The end of the rainy season is when the Zambezi river which flows over the falls is at its lowest. It hasn't rained here since March but the rains will come in November. This is the only time of year when they allow white water rafting on the river as the rest of the year it is too dangerous. As it was we almost died on the first rapid. This was the first time I had been on water and seen a life jacket as an absolute necessity to survival. Without the life jacket I would have been at the mercy of the endless supply of whirlpools undertows and 2 meter high rapids that would gladly drag a perso to the bottom of the 50 meter deep river.
The first rapid was the worst. There were 8 in the boat, one guide and 7 rookies. We weren't used to paddling and maintaining our balance while moving up and down 2 meters yet (plus there were 2 British guys in our boat who were very hungover from their adventures the night before). Because of where we placed our boats in the river we had to cut across the current on the first rapid. We started paddling hard but when we hit the first wave half of us fell into the middle of the raft. We lost all our power and momentum and the current swept us into a wave at the edge of the river which flipped us easily and suddenly the river was speckled with bobbing heads and paddles. I managed to hold onto the raft and so pulled myself up underneath the flipped raft. This made my life a lot easier since I wasn't dragged under water and forced to hold my breathe but I was the only one who managed to hold on. The rest were all saved by their life jackets and the other rafts. The rest of the rapids were just as crazy but were were used to paddling so we only flipped once more and that was on purpose (kind of) and we all managed to hold onto the boat then.
Rapid Number 1 (400m from the bottom of the falls)
I would recommend this adventure to anyone who is getting bored of riding roller coasters.
As for the falls the pictures will do them justice.
