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Monday July 6, 1998 - Today we rafted on the Zambezi River. It was really nice. I was scared but once I went through the first rapid I was fine. I saw there was nothing to it. We went through one rapid called terminator one and terminator two where my entire head was covered in a wall of water, but it only lasted 5 seconds. I opened my eyes and realized that we had not flipped. Our guide was Chris and he was a master. Later I found out he was on the Zimbabwe Olympic White Water Rafting team and had trained all the guides for the last 6 years. Shinge made sure I had him, because Shinge new I was worried. Shinge said: "Victor, I am going to give you the best. Chris take care of these guys. " Shinge did such a great job looking out for me. As we went through each rapid we got soaking wet from the splashing and would begin to shiver. The guides would wait ten minutes to warm us up in the sun and then we would get wet again and shiver in the next rapid. The Zambezi gorge was really beautiful. At some points it was 20 meters wide with Zambia on one side and Zimbabwe on the other. I did not warm up again until about 6 hours later from all that cool water. Normally I would be sweating bullets in the sun. We did have tshirt wet suits which helped but full body ones would have been better. We saw other groups with no wetsuites. I pity them. Later that day I learned that somebody on our trip lost a buddy in the Rapid called Oblivion, which we went through, last year. I am glad they told me that after the rafting was done. The people in the front of the raft where I was did a move that I called "wedge". It was I , Elisha, and a lady Marina from South Afrika. We formed our butts in a triangle , squatted and pressed our arms against each other really hard while at the same time holding on to the raft rails. It was a really primal feeling. We were rock solid and never got thrown out of the boat. I miss the "wedge" move. After the rafting was over, there was a nice walk up the gorge to lunch. Some thought it was steep but I enjoyed it and did not get hot. In the evening we met up again with the dutch cyclists making 3 times that I saw them. We had a nice dinner together. I hope to see them next year in Netherlands/Vlieland. Shinge was really nice and washed all our clothes while we were rafting. For the first time my pants and shirt were clean. I washed them before but never quite managed to get them so clean. I was very grateful. I feel very secure now in my biking ability after 3 1/2 weeks on the road. We have 2 big days and 1 little day left followed by a journey by ferry 400 km on Lake Kariba from Mlibizi to Kariba.
