Written By Elzette

Louie Greeff is a 62 year old extreme adventurer who has embarked on a second trip to swim 2300kms down the world's most dangerous river - the mighty Zambezi. He is also a renowned travel author and he’s adventures are well documented and worth a read!


Louie will be going through 7 southern African countries, swimming past 180,000 crocodiles, thousands of hippos, killer rapids and Zambezi sharks. On land, he’ll encounter lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, poisonous snakes and landmines.

Although the above mentioned challenges seem insane, the purpose behind Louie’s venture is a heart-warming one and one tends to forget how many ill faced circumstances still exist in our beautiful continent.

Here’s an excerpt from his blog:

“The aim is to raise awareness about children living in abject poverty including numerous health issues amongst children orphaned because their parents have died of either malaria, TB, AIDS or landmines and Louie will also showcase orphans along the way as he was one too. Some of these very young orphans as young as 4 years are complete alcoholics.

They scavenge the land for anything they can eat even though they plant vegetables for prison staff in Lusaka.

These children have been jailed for selling marijuana to tourists and sentenced to 5 years. They serve 4 in jail and the last at the vegetable station. If they eat any of the vegetables, they are back in jail for an additional 5 years. All of them have been raped and traumatized and even though they sleep under makeshift plastic shelters, they are happy to be free.

I did this very same extremely dangerous trip in 2000 raising awareness about soiled water and education amongst the very poor tribal communities.”

Check it out at: www.actiongear.tv
Follow us on Twitter: @actiongearsa
Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/actiongear.co.za