Its time for Africa!

The Africa trip was conceived (of all the places) in Arunachal, on the banks of the Brahmaputra.

So we decided the next river would have to be the mighty Zambezi. A bunch of us got together and convinced Vaibhav Kala to put together a river trip for us on the Zambezi and bung in a safari leg too - in the Masai Mara.

What an amazing trip it turned out to be! The short (seemed like it was a whole day long) flight from Lusaka to Livingstone in a 10-seater plane where you could open the windows!

Pretty much everyone on that flight threw up their lunch, i was busy passing out airsickness bags, thank god i didnt need one!

As we flew closer to Livingstone, the aerial views of the Victoria falls were simply breathtaking, pictures look brilliant but the real thing was spectacular.

The walk in front of the falls was something you could feel as much as see, the roar of the falls could be felt inside your body and the mist all over your face!

Soon after, Ruch and i did the Gorge swing together, which was very very scary for me and the only way i got through it was because of her. Even more importantly, it took the edge off my fear and i was able to do the bungee jump later the same afternoon.

The Bungee was a highlight in itself.... separate blogpost for that !

The hectic, activity-ridden day was followed by the calm, relaxing and soothing upriver cruise on the Zambezi river. Beer and sunset with friends, life couldn't be better.

The following day we went for, what I thought was the scariest experience of the entire trip - a dip in the Devil's Pool.

The pool is formed right above the lip of the Victoria falls with a sheer drop of 885 meters on the other side. and yet it is completely safe (or so we were told)

The 2-day rafting was quite spectacular, the first of which was the single most exhilarating day of rafting I have ever done - and naturally the hardest and most exhausting too.

That amazing night of sleep on the beach in a sleeping bag under the stars was one to remember, i woke up in the middle of the night and my eyes opened to a sky full of stars - a carpet of stars in the sky. a spectacular sight indeed!

The 2nd leg of the trip was to the Masai Mara, which all but beat the first leg of rafting !

all the days merged into one of unbelievable sightings of Lions, Cheetahs, Rhinos, Giraffes, Zebras, Elephants, Hippos, Deer etc etc

And that too at such close quarters that some were scarily touching distance!

The trip ended (or so we thought) with a meal at Carnivore where we tried some exotic meats...

On a whim and a fancy, some of us decided to extend our trip by 3 days and go to Mombasa!
Was just the relaxing, unwinding relaxation we needed after the hectic rafting and safari 'holiday' we had just experienced.....