Zambezi – part 1
This year Peter Csonka and Nina Halasova decided to spend their Christmas and New Year holidays with friends in Zambia on the famous Zambezi river. Here’s the first part of what they experienced on their trip…
We have already visited Africa and were a couple of times in Uganda, but Zambia definitely surprises us. We are staying at a very nice place called Livingstone backpackers.
Getting ready for the Zambezi
The first day on Zambezi we went down the rapids 1 to 10, together with Nico Chassing the owner of the Bundu adventures.
The raft put-in
The rapids are amazing, the water has a little bit higher level, so the rapids are more powerfull and a lot of fun.
Vlado in No. 1
There are some rapids that are very strong like No. 5,7,9. No. 5, called “Stairway to Heaven” is a huge rapid with huge holes; there is no line and every time I went there I had some big downtimes.
No. 5
Rapid No. 7 “Gulliver’s travels’” is probably the longest rapid in this section. The line there is tough at this water level and it is very easy to fall over huge rocks where the water is pushing in the end of the rapid. Rapid No.9 called ”Commercial Suicide’’ is the most intensive rapid which is working at the moment.
Commercial Suicide
No. 9
It is an awesome rapid and I am glad that I was able to run it, because now the river is starting to carry too much water.
Peter surfing No. 8
After a week of kayaking with my friends (Jano , Matej, Sasa, Capko, Snorchel) and my girlfriend Nina on the best rapids ever, we decided to do a trip to Lake Kariba for 3 days.
Nina taking a rest
Normally this trip takes about 5-7 days. So we started to organise this trip with Nico. He helped us with everything - without him wouldn’t have been able to do this. So we bought all the food, drinks, water and packed the car which Nico drove through the bush for 9 hours. Then he went back on his motorbike. Incredible, we don’t really know what to expect or how it will be like. What we do know is that there will be lots of crocs, hippos, snakes and other wild animals. And there will be no people, no cell phone, reception, nothing, just animals and us.
When Nico came back we started to prepare our gear like tents, dishes, meals, drinks … everything we will need. We cannot take too many things, because all the staff and gear must go with the raft while we will kayak down (until it gets too dangerous because of the animals). Now we are sitting at the campsite, make up stories about killing hippos and crocs, drink cold beer. We are excited and a bit afraid to leave tomorrow morning. For the next four days we will be out of reach, but after this trip the story will continued soon, for sure.
Pictures by Matej Fabianek
See you than
Peter , Nina , Capko , Jano , Matej , Sasa, Snorchel
Tags: commercial suicide · Nina Halasova · part 1 · Peter Csonka · zambezi
