Victoria Falls - the adrenaline capital of Africa

It took 3 days for us to pedal the 480km between Lusaka to Livingstone, the town near Victoria Falls.

Victoria Falls is the adrenaline capital of Africa so of course I don't miss out on the opportunity of lots of adrenaline activities. I am a brave person - brave enough to bike across Africa, brave enough to venture from the suburbs into town on local transport in the city of Lusaka and back again by myself (which I did because everyone else was simply hanging out at the western mall on our last rest day and I wanted to check out the markets in town!). I'm quite proud of myself for this because it was tricky figuring out which bus to get back on again - but definitely worth it and even though I gave up on finding the snake stone, I did find the Rambo Tot (which turned out to be a sachet of orange flavoured liquor), another item we were meant to find for the scavanger hunt. Jolyane and I came second in the great hunt anyhow!!!

Yesterday however I went on the gorge swing. The gorge swing consists of a rope suspended in the middle of the gorge. You stand on a platform on the edge of a cliff, and step off, and after you have had a free fall of 53 metres the rope swing catches you and you fly back up into the air again, fall again, and then its just like a massive massive swing.
I'm standing on the platform in my harness feeling ok, and I walk closer to the edge. The guy at the top says to me
"Are you ready?"
And I look down suddenly scared, and terrified. I don't really want to walk off the side of a cliff. This is crazy. But I am crazy - I know that already (enough people told me before I left, and enough of the locals over here tell us the same thing!).
"No" I tell him. "I'm scared".
He smiles...
"3-2-1" he says
I know thats my cue to walk off the side of the cliff.
"Can we do the counting thing again?" I ask.
And he counts again.
And I walk off the side of a massively high cliff, and fall at 140km/hr down the 53 metres watching the trees at the bottom of the gorge come closer and closer.
The rope catches me and I get the giggles at myself for getting so scared about something that only lasts a few seconds and check out the view of the gorge while I'm swinging backwards and forwards until they lower me to the ground.

I have 2 more goes on the swings - both of them are tandems. It wasn't any easier going over the edge. The next time is with Malcolm the Giant. Malcolm and I get harnessed up again, we get shown where to hold each others harnesses and they tie our feet together. Going tandem you have to go over the side of the cliff backwards. Malcolm is more brave than I am and as we're leaning backwards to fall over the side of the cliff he's leaning backwards faster than I am. I'm scared and start leaning forwards. He starts leaning forwards then too (he says anyway - I didn't realise!) and I pluck up enough courage to firstly swear ("oh f*** it") before I lean backwards and pull Malcolm with me over the side of the cliff. And we're going head first towards the hard rocky cliff face on the other side of the gorge, faster than before (180km/hr maybe) because tandems are faster, and heavier.
It's a funny story now because lots of us are aware that we swear more than we did before we came, but I'm still not a big swearer yet!

This morning I spend more of my hard earned $s (I keep using the excuse that I don't know when the next time I'll be in Africa will be) and take a flight on a microlight glider to see the falls and it was a really cool!!! So much fun. Microlights are kind of like a hang glider with a motor. John my cool Aussie pilot from Alice Springs points out some hippos below us.

There's some more long days awaiting us and tomorrow is going to be an easy 82km day to get us across and into Botswana. 3 countries to go and only 4 weeks.

Janey - you asked if I was looking forward to coming home or sad to be leaving. And the honest answer is that at the moment I'm happy, and in 4 weeks time I will be ready to come home. I love biking, but at the moment I spend 7-8 hours actually sitting on my bike covering all these kms. 5-6 hours a day would be sufficient I think!!! So yes, starting to look forward to coming home, but still enjoying the pedalling (although feeling challenged by the end of the day - which is the whole idea in the first place. This trip wasn't meant to be easy!)

Annie Jo - thanks for your email, looking forward to hearing Adams band when I get home!!!

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!!