26 May 2007
Let me start off by saying that the road trip with my cousin Laura was brilliant. There are so many stories and things to write about that I’ll have to do this in installments. As I look at my notes I’m considering bullet points, too, so we’ll see—yes, I took notes.
First things first: the bungee jumping at Victoria Falls. I’m going to step out of my usual chronological style because this was the highlight of the trip for me. Luckily I ran into a Norwegian guy in Swakop a couple months back because otherwise I wouldn’t have known you pay once and then jump as many times as you can handle… I went twice. The third time was tempting, but I held back. I was afraid jumping off a 311 ft. bridge might tempt fate to invoke the “third time is the charm” clause. Dying isn’t high on my priority list right now.
The view from the bridge itself is spectacular. The water is running really high right now, which meant one could mostly only see mist from the falls, but every now and again it would clear away and one of the seven natural wonders came into view. Equally as breathtaking was taking a gander down to the Zambezi River. The second one, however, provoked more of a “damn… that’s a long way down” reaction. Being the logical thinker I am my decision was to jump off with a glorified rubber band attached to my ankles. Basically, they get you all fitted up, try to calm you down or exaggerate your fears (depending on your temperament and their mood), make you hop to the edge of the platform (very interesting experience with one’s legs strapped together), tell you not to look down (which makes you look down), point to the horizon, tell you to jump straight towards it, then count down from five and shout BUNGEE!!! At which point, you are expected to leap off solid ground towards what your body assures you is certain death. I thought there would be more of an internal battle to convince my knees to bend and then straighten again to launch me down to a rushing body of water (ok, it was more of a slight hop), but they didn’t fail me. It’s difficult to explain the feeling of a 75mph free fall for the first time. The drop only takes about 4 seconds so there’s not as much time to contemplate what’s important in your life as I had expected. Probably best since I don’t really like getting metaphysical during an adrenaline rush. What I can tell you is my face apparently missed the memo about the plunge because it was desperately trying to defy gravity and get to higher ground. The last thing I need while trying to have a good time is a mutiny of body parts so I had to clench the muscles underneath and show it who was boss. Other than that little setback, the experience was great. The initial fall is kind of a blur, but the subsequent yo-yo action is pretty clear. Apart from the rush of blood to the head from 43 seconds of being suspended upside-down, the beauty of the river and gorge sticks out. The mist from Vic Falls created an amazing rainbow that changed shape and size as I rose and fell. All I could hear was the rush of the river 10 meters below and natural splendor was all around me so the experience had a very Zen quality. When the guy rappelled down to grab me I’d had enough, though. I was ready to get back up and do it again. Once back on the under structure of the bridge, another guy let me through a quasi-labyrinth of British steel from the 1950s. I was barefoot and I’m convinced the engineer didn’t think that possibility through when he designed it. I looked for a suggestion box to lodge my complaint but no luck.
The second time around made me more nervous than the first surprisingly. Maybe it was because I had decided to do it backwards. Whatever the case, I had to seriously psyche myself out as I hopped in reverse to the edge of the platform. I even made the bungee guy wait a second before starting his countdown so I could squash the butterflies in my stomach. Once I took that moment, I was ready to go. He told me to jump as far out as I could and to pretend I was landing on a big mat behind me. One quick glance over the shoulder effectively dissipates that little fantasy, but at BUNGEE!!! I took the leap. Word on the bridge was that it looked rad. Later on I tried to go see the video of myself, but since I wasn’t going to pay $40 (US) to buy the DVD the guy was a jerk about it so I settled for pictures. Jumping backwards was 20 times better than the standard dive off. When looking down at the river it doesn’t seem like you’re falling as fast as you actually are. When watching the bridge you just fell from disappear at 75mph, the picture is pretty clear. Also the freefall is better because it makes you feel as if you’re floating. Once my body completed its 180 and I was looking down, the view was spectacular. The rainbow I had seen before formed a complete circle, contracting and expanding with each rise and fall. The Falls must have cleared somewhat, too, because I had an awesome perspective when I spun around that direction. All of that probably contributed to making me less nervous and light headed this time around from the upside-down dangle. Then once again, the man came down to collect me. He joked the whole way up about seeing me again in a few minutes after my initial ranting and raving about how sweet the jump had been. The whole way up I was giving some serious thought to going one last time but ended up talking myself out of it.
I came really close to changing my mind when a guy did a “shooting star” 20 minutes later. Laura and I were waiting on the bridge to watch some English friends we met at our youth hostel, Jolly Boys, bungee. Out of nowhere this guy gets strapped to the cord by his harness instead of his ankles and proceeds to take a running start to the edge before leaping out into his destiny. He got some serious distance for his effort and the result was basically a pendulum jump. I was so blown away I almost signed up for my third go.
A few minutes hesitation allowed me to re-negotiate myself back to leaving. But self-debating must have used all my energy because I couldn’t haggle well at all with the street vendor (bridge vendor?) named Abraham who had been with us since we parked the car. I ended up buying copper bracelets at a terrible price. Lucky I did buy from him instead of someone else, though. (There were a lot of options.) When we got back to the car to leave we didn’t have any Zambian Kwacha left to pay the car guard, and he started getting very flamed off. Then Abraham came to our rescue and told him to back off. He motioned for us to take off as his friend/colleague/whatever turned on him. So we did just that—left. I’ve never been happier with a purchase of metallic wrist wear and probably never will be again.
Well, that’s the end of my most death-defying experience to date. Next on the list is skydiving. I can’t wait to try that. As for the rest of my adventures, you’ll have to wait for the next installment. I’ll try to get it posted as soon as possible, but until then I’m leaving you with the very cliché:
To Be Continued…
