Mighty Zambezi River | Rafting & Kayaking Overnight

The Zambezi. One of the most famous rivers on earth, and for good reason. The river is stacked with big water features, warm water, and a unique subculture of guides, porters, and safety kayakers that make their living off the spectacular Batoka Gorge below Victoria Falls. Along the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, an impressive series of zigzag gorges have been carved out just beneath Victoria Falls, or what the Lozi named Mosia Tunya, the smoke that thunders. The massive basalt plateau that the falls and gorges cut through was formed around 180 million years ago, and was formed with large cracks of weaker sandstones that have now eroded into the chasms seen today. The fourth longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile River, Congo, and Niger, The Zambezi is about 250 kilometers longer than the Colorado River in North America, and much higher volume. Two massive dams have been constructed since the 1950s on the Zambezi's lower course, the Kohorabasa Dam in Mozambique, and the Kariba Dam shared by Zambia and Zimbabwe. More recently, another dam has been proposed in the Batoka Gorge, a section with world class whitewater, and has been strongly opposed by the local rafting industry and international whitewater enthusiasts alike. There are two towns near Victoria Falls, one in Zimbabwe, and one in Zambia. Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, which up until the 2000s was the favorite of tourists, but political tensions have shifted the primary tourist hub to Livingston in Zambia. Livingston is where we would base our nine day trip down the Zambezi. Upstream of the falls is a largely flat, slow, meandering river, very different than the rapids and the gorge that lie below, and there's plenty of big wildlife to be seen from the banks, and in the river. Just on the north bank of the upstream section lies Mosiatunya National Park, named for the falls, and it makes for a pretty interesting side hike with a chance to see white rhinos, which are being reintroduced to the area from South Africa. I remember one man, he was a great fisherman. After catching fish, he caught a lot of fish, almost a bag, so he wanted to take a bath. He went along the river and tried to take a bath. He was caught by the big crocodile. Here? Yeah, just here, opposite. Because most people are caught by the crocodile, they never survive. Take you down, other crocodiles will follow the blood, and start now taking this one, this one, this one. That's scary. That's more scary than any of the rapids downstream. Yeah, the rapids seem like very tame and easy compared to the crocodile. Okay, I'm making a Zambian cuisine. Zambian cuisine? Yes, like from, I've picked like from four different tribes. Okay. I've picked their specials. Yeah. Yes, and I'm gonna present it, and every dish has a story behind it. Is this, what is this again? That's cassava. We call it tute. It's a root. It's like sweet potato, but it's not sweet. So this is enshima. Enshima. This is our staple food. It's corn, it's made out of corn. And this is kapenta, little fish from Siavonga, and it's called Siavonga. Yes, this is the vinkubara, Mokani worms. It's my favorite. Simon, how is it, good? Oh, super good. Delicious. Especially the little grubs, they're the best. This is Don, and those are three elephants that want to walk through our camp. Want them to go that side. Three elephants just crossed down to the island. Yeah, that's why we do this. We're being invaded. Maybe sleep, so we sleep here, that's why. It's coming. It's coming, yeah. Organize, organize, organize. Again, do it again, so. Yeah, good. They are bulls. Those are the ones we raised last year. Yeah, yesterday was. Oh, doing a nice trail down to Boiling Pot. Trap at number one, about ready to get on the Zambezi. Number five, or Stairway to Heaven, presents one of the biggest raft flipping waves on the trip. Rafts typically opt for a center line leading into a violent crashing wave. Kayakers can take this line, or many like to go for the hero route on River Rite. This is Camp at Rapid 6, Devil's Toilet Ball. That's the rapid you see right downstream. It's a small beach. You gotta level out the sand, but it's pretty nice. Rapid number seven, Gulliver's Travels, is one of the longer rapids on the trip. Number eight. Number eight, Midnight Diner, has three named lines. Kentucky Fried Chicken line on River Rite, the Muncher line down the center, and the Star Trek line on River Left, offering a big serve from left to center. Shortly after number eight comes number nine, Commercial Suicide. It is always portaged on River Rite by commercial companies due to the steep entrance drop. Boats are lined to a shallow shelf and then released through the rapid to be recovered by kayakers waiting in the pool below. To help tackle some of the larger falls and rapids, Rocky developed autorites, detachable modules that can be strapped to normal rafts or catarafts. The autorites, as the name suggests, help to rewrite the raft in the event of a flip. I'm blind, but she's our Kukosa Mwangi. Dr. How do you find those face rapids up there, 1 to 10? Big, especially at 5, 9. I'd walk 9 today. At the lower flows that we had, number 18, Oblivion, makes for some great fun for raps to gut the third wave and try not to flip. During the annual Zambezi Fest fun, big flips are all but guaranteed