Almost Famous

Down the drain

A few months after we left Africa, a blogger from Spain who maintains a popular site where he collects bits of information about interesting and strange places and events wrote an article about the adrenaline-junkies messing around in Devil’s Pool, the natural swimming pool at the edge of Victoria Falls, which we had visited in September. He assembled a few photos and videos off the internet and linked them to the original sources. Within days, my flickr picture set on Victoria Falls was getting thousands of views. I tracked the clicks back to the referring site, to find out to whom I owed this unexpected surge in interest – for once the view count of my travel pictures of exotic places was surpassing that of my older photos of drunk girls kissing in dark and noisy clubs.

Rich and famous... and beautiful!

By April, the story was making the rounds on the internet and a few news agencies caught wind of it. Devil’s Pool hasn’t been discovered yesterday; in fact tourists have been going there for a quick adrenaline-loaded swim for decades. But it looks like every generation needs to be reminded of the same things over and over. There’s just too much information floating around for us to be aware of; knowledge that isn’t in your face daily (and even that) is forgotten fast – how else would you explain the avalanche of movie remakes these days? Hollywood began by reissuing and updating movies from the forties, which were understandably unknown to most of the population currently living on Earth, but with each revamping project they are getting closer and closer the movies of our times – money-making entertainment machine has married attention-deficit disorder and their children are the placebo soothing pills of our anxieties. Soon they’ll be remaking next year’s movies today… but I digress…

A British online news agency contacted me on flickr and asked for permission to use my pictures – in exchange for publishing credit and compensation. I gladly agreed – who doesn’t want to be famous on the internet? – and they wrote a short article that appeared in the online versions of a few British newspapers. The reporter asked me for some quotes about my experience, which he wanted to use in the article. Among others, here’s what I said; this quote was reproduced without much journalistic adjustment:

“Being in Devil's pool is a serious adrenaline rush for the first few minutes. If you jump (you can also get in gently) it adds up to the excitement. The thought that you may get sucked away from the relatively calm waters of the pool and down the foamy hell into the pit makes you giddy with apprehension - although you have to stray far out quite a bit for that to happen. It's great fun - some people enjoy it quietly, swimming, looking, thinking, while others keep screaming to no end.”

I also told the reporter that we chose to go swimming in Devil’s Pool instead of trying bungee jumping because there would be plenty of opportunities for bungee in other places, but swimming at the edge of a 360-feet waterfall is not something you can do anywhere and anytime. That was quoted as “[…] said it was better than bungee jumping”. Well, damn you reporters! I have never jumped anyway, so I wouldn’t know.

Within days I also gave publishing rights to BBC Brazil and to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Before I could say “waterfall” my quote and pictures were syndicated in online newspapers and magazines around the world, translated from English into Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, hell knows what else, and even Romanian. They also made it into a printed version of the US entertainment magazine “In Touch” – which I am considering suing for millions owed to me in royalties. Wouldn’t you?

OMG! A child! Save him!
This guy had his share of online bashing

The readers’ comments online were mixed – half of the people adhered to the “this is soooo cool, I want to do it too” opinion, the other half supported the “these people are idiots, they should put themselves out of the gene pool” position. An even more divisive discussion went on about the people who had their children in Devil’s Pool with them: one group (consisting, of course, of people who have never been to Victoria Falls) kept screaming bloody murder “I can’t believe these idiots can be so reckless to take their children in the pool with them and expose them to such danger,” to which the second group would reply: “get a life, these children are obviously not in danger; if it were up to you, the social services would rule everybody’s lives and children would go to the playground swathed in bubble wrap.”

So, uhm… I’m famous! Do you want to hang out with me?

