Well I'm feeling pretty good at the moment. It's a sort of "I just cheated death" sort of feeling. This morning, Anna Mae and I successfully bungee jumped off the Victoria Falls bridge!! It was insane! So scary, so awesome!!
We've been talking about this jump for, well, years. Literally. But it's always been so far away. "yeah i'm gonna jump... whenever i get to zambia.." Well we're here, AND WE DID IT! Neither of us slept well last night, and one of us had to slug a few beers in order to get any sleep at all. This morning we boarded the shuttle around 10am and we both sat in silence the whole time, occasionally bursting into fits of hysterical laughter, because that was the only thing we could do. We got off the shuttle and walked along the road towards the Zambia/Zimbabwe boarder (the bridge is in between the two countries). We both remarked how this is what it must feel like to be walking towards your death: the heat, the empty road, the numbness and acceptance that there's nothing you can do about it anymore. It took about 5 minutes to walk to the boarder, and 5 minutes at reception before we walked out onto the bridge. As soon as we walked out there, the guy held out a harness for me and I stepped onto the platform. No time to think about it; just how I like it. Within a minute I was looking over edge and saying the typical American line of "HOLY SHIT!" No sooner had I said it that the man put out my arms and said "5..4..3..2..1..BUNGEE!!" I jumped. Not as far as I thought, but at least it wasn't like the girl after Anna Mae who had to be thrown off. It was a weird feeling. The first 3 seconds you get that stomach in your throat feeling. The next few seconds your like "shit, i'm STILL FALLING!!" then you twist around a bit as the bungee kicks in and all of a sudden you're coming back up. The WORST part of the whole thing was not the jumping, not the falling, but the bouncing. The weightless feeling you got at the top of your bungee, just before you fell again, with no control of it this time. It happened at least 6 times and my legs and arms visibly shook each time. Finally, I stopped bouncing and was reeled up to the bridge safely to watch Anna Mae repeat everything I had just done.
It was an awesome experience I will probably never do again. Ha.
We then wandered around the Falls for a while, trying not to be a little disappointed in the lack of water rushing down the Falls. Apparently there's been way less rain than usual (and it's technically the dry season anyway) so the Falls were still cool, but not as epic as they can be. Thank you Global Warming for that.
Tomorrow we're heading out for a sunset booze cruise on the Zambezi before we head out to the Zimbabwe side of the Falls on Tuesday. Should be awesome! : )
I'm trying to upload bungee pictures now, but hold tight for more, the Internet sucks...
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