Game Park I saw my first RHINO since being here in Africa. We were able to get out of the 4X4 and walk within meters of him. He was very sad because his wife was slaughtered about 3 weeks ago by poachers. I think he is the only Rhino left in the park. There were many armed guards following his every move.