Vacation Re-Cap: Victoria Falls, Zambia and Zimbabwe

Here's the obligatory selfie of me standing next to part of Victoria Falls. There are three really big water falls on this earth: Iguazu, Niagara and Victoria. Which one is the largest depends on what measure you're using (amount of water? height) but, according to the tourist info board at Vic Falls, this water fall is the largest continuously falling sheet of water on the planet. We arrived in the low season but it was still A LOT of water. I thought my camera might not survive the deluge.

Victoria Falls is also the site of the craziest thing we did on this trip: swimming in the Devil's Pool. The Devil's Pool is a spot right on the lip of the falls where you can swim, usually without dying, when the water is low enough. That was all I knew when we signed up for the guided tour out there. We thought it would be an easy 1km walk - wrong. We hiked through the Zambezi, walking on rocks and inching through flowing water, for more than an hour to get there. We had to hold hands in a long chain to keep steady, slipping and sliding in the water and risking a broken ankle.

Once we got to Livingstone Island we had to SWIM to the pool. While Zach says he was never scared, I was petrified. We were only 20 feet from the edge of the falls, swimming through a very strong current and rushing water and praying to not be swept over (there was a safety rope over the falls but I didn't want to have to use it - plus what if you miss it when you try to grab?). We all swam over successfully but once we saw where they expected to jump in I began laughing incredulously and refused. I ended up getting in but it was the scariest thing I've ever done by choice. The water is constantly threatening to float you over the lip of the pool and send you crashing down the falls. To me, the water was just too high to be taking people out there and I felt the guides were willing to do anything to get my $30. I wouldn't do it again. And that night back at the hotel I felt like I had PTSD. But so far so good - no nightmares about being swept over the falls and we got some cool pictures of it.

Here's where we walked back after our adventure, right on the lip of the falls:

And here's me taking the plunge into the Devil's Pool: