Victoria Falls, awaiting a few brave bungee jumpers

VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe/Zambia border (CNN) -- The noise was deafening. Water like crashing thunder -- cascading over the falls to the swirling, raging Zambezi River more than 300 feet (90 meters) below. Mist swirled more than 1,000 feet (305 meters) into the air as the river bellowed between the gorges.

The sun was shining, and I couldn't see beyond the platform on which I stood. I was terrified. Poised precariously over the river, refusing to look down, I dove 333 feet (101 meters) into the abyss, with nothing but a cord wrapped around my ankles, thinking for a brief moment that my parents were going to kill me.

QUICKTIME

Watch Claudia take the plunge!

1.8 MB / 29 sec. / 160x120 2.9 MB / 29 sec. / 240x180 QuickTime movie

Please enable Javascript

Then I felt only the thrill of being airborne and for a brief moment I was flying, far away from Wall Street and the legal practice I had left behind.

That was almost a year ago: I was diving off the Victoria Falls Bridge over the Zambezi river, Zimbabwe on my right and Zambia to my left. Just that September before, I had quit my job as an intellectual property lawyer, donned a rucksack and set off on a 19-country, nine-month journey.

Now I was nearing the end of a seven-week overland African safari through Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Malawi, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe and I found myself leaping off of a bridge -- said to be the highest bungee jump in the world -- after piously declaring every other day that I was too sane to do something so crazy, so reckless, so ... out of character.

My lawyering skills had served me well as I cross-examined the bungee bureaucrat before the jump: How often did they replace the bungee cords? Would those bath towels wrapped around my ankles really prevent bone breakage? What was their track record -- had they ever lost an aerialist?

Claudia psyches up for the big jump, as she gets some help with the practical details, having towels and the cord wrapped around her ankles

Happily, my many months on the road had taught me a thing or two and changed my perspective on life. Never again would I scoff at such a challenge. Besides, the bungee cord and fallback safety harness were concrete evidence that it couldn't be as dangerous as some of those 17-hour bus rides I had taken in India aboard dilapidated, overcrowded 1950s-era school buses driven by kamikaze drivers with their dashboard mini-shrines.

As I hung upside down like a fish on a hook mere feet over the Zambezi's raging rapids, I focused on the rainbow gracing my vision and contemplated the events leading up to my current state of suspension.

My lawyering skills had served me well as I cross-examined the bungee bureaucrat before the jump: How often did they replace the bungee cords? Would those bath towels wrapped around my ankles really prevent bone breakage? What was their track record -- had they ever lost an aerialist?

After the countdown -- "5,4,3,2,1 ... bungee!" -- there was no alternative but to jump. You could call it the path of least resistance.

Ultimately convinced that I wouldn't be the first jumper to commit the ultimate faux-pas by marring a perfect safety record in a spectacularly messy fashion, I was harnessed, hooked and maneuvered onto the platform protruding from the bridge. The hardest part was hobbling out to the edge without looking down, my ankles hog-tied like a rodeo cow.

After the countdown -- "5,4,3,2,1 ... bungee!" -- there was no alternative but to jump. You could call it the path of least resistance.

Once airborne, the maxim "it happened so fast" rang true. My eyes were kept open by the sheer force of the wind, my grin stretching ear-to-ear out of sheer delight. I felt no resistance as I dove through the air, experiencing a rush of emotions I had never felt before. All the mundane thoughts that crowd one's mind on a daily basis disappeared. I momentarily wondered if I would get a wedgie.

Then suddenly I was yanked upward about 100 feet (30 meters) into the air. Not until the tension of the bungee cord rebounds you up and down like a yo-yo do you begin to feel as if it's just another ride at the amusement park.

After a few minutes of inverted scenery appreciation, a rescuer descended on a wire, flipped me upright and hoisted me back up to the underbelly of the bridge, where I began what I realized was the truly difficult part: clambering along the bridge gratings, planks and pylons and climbing toothpick size ladder-rungs to the firm footing of solid ground.

	Weather: Lusaka, Zambia World Maps and Guides: Zimbabwe Currency Converter
	What's your idea of a great adventure?

After a Chariots of Fire-like reunion with my friends and fellow jumpers, we opened a few Zambezi beers and headed to the registration hut to watch our Herculean moments on video (which you can buy to share with loved ones at home for a mere $35). For the next few days we revisited our individual jumps, describing each nuance, embellishing our mastery of technique and generally reveling in the shared experience of our solo performances.

This was not an uninspired leap off a crane in the parking lot of a suburban mall; the gods could not have chosen a more beautiful backdrop for my personal plunge into oblivion. It was clear why Victoria Falls is one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

Now that I am back in the concrete jungle they call New York City, Victoria Falls seems a world away. Sometimes I turn my eyes upward and scan the heights of the skyscrapers, comparing them to the lofty perch from which I jumped: more than one-quarter of the Empire State Building, almost one-third of the Chrysler Building, well beyond the height the entire Flatiron Building. But then I realize, it isn't the 333 feet (101 meters) that truly count, it was that I peered over the edge, faced my demons of rationality and decorum -- and took a flying leap beyond them.