Livingstone, Zambia

We arrived in Lusaka at about 22.00 after a relatively comfortable bus journey with Kob's buses, before checking into the lovely Lusaka Backpackers for a couple of days. It was a nice change to be in a more 'civilised' city like Lusaka with familiar foods and brands in the large shopping malls. Here we stocked up on pharmacy and food supplies, watched some of the Rugby World Cup and did more planning of the trip. We also introduced Roisin to her first game of pool (we'll make a champion of her yet!).
After this nice relaxing weekend, we made our way down south to Livingstone on the Mazhandu Family Bus. This was the most organised bus journey we've had since arriving in Africa, with printed tickets, name tags for our bags and working air condition! There was even a reading of the gospel as we left the bus station! We arrived in the mid afternoon sun at Jollyboys Backpackers, where we jumped straight into the pool to cool down before we got organised for our various activities over the next from few days in Livingstone.
Firstly we did the walking tour of the town as organised by the hostel and visited the David Livingstone museum, where we learned about the history of the town and the great explorer himself. Then we did a cruise along the Zambezi river where we had a barbecue and unlimited drinks while seeing hippos, elephants, sea eagles in the gorgeous African sunset. This was a lovely way to spend the first couple of days here before the adrenaline filled days that followed!!
Our first visit to the Victoria Falls Bridge, started with a zip line across the valley with amazing views of the bridge and the Zambezi river. Then Nina, Roisin and Edel took big leaps from the bridge in the form of bungee jumps and gorge swings. I'm definitely not as brave as these amazing ladies, so I just minded the bags (well someone had to! ☺).
Next up was Whitewater rafting in the Zambezi river. We were collected by our guide Potato (yes that was his name!), given a safety briefing, fitted for life jackets and helmets before we made our way down to the river to pose for photos under the waterfall. Little did we know that this was calm before the storm! We had no idea what the 24 rapids over the 34km course had in store for us. Being the crazy Irish ladies we are, we chose the most difficult route which guaranteed we flipped over on the Grade 5 rapids. We were rescued by various kayakers along the way who reunited us with our raft. Unfortunately we lost our safety guide Windass, along the way after suffering a concussion on the grade 6 rapid. Thankfully we got to avoid that rapid! Potato also had a trainee instructor Clement on board who was learning the ropes. We swam some of the easy rapids so he could learn about the flow of the currents. The amazing day was topped off with a picnic with fantastic views over looking the river. There were sunburn, bruises and DOMS galore afterwards but worth every bit of it!!
The following day we got a boat out to Livingstone Island where we swam in Devils Pool, while peering over the top of Victoria Falls. Then we were treated to a delicious breakfast of Eggs Benedict and jam and scones, before being brought back to the main land. We took a golf buggy the Zambezi Sun where we chilled out and swam in pool with zebras and giraffes happily roaming around beside us. This was a lovely way to spend our last day in Zambia after a 'thrill-seeking' few days! Zambia has been fantastic! We really are being spoiled at everything we are getting to do here! This continent just keeps giving!!Read more