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On this adventure, Cristina and I decided to take our 13 year old nephew, Andres. Since he was a year too young to do the rapids at Victoria Falls, we thought a 4-day canoe and camping trip down the lower Zambezi River would be a good substitute. We began by spending a night at a hotel at Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe where we would rendezvous with our guide the next morning. This meeting went with hardly a word spoken. We tossed our gear into the 4-wheel drive and proceeded for about an hour toward the Kafue River where we were to meet with the canoes and begin the trip. As we ate our bagged lunch they had prepared for us, the mysterious quietness got the better of us so we tried to engage the driver and our guide in some conversation. We discovered that our guide had apparently had an altercation with someone at a bar the night before while celebrating New Years Eve. This explained the large bandage masking one of his eyes.
The mission of the trip was to canoe down the Zambezi over a four day period and pull up to the banks of the river and pitch our tents each night. Cristina and I were in one canoe and Andres was with our guide in the other canoe. Nobody else. Another couple had canceled so there we were at one with the Zambezi. Since our non-takative guide was in misery from his eye wound, we really had no idea of what to expect. We figured out what we had to do to stay alive and did it with minimal input from him. I was happy to see that the current was in our favor. The paddling part was more of a directional thing. But don't get me wrong. The current could send you to a deep and dark place in a second if you weren't on your toes. At different times, our guide would point his canoe to the Zambia side of the broad Zambezi and we would take the hint and follow him. These zigs across the currents tested all of our muscles and canoeing abilities. But it gave us an opportunity to have lunch on the Zambia side amongst the tall grasses. Then came the herds of hippos. As we proceeded, our guide provided with some warnings about the hippos. They are very dangerous, he said. Do not get between a hippo and his baby or between the hippo and the water. I was wondering where it could be safe around a hippo. Apparently, there isn't much of a safe place. He told us of the hippo who recently chomped a canoe in half and then proceeded to chomp the lady tourist. We moved down the water with swiftness and smoothness that was truly a wonderful experience. The crocs that were not under the water were baking on the nubs of earth that formed willy-nilly in the middle of the Zambezi. Since it is easier to be afraid of what you can't see, we were always wondering when a hippo would surface from under us and throw us to the unseen crocs. As we rounded a bend in the river, we could hear a group of elephants running to our right side just above us on the higher banks. We could not see them but we could feel they were close. All of a sudden they changed course and marched directly across our path to reach an island to our left. Talk about backpaddleing… We looked like a Louisiana riverboat going backwards full-throttle. They gave us a look and proceeded to the island. We reached our first night's area to camp. We had enough time to beach and unpack the canoes before the sun started to set. As the sun dropped behind the river, we had a great dinner and watched a herd of elephants on the other side of the Zambezi playing on the water's edge. Our guide said that they may try to cross the river during the night. Since we would be the obvious landing zone on this side of the river, we tried to keep our ears opened listening to their splashing until sleep could not be kept away any longer. The long day on the water made a great sleep. Since we were not flat as a pancake the next morning and we could still hear their distant splashing, we know they decided to stay put on their side. A quick breakfast and back on the river. Hippos were everywhere. And when they were not close, they sounded close. Their distinctive 'honking' can not be mistaken for anything else. At one point, our guide felt that we were much too close for comfort so we paddled to the shore and quietly walked our canoes past a large group of rowdy hippos. It was one of the more tense moments because you knew you had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Our last night was spent on a island in the middle of the Zambezi. Before dinner, we would customarily go to the very edge of the water to rinse off. One other rule on the river is not to go into any water that you can't see the bottom. While Cristina was splashing some water on herself to get rid of some dust and dirt, Andres sat slowly into the edge of the water just next to Cristina. The sound of the escaping air that was trapped in his swim suit made a crocodile-like-sound that gave Cristina a hefty dose of the heebie-jeebies. We all got the best laugh at her expense. We took an exploratory walk to the other side of the island to see what we could see. Just past the edge of the island, we saw a large white object that had crocs circling around it. The white thing happened to be a dead hippo that was bleached from the sun. The crocs would latch onto it and do their twisting and thrashing about to sever off a chuck. We witnessed an amazing thing. When a hippo would come over to view the corpse, the crocs would give way to the visitor and cease their feeding frenzy. There is apparently a gentleman's respect that these two animal give to each other, at least when they are both alive. Our last night was a bit more memorable than the other nights. Even though we went to our sleeping bags with the great African star spectacular in the sky, a late night storm hit us with a fury. I remember our tent was being pushed so hard by the wind and rain that the poles were bending down toward the ground. While our tent was being held down by the two of us and our heavier gear, I looked out of our tent's door and could see Andres' tent being steadily inched toward the Zambezi river with him inside. I told Cristina to go to his tent to help weigh it down. I then laid spread-eagle on my back to spread my weight to keep our tent from being blown away with me inside. It was a doozy of a storm. The next morning we had our final breakfast on the Zambezi. We discovered that if you throw a piece of bread or egg or beacon into the air, a kite will swoop down to snatch it in mid-flight. This was our morning entertainment while we waited to return by boat to Lake Kariba.
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(I will have some images after I get my scanner.....)
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