Returning to the Zambezi Part II

Return to the Zambezi Part II

Flying all the way to southern Africa is a big deal; I haven’t confirmed this but it seems like it’s about as far from our home as one can get; at least, it sure feels that way when you’re flying there!  But I realized two years ago that while I’m keen to explore new places and Africa – with over 50 nations and about 2.6 zillion square miles of incredibly varied terrain and nearly an equal number of cultures – is really appealing, bike touring and river running are the two best ways/reasons to travel, but wow it’s so hot for riding there and the Zambezi is one of the world’s great rivers.  So it’s worth a return trip for the Zambezi.  

After a few days of paddling the Batoka gorge, checking out Chobe National Park’s megafauna, visiting villages, exploring the great town of Livingstone (the museum there is great) we were ready to hit the river!  The first few days of the Global Grand Canyons trip is on the flatwater aboe the falls, which is a good time to get to know the vibe of the riparian culture, fellow trip members, and again see the various animals along the river. 

Though the famous Batoka Gorge rapids are daunting, some folks are just as intimidated by the upper section as well due to the proliferation of hippopatamuses and crocodiles in the flat water (there aren’t many of either in the Gorge; lots of swift water there and the locals have – mostly – made sure that there aren’t any lingerers there to bother potential swimmers out of flipped rafts!). 

From the beginning of our trip on the flatwater above the falls the deal was….stay close to each other!  The goal is for each raft to stay two meters behind the raft in front of you to give the hippocrocs the impression that it’s a huge centipede of linked boats, not vulnerable little individual and isolated rafts of easily-popped urethane containing weak and vulnerable humans.  But staying within six feet is really close, and though the river is easy/flat, there’s enough small riffles and eddies that it’s easy to get separated, and if one raft misses the move then those behind can get gapped too.  

But generally it works out well; the hippos generally just watched us go by, wiggling their ears, yawning hugely (I don’t think it’s because they’re tired….I think it’s to be very impressive!), and occasionally dancing on the shore in their pink tutus!  Okay, not so much of that, and there were times when the big males did come out into the current (they kinda run/bounce off the bottom, not really swimming per se) which was disconcerting.  And while the crocs weren’t as prolific or as menacing as those that Rocky and I saw on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, their presence was disconcerting.  

On this section we did have an armed wildlife ranger who rode in the lead boat and became kind of the defacto Trip Leader; he determines which camps we’ll stop at.  There aren’t many camps, so when we got to the desired camp he’d go ashore first to sniff it out and approve it; in addition to crocs and hippos (the latter feed at night inland) there’s also concern about elephants who may not see the little nylon tents that are scattered about open areas.  Once in camp the ranger identifies the camp perimeter, which usually makes for fairly tight tent spacing (again, keeping the density up to intimidate the animals)

Overall it works out well, and as with all of GGC’s trips, we had no problems.  A highlight of the upper section is a half-day stop at the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, which  – like Chobe has elephants, zebras, bushbucks, giraffes, gazelles, monkeys, and….rhinos (this is actually where the last post’s pictures of the rhinos was taken).  There are about 15,000 of them left, and they continue to be poached for their horns, despite the comprehensive efforts at armed guardary of them.  

Eventually downstream travel on the Zambezi is curtailed by….Victoria Falls.  It’s arguably the Greatest Falls On Earth:  at 100m/330 feet it’s over twice as high as Tis Abay falls on the Blue Nile and Niagara Falls (though Niagara does have more flow).  The way the lip is configured nearly all of the flow falls on the Zimbabwe (west) side of the falls, which – during low water season – enables folks to visit the Devil’s Pool (that a few folks from our crew visited prior to launching on the raft trip) and since I was there in 2023 Rocky has gotten permission to rappel the falls.  So on our down day of getting the rafts around the falls (via the poreters again….).   German set up an anchor and we all rapped the 320 foot drop into the gorge. 

It was kind of a long day (Rocky’s got some ideas to make this move a bit more swiftly) but there’s no doubt that those 5 minutes of gliding down a rope with views of the falls on both sides of you will be burned into people’s memories.  

  

Then on into Batoka Gorge with our whole crew!  About half had not seen the gorge yet, so there was a lot of excitement around running the rapids the first day, since indeed the first dozen rapids are some of the biggest on the run.  Sue Hanlon in particular was quite nervous; while she was quite keen for the trip overall, she had expressed that she was “not interested in whitewater” in the notso-recent past, and when we were initially at the hotel and German walked into the garden, Sue literally ran over to meet him and tell him that she was gonna be on his raft and would likely walk ALL the big rapids!  But as it turned out, German’s raft got bumped sideways right above the relatively small rapid number 3 and went into a hole sideways; the raft  – outfitted with Rocky’s unique AutoRights – “flipped” onto its side, and with German throwing his ballast around a bit the raft easly came back upright, so Sue  – and Dave – were mollified that they were not gonna be swimming the Zambezi’s fearsome rapids!