Note: not all photos featured in the articles listed below are mine. While all those news items quote my words and mention my name, the photos come from various sources. In some case, other Victoria Falls pictures have even been mistakenly attributed to me.
Some of the links below may become dead over time. The internet moves fast…

Article Links:

UK

South West News Service
Daily Mail Online
Daily Mirror
Metro Online
Times Online
Opodo Travel News
Daily Express
Atlas Direct
The London Paper
Essential Travel
The Telegraph
2by2 Holidays

Brasil

BBC Brasil
Ultimo Segundo
Globo News
Camera2
Jornal NH

Viet Nam

Viet Bao

Romania

Timis Online
Femina
Ziua
Click.ro
Cancan
Kappa
Informatia Zilei
Antena3 (hacked)

Austria

ORF

Croatia

24sata

Poland

Onet.pl

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All those place names that start with Z…

No worries, I am still alive
Click on pic to see slideshow
or here to access the set

Because of my visa troubles I couldn’t get into Zimbabwe, so Angela and I separated from the tour group at Kasane in Botswana and, having arranged for private transport well in advance, we crossed directly into Zambia. Romania, it appears, is a great friend of Zambia; therefore Romanian citizens get in for free as tourists, while Americans have to pay. Skipping Zimbabwe and going on our own for a few days turned out to be a great idea for a number of reasons: one – there’s only so long that one can sleep in a tent before starting to dream painfully about a real bed. Two – Zimbabwe is not exactly a welcoming place these days; as the other members of our group attested later on, inflation is still rampant, stores are empty (can’t even find purified water) and restaurant menus are sad reminders that the country has seen better days. And three – the 23rd was the day of our wedding anniversary; there had to be a better way to spend it than in a camping park! Our trip within the trip in Zambia gave us exactly what we needed: a real bed (no luxury mind you, just a bungalow at the Jolly Boys backpacker hostel in Livingstone), peace and privacy and more opportunities to spend money (like that was ever lacking!)

Relax, it's just water!

While the rest of the people in our tour group were busy with bungee jumping and whitewater rafting across the border, we, not being the typical adrenaline junkies (or rather from a desire to save money), opted for the tamer alternative of visiting the falls. Victoria Falls is a sight that can only be described with superlatives, but this being the dry season when little water flows down the Zambezi River, the view of the falls from the Zambian visitor park is not too spectacular. Hence, at first sight, my awe-struck adjectives were failing to emerge and I had to focus my camera more often on the craggy river gorge at the bottom of the falls than on the wall of water that I had expected and was nowhere to be seen. The Zimbabwe visitor park is situated further away, right across the most powerful and water-rich side of the falls, and therefore offers a better view. But since most of that water that flows down into the gorge is a “property” of the proud Zambians, the poorer view is compensated by the availability of activities that are only possible on their side of the border. One of those is swimming at the edge of the falls.

And this is exactly what we did for our one year-anniversary. There’s no metaphor in “the edge of the falls”; natural barrier-like rock formations at the brim of the chasm, a weaker current, and low water conditions caused by the dry season create a few easily accessible pools from which water overflows indeed into the falls but gently enough not to take you with it down into the pit. Now, everyone who knows Angela knows she loves swimming. I… not so much. But the thrill of this unique adventure overcame my natural indifference to swimming pools and I did not regret getting wet. I have the pictures to speak for me.

Sunset over the Zambezi.

We finished the night with dinner at the Royal Livingstone hotel, on the peaceful riverbanks of the Zambezi not far from the falls, which can only be seen from here as a white, silent mist in the distance. Zebras were strolling on the lawn of the magnificent Victorian-style property and vervet monkeys were playing between the reclining chairs at the pool. An army of well-dressed waiters ensured that all the needs of the (mostly retired, by their looks) crowd of hungry patrons were promptly attended. The food was indeed five-star. For once, I even wore a shirt, albeit not ironed. For a few hours we forgot about all the past and future dinners eaten in semi-obscurity by the side of the truck, balancing the plates of food on our knees, anxiously looking around for the hungry baboons lurking behind us, ready to steal anything edible they could get their hands on…

Posted from Stone Town, Zanzibar

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