A return to the mighty Zambezi

I like doing new things.  As I described in this post about keeping track of my days of Fun, I also record how many new things I do,   Of course, it gets harder every year, and it’s a challenge to do a lot of new things near the house in SLC, but I’m also fine with doing Fun stuff that’s high quality near the house too.  Sometimes the commitment to doing Fun stuff is pretty high; last summer a bunch of us flew to Whitehorse, Yukon then flew for hours on a small – and expensive – plane to get into some pretty awesome new Fun stuff. And even now, Ashley and I left in September for Europe and have spent most of the last few months riding in France, Spain, Morocco, and now Italy (fortunately she likes doing new Fun stuff also, though she’s not so geeky that she tracks it!).   So….why go back to the Zambezi again, given the high level of commitment and the fact that it’s not new Fun?  Because…..the Zambezi is awesome.  

In 2023 I took advantage of also being across the Atlantic for a bike tour to head down to Zambia/Zimbabwe to do the Zambezi with Global Grand Canyons; my old pal Rocky Contos’s company that does seriously-adventurous raft trips on rivers in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ethiopia, British Columbia, and the Zambezi.  I was able to recruit a few friends, and Rocky’s ever-expanding network of adventurous river souls rounded out our crew with fun folks, and we had a blast:  the Zambezi’s big water and the various “other” activities was fun enough that I declared upon returning:  “If I find myself across the Atlantic in the fall, I’m gonna do another Zambezi trip!”  Lo and behold, not only did I indeed find myself across the Atlantic in the fall, but a posse of great old pals:  Sue, Greg, and Sawyer Hanlon of the New England Canyoneering and river team:

with the late addition of their friendly friend Dave Schafer:

Bryan and Allison Godlewski from Teton Valley by way of Park City, who were keen for the 2023 Zambezi trip but weren’t able to make it happen:

former Utahn, now Montanan Mark Albrecht, who has recently transitioned his powerlifting strength into hauling on raft oars:

our sometimes-but-not-often-enough adventure pal Chip Nevins and his game-for-anything (and river trip rookie!) wife Amy:

and their friends Eric and Lynn:

And two new friends from New Zealand, Yan and Robin:

Yan is a friend of our old pal Andy Windle, who’s the best pard who lives 8000 miles away that I have, and Andy was progged to join this trip but a nagging injury kept him away.  But a friend of a friend of Andy’s is great, and any friend of a friend of a friend – especially if he’s a Kiwi – is a new friend of mine! 

And importantly, though Rocky wasn’t there to lead it, his old protege German was there (who was on an Usumacinta trip in southern Mexico a decade ago and was able to talk local authorities into letting Rocky and I out of a Mexican jail:

his son Uri, who was a 10 year old and afraid of his shadow then but has blossomed into a great person and  – of course – a class 5 paddler:

and my amazing pal Darwin, who has been a fixture on the Zambezi for years and has a smile and a joie de vivre as big as the river’s rapids.  

and other critical folks:  Kai:

And Kevius (sp? with Darwin, who’s always keen to preen for a photo)

Chiga, Joshua

Oscar

The stage was set:  would my return to the river be just as Fun as last time, and would this crew – who had listened to my tales and exhortations to go for a coupla years – be as impressed and excited as I was?  I very much hoped so, on both counts.  

One thing that I was determined to do on a follow up trip to the Zambezi was to do extra “laps” on the daily Batoka Gorge section.  Every fall and winter kayakers come to Livingstone from around the world to paddle this section, and many stay for weeks doing a few days at a time, a rest day, another few days at a time, etc.   A great guy with a smile and laugh as big as his dreadlocks named PC has a huge truck with benches in the back and racks up top, and every day that truck makes the rounds of a coupla hotels to pick up kayakers and take them to the trailhead that leads down into the gorge at the base of the huge (100 meter tall!) Victoria Falls. He has a posse of porters who gather there every morning and they grab your boat and haul it down the trail; regardless if you want to carry your own boat, it’s part of the economy of the river and these guys are psyched for the opportunity.  