All went well through the biggies, and even number 9 – Commercial Suicide – was run by all the AutoRight-equipped boats successfully:

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It was quite a moment for Bryan and Mark, who had never rowed anything nearly that big, but – partially buoyed by the confidence instilled by the AutoRights – were keen to give it a go, and Bryan in particular nailed the line and didn’t have a need for the AutoRights

Though the first day-run takeout is near rapid 14, our leisurely day got us to a nice camp Number 10, then after running rapids 11 through 23 (they all have English-based names too; more colonization?) including the huge-waved number 18, Oblivion we got to camp near rapid 24, where the locals put on an amazing dance display for us:  

and a feast of goat and Zambia’s staple food, Nshima (corn flour that manifests like mashed potatoes).  In a two-week fest of fun, new experiences, seeing these folks and chatting with them was a highlight.

And behind these I saw a dry bag…..that looked familiar to me, which on ssecond look wasn’t surprising because it had been mine!  At the end of the last trip I gave a tent and a drybag to Darwin to give to Melvin, who lived on the river, and two years hence there he was!  His gratitude was effusive, of course in the shy Zambian way.  Great guy, and I was glad to see he’d not only put the bag to some good use but had a different, newer tent than the one I gave him!

Beyond the end of the day run are two big falls that are not run by the rafts even with the added security of the AutoRights.  One is Lower Momba, which has a steep sneak on the far river left that – since I was there in 2023 – had been changed by rockfall and made the portage/lining more difficult due to getting caught on rocks mid-drop.  German since came up the brilliant idea of completely derigging one raft, flipping it over, and deliberately catching it upside down on the rock, then sliding – with the help of soapy water! — the other rafts down the floor of the wedged raft.

 Of course, eventually the stuck raft has to be freed as well, but sans gear it becomes pretty easy. 

The other portage is Choeba Falls,where the rafts are just “ghost boated” ie sent on their own down the long, steep, and mutli-staged rapid with no captains/passangers, just willowy skeletons with wispy rags who have come back from the afterlife for another wild ride!  

On downstream from these is Ghostrider, which – despite tales of huge waves on Oblivion and others upstream, definitely has The Biggest Waves!  Uri  – as sorta lead kayak guy, since he’s run them all – gave us all a bunch of beta on what to do on the first big wave to set up for the bigger second one well enough to be prepared for the bigger-yet third one, but realistically all the kayakers just kind of glazed over on that beta and charged super hard over the first one – many catching full airtime – and then taking our licks on the next two, will all degrees of success.  One of the key bits of beta was “avoid the eddy at the end on the left” and I turned out to get spat into it, and with about five feet of relief from the bottom end of the eddy to the top and gigantic secondary swirls I had my hands full staying upright and getting back into position to make the ferry strongly enough to not go back in for another round!  But it worked out well enough that a few of us hiked back up for another fun go at Ghostrider.  

Below Ghostrider the kayaks were left on shore for  – again – the porters to haul out of the gorge to enable more efficient rowing through the sometimes-windy flatwater below and gear truck heading back to town, and the last rapid of note – Deep Throat, with some super-powerful hydraulics and mean-looking undercuts – was run successfully by the whole crew.  

Which put us back into flatwater, which also meant back into Hippoland!  And the aforementioned need to keep tight to the next raft.  At one point we slackers on the raft I was on got a little behind and suddenly realized that hippos who were kinda stalking the rafts ahead of us were actually closing in on us, and it was almost as adrenaline-producing as some of the rapids upstream!  But they let us pass without incident.  

We stopped pretty early one day at a pool that was blocked by a sandbar from the main river, so it was safe from hippocrocs, and it became a great refuge from the heat, though Byan wrangled up an exciting game of water polo that got us all hot even in the water!

  

The trip ends at a super mellow fishing lodge that is thankfully quite shady and is a great place to de-rig before heading back to civilization.

Here are some typical camp scenes on the river:

  

So was it “worth it” to Return To The Zambezi?  Absolutely; while it’s great to indeed do Fun new stuff, it’s also great to return to something that you did once before – a while ago – that’s truly unique and amazing, and the Zambezi is definitely both.  And it’s super fun to experience the newness again with people who haven’t done it before and watch their minds get blown by the whole experience. While I don’t think it’ll be an annual trip for me, coming back after two years was great, and I can very much envision doing that again, with even more days in the Batoka Gorge next time!

Thanks again to Rocky and his great crew for another amazing jaunt down the mighty Zambezi, and to our crew who came from oh-so-far away on a big-commitment trip and were competent, interesting, and fun; all the crucial aspects of fantastic river partners.  

Sawyer Hanlon put together a great video of highlights from the entire trip; at under 10 minutes it’s a worthy watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YBb8mWe48g

And thanks to the crew whose pictures I liberally poached for this post