Livingstone...again

The first thing Justin and I did after he flew in was to take a bus to Livingstone. I'd already been there in April, but no trip to Zambia is complete without taking in the legendary Victoria Falls. We stayed at Jolly Boys Backpackers (highly recommended) for a few nights and just hung around the town and saw the falls.

The highlight of the trip by far was our decision to go bungee jumping. Neither of us had ever done this before and were both quite excited. The place has a 100% success record, so we felt confident that we were in good hands. Justin decided he wanted to go first, so I got a few pictures of him jumping (check out my pictures section to see). He was quite composed and when jumping, threw out the bull horns (first and pinky fingers) and gave bellow of "Cowabunga."

After he jumped, I was next and asked the guy where I should put my hat, sunglasses, and camera, because Justin was dangling upsidedown below me. He pointed to a trunk/chest nearby and assured me all would be safe there. I had no reason to doubt this information. So I stepped out to the little platform and sat down where directed to and the guy started explaining how things would work. During this he was wrapping my ankles up with padding since that was where I'd be connected from. Upon the completion of that, I was directed to stand up and get mentally prepared. As I was enterinig my Zen-like state, I looked over to the direction of the aforementioned trunk/chest and saw a guy wearing a hat that looked remarkably similar to mine. I thought that was a bit odd. Then I looked at his chubby little hand and saw he was clutching my sunglasses. (The guy I speak of was this short little Dutch fellow who jumped a few people ahead of me). So I said to the employee I was with, "Hey, that guy is trying to steal my stuff." He looked at him, then me, and said, "Well, you better do something about that." So I hopped over to the fence (since my ankles were bound together) and said, "Hey buddy, I'm sure it's some misunderstanding but I think you accidentally grabbed my sunglasses." He had a confused look on his face so I thought I'd help him out, "They're in your hand. The left one there." It was all clear for him then. He said sorry and acted like he had no idea how they got there. That made my next comment more easy because he was playing dumb...so I said, "You've also got my hat." Again a confused look as he looked at both of his empty hands. Again I helped him out by offering, "It's the one on your head. Yeah, that's mine. If you could just put it back where you took it from I'd appreciate it." Then a look of bewildered recognition from him like he couldn't fathom how my hat was perched atop his head. He placed them back in the box for me.

Anyways, back to the jump. So they had me hop up to the edge of the platform and hooked me in. After that they really give you no time to think. I was standing at the edge for less than 10 seconds before the started the countdown. I was really concerned before that they'd have to push me off, but at 2, I leaped for all my rubbery legs were worth at that point in time. I was not quite as eloquent as Justin for the only distinguishable words I yelled were "Holy shit!"

At the end of the day though, it was a fantastic time and we both agreed we would 'jump' at the opportunity to go bungeeing again. So from there we went back to our backpackers and prepared to arise the next morning and take the 5:00AM bus to Lusaka so we could go to the beer cricket tournament.