The Ultimate Ride: African Rush

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This is the first in a series of guest posts from Steve Ogle’s journal during a 2008 trip to Zambia to film The Ultimate Ride: African Rush.

Day 1

Portland to Amsterdam to Frankfurt to Johannesburg to Livingston, Zambia. 3 stops. 4 Flights. 39 hours. Not the longest travel itinerary in the history of the world I’m sure, but by the middle of the flight from Frankfurt to Livingston it was certainly starting to seem like it. Those “painful” 5 ½ hour coast to coast trips all of a sudden seemed like a trip across town. At least I was psychologically prepared for a long trip. All this to document the attempt of kayaker Steve Fisher to run the Zambezi river at levels unseen since the mid 1950’s. Pretty cool stuff…I’d just like to get the “getting there” part out of the way.

We were able to take advantage of a long layover in Amsterdam to take a train downtown and spend a couple of hours looking around. Definitely a city I’d like to go back to and see more of.

The crew is mostly the same as on our trip to Japan. Erich Lyttle: Director, Dave Unitan: Director of Photography, Barney Bonito: Camera and the addition of Austin Storms: Sound. We also connected with Tyler Curtis, a another pro kayaker, in Johannesburg. He would be Steve’s paddling partner for most of the trip. Then there’s me, keeper of the bribe money and malaria pills.

All things considered, it was a very long but uneventful trip. We arrived on time in Livingston with virtually no problems. Until we got there. To make a long story short: the good news was that 21 checked bags showed up. The bad news was that we started with 22. Of course bag #22 had several critical things in it and still hasn’t turned up yet. The other good news was that after many hours working with US Customs and the Dept. of Homeland Security, I came prepared with a Certificate of registration from US detailing all of our equipment for security and importation purposes. The bad news is what the local customs officers really wanted was a Temporary Import Permit issued by the Zambian government. An hour and a half and $250 in bribes later we got to the curb with our 21 out of 22 bags.

Things improved a bit at that point. Even though we had been out of direct communication with Steve Fisher for almost 2 weeks because of a trip he had taken to remote parts of the Northern Zambezi, he was still there to meet us with the director of the Zambian tourism bureau in tow. He had arranged for a 12 passenger land rover with a trailer for our equipment and the various kayaks.

Our first stop was in “downtown” Livingston to change some US dollars for Zambian Qwacha. This is one of those situations where, for at least a minute, you feel rich after the exchange. $300 USD was equivalent to 1,020,000 Qwacha. Instant millionaire.

This was also out first real indication that “we weren’t in Kansas anymore”. After the relative sterility and a sort of “American feel” of the stops in Europe, and even Johannesburg, it felt like we were suddenly stepping into a National Geographic movie. Dirty, ramshackle buildings, street vendors, and a feel of poverty everywhere. In a strange contradiction Zambia is one of the poorest countries in Africa with an average life expectancy of less than 35 years, but conversely has one of the highest literacy rates on the continent.

After a quick drive through town we arrived at our hotel, The Waterfront Lodge. A modest but nice place right on the Zambezi River. My next sign that we were strangers in a strange land happened quickly. I checked into my room, complete with mosquito netting on the bed, and left the door slightly ajar. I turned around to grab my bag to find a small monkey sitting on it. He kind of looked at me for a second and calmly went back the way he came. Different to say the least. After a quick meeting about plans for the next day (over several Mosi’s…apparently the Zambian beer of choice), we called it a (LOOONG) day.

Day 2 

(Day 1? Day 4?) was mostly about getting oriented and organized for the week. It also started with the worst news of the trip so far: no real coffee anywhere. Nescafe instant is the brew of choice. No Starbucks for 1000 miles. Apparently sacrifices will have to be made. This morning we were met by Kenny, our driver for the trip and also somewhat of a local tour guide. Today we were also joined by Dan Campbell, an old friend of Steve’s, a kayaker, and cameraman who will help us with the production.

The first stop of the day was a short drive and then a hike to the “put in” point for the kayaks near the base of Victoria Falls (“The Smoke that Thunders”). Truly a spectacular sight. Many times the volume of Niagara Falls. The spray from the water piling over the edge creates a mist several hundred feet high that is visible for miles. From a distance it looks like a forest fire, thus the “smoke” part of the slogan. It was a pretty strenuous hike down to the water and then back up, but we have porters available to us to help carry equipment as well as portaging the kayaks. For the thankless job of dragging our stuff all over, they are royally rewarded with a whopping $2 a day. Not a career I currently aspire to.

We managed to get a decent sequence shot and left Steve, Dan and Tyler to make their way down to rapid #9 where we would meet them and get some action shots. The rapids are numbered from 1 to 23 starting at the falls and descending several miles downriver.

The drive to the vista was a combination of severely rutted dirt roads (relative super highways in these parts) and truly off-off road cross country 4 wheeling. After several dusty miles of dirt roads Kenny suddenly turned off into the brush at a seemingly random spot in the middle of nowhere. We “bushwhacked” a few more miles and stopped for the beginning of a 2 or 3 mile hike into the top of the gorge. How he knows how to get around here is beyond me.

So far the weather has really been pretty spectacular. Sunny, warm and not particularly humid. But, I have to say that after two or three miles hiking in the bush in direct sunshine it started to feel like 110 in the shade. We finally reached the rim of the gorge to a spectacular view several hundred feet above the raging (and I MEAN raging) Zambezi. These guys have got to be insane to run little plastic boats in this kind of water. Dan Campbell relates the strategy if you get inextricably pulled underwater during a run in this kind of water: clamp your mouth and nose shut until you pass out so that your lungs don’t fill with water and then hope someone gets to you in time to resuscitate you. If you leave your boat and swim, not only will no one be able to rescue you, there’s a good chance your body will never be found either.

Luckily none of this was necessary today and everyone made it through the rapids relatively unscathed. After a sweaty hike back to the truck (I’m not smelling so great these days), we drove back to the hotel for dinner, beers and a re-group for tomorrow.

Day 3

Today was our first sign of bad weather and bad production JuJu. We woke up to rain and bureaucracy. We needed to get a permit to shoot inside the Victoria Falls Park and, on a good day, it’s quite a process. Today it was a full-on nightmare. Based on my limited experience so far, Zambian officials are greedy, unhelpful and verrrrry slow moving. It took the better part of the day to get things squared away (not to mention another $500 “honorarium” to the local officials) to get the piece of paper we need to keep moving. But by mid-afternoon we were set and at least got what we needed.

In a 180 degree turn, the back end of the day was the highlight of the trip so far. We took Steve’s head porter, Makuma, back to his village to shoot an interview. After a nearly 45 minute drive (this is a distance Makuma RUNS to meet Steve at their usual meeting place), we arrive at his village. Another 4 star National Geographic moment. Mud huts, women carrying baskets on their heads and children and animals everywhere. The kids were fascinated by the camera equipment and after we shot the interview we spent the better part of an hour taking their pictures and showing them “digital images” of themselves. We ended the day with one of the more spectacular sunsets I’ve seen. Definitely one for the memory banks.

Pre-order (release set for June 9th, 2009) The Ultimate Ride: African Rush here.

You can expect guest posts every Friday at seanogle.com.  Next Friday be sure to check out Quit Your Job, Move to Hawaii Part 2 of 3.

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