here. We got pancakes. Pancakes on the Zambezi. On the Dutch oven. Noam, which camp are we at here? This is camp 21. Camp 21, yes. Why is it called camp 21? So this over there is rapid number 21. We just passed that. It's a beautiful camp and they use it also as a take out. So you have the possibility to walk out here. Yeah, we're pumping some water. Morning, how are you? Good, how are you doing? I'm okay. My name is Michael. I'm from Koon village, it's in Songwe. The nearest village to number 10. I'm now doing 30 years of kayaking. I started like these guys who carry some raft to bring down and up. I was a porter, so I just changed my mind. I just found one guy from Zimbabwe who was kayaking. His name is Zwery Manzi. The one who teach me how to kayak. Then I joined another guy from America. His name is John Snyder. Kayaking is good all the time. We are fighting with water. It's good. So you like kayaking more than rafting then? Exactly. I enjoy surfing. Especially in the water wave. It's very nice, especially 12B. 12B? Yeah, it's very nice. Sometimes I normally come there and start surfing. All day. Ye mama, ye mama, ye mama, ye mama Ye mama, ye mama, ye mama Near a village, a quiet village A lion sleeps tonight Near a village, a peaceful village A lion sleeps tonight Below Rapid 21, the white water becomes more spaced out and long stretches of calm water lie between the drops. Some of the most difficult rapids on the river, such as Chamamba, Moemba Falls, and Chibongo Falls are down here and require some creative portaging or lining of the rafts. All day trips take out well above all of these rapids. Come on! I'm trying to fish it. Lower Moemba requires some creative lining or lowering of the rafts using ropes without passengers. Below Moemba and about 54 kilometers below Victoria Falls lies Chibongo Falls, which has been selected as the site for a new 2400 megawatt hydroelectric dam by the Zambezi River Authority. The dam would flood the gorge upstream to as far as the base of the falls and cover all the white water shown up to this point. The Power Corporation of China and General Electric of the U.S. were awarded with developing the project. It is hard to find the process and reasoning for how these two companies were chosen to construct the dam and similarly difficult to understand exactly where the power will end up going from the information they make available to the public. Reading through the ZRA's own environmental impact studies, it is interesting that they point out mostly negative impacts besides the gain of power and the supposed increase in jobs. However, they do identify the loss of rafting industry jobs along with a loss of around $3.4 million annually. However, it does not appear that they account for the associated jobs from hotels, restaurants, and other rafting tourist services. Several local opposition groups have been fighting the construction of the dam since its inception and will continue to do so until it is built. The last time we ran it kind of blind. It's long, rapid, a lot of big waves, kind of like Hermit on the Grand Canyon, although they're a little bit more chaotic and I think a little bit bigger and there's a lot more of them. So, last time we went through, everybody went upright except one boat. Hopefully we'll be upright again. It's called Deep Throat and it's a big one. It's short and steep, kind of violent, depending on how you do it. ♪♪♪ As the story goes, the Tonga people know the spirit of the Zambezi, whom they call the Nyami Nyami, described as a godlike figure with the body of a snake and the head of a fish or a whirlwind shape. In 1956, during the construction of the Kariba Dam, the Nyami Nyami brought a hundred-year flood, which destroyed the cofferdam and took out much of what had been built. After rebuilding the cofferdam, a thousand-year flood struck in 1958, taking out everything again. But the construction went on and finally the dam would be built, displacing over 50,000 Tonga people. But it is said that the dam separated Nyami Nyami from his wife. Mounting concerns about the dam's stability have some engineers speculating that it may come crashing down in the near future. Yeah, so if you eat crocodile... If you eat tortoise, one day the tortoise will bite you. From Kuni, from the location in Masongo's village, it's been struck or something. ♪♪♪♪ Below Deep Throat, the river flattens out for a while. Downstream, though, lies a three-part rapid with a big finish, aptly named Asleep at the Wheel, as the unsuspecting boater has begun to let their hair down. ♪♪♪♪♪ Happy Hippocamp. A couple hippos out there. Happy Hippocamp. Day nine this morning, so we are just before the take-out. ♪♪♪♪♪ After Hippocamp, the gorge begins to open up, and the Zambezi widens again as it flows into the largest man-made lake on earth, Lake Kariba, backed up by the Kariba Dam. We would end our nine-day Zambezi adventure on River Wright in Zimbabwe, about 40 kilometers above the start of the reservoir. The Zambezi definitely lives up to the legends told around boater campfires across the globe. Economic development and reliable electricity are important to Zambia and Zimbabwe's future, but the cultural and environmental costs of losing such a legendary river are steep. Of course, my sentiments lie with the local population that is most connected to the river and are hoping for a government that will protect their mighty Zambezi. ♪♪♪♪♪♪