Leap of Faith

So we left the rest of the group and moved to our new accommodation in Livingstone, a lively place called JollyBoys. It had a great atmosphere and really cheap good food which was a winner! We met some really nice Irish girls who we said we’d meet up with again in Zanzibar for the monthly full moon party which is supposed to be brilliant!

The following morning we woke up at 0730 and met our faithful taxi driver called Herbert who we had befriended. He was taking us to the infamous… Victoria Falls Bungee!!! On the way he told us the tragic story of how his mother had been killed by a rampaging elephant (actually) which was really sad… but this was soon pushed to the back of our minds when we arrived at the jump. The Victoria Falls bungee looks over the Zambezi River and goes off a bridge with the falls crashing behind. It’s 111m high and only 3 people have died doing it… (joke). We had to get up really early as it was the only time they could fit us in was 8am, however it was far from ideal as we were supposed to be catching a bus at 9am! This however worked in our benefit as we were in such a rush to catch our bus, we didn’t really have time to get worked up and nervous about it. Ewan went first. Once all the straps and cables etc are tied and good to go you have to waddle to the edge and stand with your toes over, peering over into the gaping void below… The man holds your face and looks into your eyes and says “On three you are going to jump. Stare straight ahead, put your arms out at your sides and jump as far out as you can. Ready?”,

“No…”

“1, 2, 3 bungee!!!!”

And that’s it. You are off, hurtling towards the water at who knows how many miles an hour… It is exhilarating although not going to lie it is scary as… Katie went next and was equally as freaked out but completed it successfully and before long we were back in Herbert’s taxi and hurtling towards town to try and catch our bus. By this point it was about 0855 and there seemed a slim chance of making it. Herbert put pedal to the metal however and we shot over the various potholes and dents in the road at a fair speed. Herbert was so dedicated to getting us to our bus on time he even skipped a number of red lights on the way into town…   

We pulled up, breathless, at about 0915. Our bus was thankfully still sitting there as the driver was having an argument with somebody about something. We sneaked our bags on and found some seats at the back. Within minutes we were heading to Lusaka, Zambia’s capital having had a very adrenaline packed start to the day!