Christian, his best friend Cam, his girlfriend Ruby, and her sister Bridget stood on a 120-year-old bridge straddling two countries, watching mist rise off Victoria Falls and a double rainbow arc through the gorge below, and nobody turned back. The bridge separating Zimbabwe from Zambia is the kind of place that turns hesitation into something you tell people about for the rest of your life. The four of them had arrived at the falls as the most adrenaline-filled stop yet on a coast-to-coast motorbike crossing of Africa, and the jump was always the plan, even if Ruby had not fully confirmed that with herself yet.
A penguin waddle to the edge
The bungee jump at Victoria Falls is technically performed from Zambian territory, which meant the group quietly picked up an unplanned seventh country on a trip that started with six. A local guide named Prior welcomed them across the border with calm reassurance. The briefing came from a man named Lee: dive forward, keep your arms out, avoid spinning, and trust the five seconds of freefall. What nobody warned Christian about was the wrapping process. Thick blankets were bound around his ankles, and he waddled to the edge unable to move his legs, staring down at what he described as ‘a death swirl’ in the current far below.
Cam went first. Then Christian, who shouted declarations of love mid-drop. Cam’s brother-in-law followed, moving through the air like, in Christian’s words, ‘a little discount superhero.’ Then came Ruby, who paused at the edge to say a quiet prayer before the countdown hit one. She came back up beaming. ‘Indescribable,’ she said. ‘I’m glad I did it, but it’s just as scary if not even scarier.’
Ben, a Zimbabwean who spent 17 years in the UK before coming home to run a marketing company, had been guiding the group through the country all day. While they recovered from the jump, he told the story of the bridge’s construction 120 years ago: the two halves were built simultaneously from opposite banks, and when they finally met, they were one inch off. The story goes that the engineer, distraught, took his own life that night. The next morning, the bridge had corrected itself, the two halves drawn together by heat expanding the metal overnight. Whether the story is entirely true, Ben noted, nobody can quite say.
A hotel that almost kept its trees
Before Ruby and Bridget flew out, the group visited a small property called Banana Mana, where the owner, who had spent nearly 20 years living outside Zimbabwe before returning, described building his first hotel from scratch. He found the land in 2016, raised money in 2017, started construction in 2018, finished in 2019, and then COVID arrived. During the entire build, only two trees were removed. The architect had originally wanted the trees inside the main structure, but their branching was too wide and too unpredictable, so the building was redesigned around them instead. A Time magazine travel journalist stayed at Banana Mana and, weeks later, called the owner to say she had submitted his story. It appeared in the magazine’s annual list of the world’s greatest places, and his property was one of four featured as a headline story rather than a single-line mention.
Christian asked the owner to sign the motorbikes before they parted. He did.
The cost nobody mentions in the brochure
Zimbabwe delivered wonder on every front, but Christian was candid about what it cost. Entry to the national park for four people ran $232. The border crossing alone came to $350. Flying over the park by helicopter added a $25-per-person national park fee on top of the base price, meaning $100 in additional fees before anyone lifted off. As he put it after swiping his card yet again at the falls: ‘Better follow the rainbow and find the leprechaun, cuz I need some gold after this.’
Back at their accommodation, the team had quietly arranged a birthday brunch. Christian had ridden a horse for the first time, bungee jumped for the first time, and flown in a helicopter for the first time, all in the same day. At dinner that evening, with Ben beside him, he called it the best birthday of his life, then was immediately asked to do it again with more feeling, which made everyone laugh.
The bikes before the road gets bad
The signed motorbikes sat outside, Ruby and Bridget’s names freshly written on the bodywork alongside Ben’s signature.
One rest day remained before what every indication suggested would be the roughest road yet. Ben had warned them early on that the roads ahead do not really exist, that the potholes are deep enough to lose an elephant in. The bikes would carry those signatures into whatever came next.
