January 08, 2012

Been There Done Everything But That...

This girl is my hero. Now that's out of the way, let me quickly and grotesquely make this about me. I did this several years ago - bungee jumped from this spot -- the second highest bungee in the world at the time --- on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia above the Zambezi and in the ballpark of Vic Falls. I had a flight to catch that morning and was crazy hungover from drinking 20 Mosi beside a murky resort pool after barely not drowning in the Zambezi the day prior. I got to the site early to make sure I was the first one in line and the scale was broken. They told me to guess and I said something like 200. They wrote it on my arm and off I went, off to face my greatest fear - heights. But it wasn't just heights, it was heights in Africa. Big fucking difference. And actually, it wasn't just heights in Africa, but heights on the seemingly lawless bridge of no man's land floating between the two highly unstable countries of Zimbabwe and Zambia. Super big fucking difference. I was already soaked in sweat and about to toe the platform. The jump team was busy with checks when the guy working the scale summoned me back inside. Like anyone who had been eating bread and cheese and drinking wine on the beaches of South Africa with his traveling girlfriend for 2 months, for 2 meals a day, I soon found to have underestimated my weight by a not so insignificant 15 pounds. When I got to the platform the second time, and told the jump team my new weight, they all looked at each other with wide eyes, changed language to something I couldn't understand and then started laughing until one of them had a tear in his eye. The crying guy then turned to me to say something like - Man, this might not have gone so well for you.

"The company maintains, "The broken equipment has been replaced."" Classic.