The trail winds down a jungly gulley and ends at a big boulder field that leads down to the “Boiling Pot”, which is rapid number 1.  The first impression that I and many others have is…”that’s it?  That’s the Boiling Pot’ and the first of the legendary rapids of the Zambezi?!”   It looks quite benign, like a class 2 rapid.  But as you get closer you realize that the current is ripping through there, the swirlies that guard the eddy from the current and vice versa are powerful, and the current flows directly into a rock wall and pretty much splits evenly back into the eddy and the current downstream.    In 2023 we went up above the Boiling Pot to the big pool that’s below the base of the falls and then ran the teensy little Boiling Pot rapid, and I flipped in it.  I rolled up, but I thought “holy shit, if this is the easiest rapid on the run by a ways and I flipped here, how am I gonna go downstream?!”  We spent that night back up in town, and while there I sent a message to Ash telling her how skitched I was by this silly first rapid, and she fired back quickly with something along the lines of “You’re a strong paddler; you’re just rusty and nervous!  Believe in yourself and give’er and you’ll be fine!”  So the next morning I took her words to heart and dis indeed “do fine.  So I knew what to do this year at the Boiling Pot…..right?  

So on my first day lap I was in the big truck with a dozen or more folks from all over the world whom I didn’t know (and Yahn, whom I’d just met), and the sorta standard deal seems to be that once at the river the big groups that was “together” ostensibly because they rode in the truck together just heads down the river together; not necessarily a great setup for newbs or rusty paddlers, since a big group tends to mean that nobody is really paying attention.  I peeled out of the eddy into the Boiling Pot rapid and….immediately flipped.   I came back up quickly, but got spat back into the eddy.  I tried again with the same result.  By this time most of the other paddlers had already headed down torapid Number Two, where there’s a big eddy-fed surf wave.  I kinda charged back in, flipped yet again, then…carped about 5 roll attempts, and to my utter dismay and chagrin, swam!  Both me and my boat again got spat back into the eddy, and fortunately there was a guided raft trip that had just put on and the local guide had his guests haul me and my boat into the raft.  He hauled on the oars, made the ferry (far more challenging in a raft than a kayak!) and once in the eddy on the other side I thanked him profusely and slid back into the water, rattled and chastened, but really glad that the other dozen folks I had put on “with” had no idea that I was such a gumby!  

Not far downstream is rapid number 4  – Morning Glory, and it’s the first of the Big Ones.  Our big group had plenty of folks who wanted to scout it, and upon first sight I was reminded that the Zambezi is…Big.  For those of you who have been fortunate enough to paddle the Grand Canyon – the benchmark for “big water” in the West (Until Cataract Canyon goes over 50k!) you know that the rapids on the GC have their own rating system outside the class 2, 3, 4, and 5; Grand Canyon rapids are on a 1-10 scale, with Lava being the sole 10.  Overall I’d say that on the GC 1-10 scale many of the Zambezi rapids are about 15’s; ie about 50% bigger than Lava.  And the Zambezi’s Rapid Numbers 4-10 are the biggest and most intense of the day-run rapids, so – in the words of Darwin – you gotta be “ready to rumble!”   As I got my first look at number 4 from the shore I got that big reminder that indeed these rapids are BIG, sometimes complex, and the chaotic waves near the bottom of every rapid hit you from all directions, and provided you make it through those you’ll inevitably be spit you into the powerful swirlies at the bottom of each rapid,  It’s intimidating, and I was already rattled.   But Ash’s words from two years ago again rang in my head, I was smart enough to follow someone who knew the rapid well, and charged as hard as I could. All went well, and my rush of excitement had not a little bit of relief to it as well.  My Zambezi adventure was underway.  

