Vegetarian Crocodiles

The next stop was Livingstone, not only known for Victoria Falls (one of the 7 natural wonders of the world), but also as Ewan kindly likes to point at every opportunity, the founder (a fellow Scot)…Dr David Livingstone.

Our first stop on arrival was the falls…WOW. This was the most at home the Irish lass on our trip had felt since we started out. She was delighted that is did not only seem like it was torrentially raining, but it was also raining upwards and sideways due to the immense pressure of the water! Our guide hastened to point out that due to the dry season the falls are currently merely a trickle. Nevertheless we all headed back to the bus soaked to the bone!

But the water was the least of our worries…as we were heading back up the pathway a group of territorial baboons started to gather around us creating some kind of attack formation. We did as we were told and stayed totally neutral and carried on walking as if we hadn’t seen them, but they continued to advance. They grabbed two of the girl’s bags, but between us we managed to get away, totally shaken from our close Monkey encounter!

That evening we boarded a small ferry for the “Sunset Cruise”($35 for animal and free bar!). Needless to say it got totally out of hand, and the more hippos and crocodiles we saw, the louder the cheers got! It probably wasn’t the best preparation for our activities the following morning, which began with white water rafting on the ZAMBEZI!

We set off early and were greeted by our rafting guide, Boyd, a crazy Zimbabwean who was even more boisterous than Katie after a coffee! He asked us to hop out of the boat as soon as we arrived to get used to the seriously cold water and started shrieking with laughter and shouting ‘yeeeeehhaaaaaaa ZAAAAMMMBEEEZZIIII’ followed by ‘CROCODILE!!’ The rest of us feeling slightly uneased laughed it off as a joke, but when the first body was back in the boat to see a MASSIVE crocodile sliding into the water towards us panic set in! They dragged the rest of us in record time, meanwhile Boyd was still hooting with laughter in the end of the boat. The girls we were with were totally mortified, and remained so for the whole of the rest of the trip, despite Boyd’s attempts to convince them that crocodiles in the Zambezi are Vegetarians!

That evening we departed the group as our time on board the tour bus had ended. Sad goodbyes, however we had our next challenge to look forward to the following morning…BUNGEEEE!