While similar in character, each of the biggest rapids has its own distinct characteristics and mostly-safe lines that slice past fearsome holes that you don’t even want to glance at as you flash past them.  Morning Glory /Number 4 has a huge curling green wave that you want to ride just over the shoulder of before a quick pivot to brace hard into a powerful lateral coming off the wall that will typewriter you back across the river to avoid the huge mayhem at the bottom right.

  Number 5  – Stairway to Heaven – has its iconic huge boof move:

 which though very obvious from the shore and below, is surprisingly tricky to identify on approaching the dropping horizon line as you avoid holes above it; and if you are too enthusiastic – which is easy to do –  you’ll overshoot boof to the right and likely go for one of the most exciting hole rides of your life.  The more-common line is a huge green tongue down the side of the boof that delivers you into powerful mayhem below.  

Number 7  – Gulliver’s Travels – is a memorable rapid in a memorable section.  A moderate lea- in takes you to a nice eddy where you peel out into a pretty boily “eddy” that you can use to slice between two big holes and enter the aptly-named Land of the Giants.  The waves there are huge and ferocious, and flips and swims are common; I was super psyched to hang on through there on my first run and thought I had it dialed, but in the annals of “the river doesn’t care what you think” I got spanked hard there the next couple of times, and I can vouch for the fact that running the Land of the Giants upside down is an experience few would forget!  

After you’ve got your breath back from Guliver’s Travels you hit Midnight Diner, which is pretty much a river wide hole that’s as big/bigger than anyone has ever seen, and the line is….right down the gut.  You go over two or three Hermit-sized waves before raging down a 20-foot long ramp that delivers you into the hole.  You hope that you hit the 3-foot wide piece of green water at the bottom that will only smack you hard before spitting you out, versus missing that 3-foot greenie and having the hand of God smite ye down!  

And so on.   But while the rapids are intimidating, the river is surprisingly forgiving; most of the rapids aren’t very long, the water is super warm so you don’t get the same gasping reflex that northern rivers’ 40-50 degree water creates, and as with the Grand Canyon, you get accustomed to the push and power and learn how to account for it.  And rafts mostly just blast down it; it’s run commercially every day (at least, at low-medium levels in our fall/early winter, which is the dry season there); rafts and and do flip, but mostly as a lark by the guides who have only clients – and no gear – in their boats.  For Rocky’s GGC trips he has developed his own proprietary “AutoRights” that basically create an inflated-tube cuboid cage above the raft cockpit that enables the boat to flip back over upright surprisingly quickly after it has “flipped.”  And yes….you buckle in.  Contrary to everything you’ve ever been taught and instinctively know to be wrong; you use literal seat belts to strap yourself to the boat because it’ll flip back over upright.   Even number 9 – “Commercial Suicide”, which is the biggest/skitchiest on the “day run” was run successfully by all of Rocky’s rafts; a couple engaged the AutoRights, but the others slid right through upright with the guidance of good oarsmen.

Below Commercial Suicide the rapids back off a half-step, but the bigness, chaosity of wavyness, and swirlyness remains til the first potential takeout at Number 14.  The next potential takeout is at rapid 21, which means you get to run number 18:  Oblivion, which has the biggest waves yet!  But by now you’re all used to the power of the Zambezi waves….right?!?

It was a great three days of paddling the day section of the Batoka Gorge as the crew rolled in from points around the globe, then we all headed to Chobe National Park for an all day safari. 

As last time I was there, no kitties around; I think when the Big Cats get involved, shit gets pretty real; otherwise it’s pretty mellow.  However, we did see a live Honey Badger!  I had to explain to our extraordinary guide Wilson:

why we were pretty much as excited to see a Honey Badger as we were elephants and rhinos:  we’d all seen the weird Honey  Badger video, of course!  I’m not sure that Wilson quite understood  our enthusiasm….

Other pre-river trip activities included a visit to one of the guide’s home villages, which I didn’t do but it sounded super cool:

And another outing was to visit the Devil’s Pool at the lip of Victoria Falls:

Next….on the river trip! 

Thanks to all whose photos I’m poaching; I took some of the trip member’s shots but all the rest are