the mighty zambezi

Some of you said you'd like to hear more of Africa, in that case I hope you like what I have planned now... are you ready for the next adventure? Great! Because today we are going to be dodging Hippo's and Croc's down the Zambezi River....in a canoe...!

Today's a beautiful day for a paddle, the sun's shining and the wind's died down now that it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon. We are here on the bank of the Zambezi with five others, 2 guides and 3 Australian's and we're all about to get our safety talk before we embark...



Our excellent guide, Tendai, tells us the five dangers. #1 ~ the sun. yes, it is dangerous out here. You will get burned without protection, so sunscreen and a hat are a must. #2 ~ stumps. Hit one and you'll spill your canoe, so they are to be avoided at all costs. #3 ~ Hippo's. yeah. no explanation needed. #4 ~ Crocodiles. Same as Hippo's. and #5 ~ dehydration! it's very important to drink water. The Aussie's asked if Gin & Tonic's were OK. ;)


Here are our guides now, Tendai on the left and trainee Graham on the right. Now if you look very carefully to the left of Grahams shoulder you will see two very large Elephants on the bank opposite us. Ahem. Hello Ellie's! They seemed alot closer now that were not in a vehicle..

We've all got our p.d.f.'s on and we're ready to go! We were three in our canoe, Tendai in the rear, Chuck in the middle, and me up front! The boat behind us had Graham and Mia, and finally the last one was powered by the Australian's Nickolas and Jeff. Now here is something interesting, neither had paddled a canoe before. No wonder they kept talking about G & T's...

The temperature was in the 80's or 90's. Sweat was dripping off us, oh and here is one more rule I forgot to mention. We were to keep our hands in the canoe (and anything else you wanted to keep), no matter how refreshing the water seemed. Oh. okay.

...here comes our camp up on the right. I was looking for my sister, I wanted to wave and smile and show her I'm alright, she was so worried about me. See, it's okay Lindy, here we are in this little tiny canoe with Crocodiles and Hippos lurking right under the water. And on the banks. Just about everywhere. But it's fun! hahaheehee, oh dear. But now LOOK how gorgeous this is. You can see even by these standard photos the incredible beauty that is Zimbabwe. Canoeing is a perfect way to see this area, drifting quietly sometimes so close to the river bank I could almost touch it. The only sounds are the snorting and grumping of the nearby hippos...

...she wasn't there, she's already left on a game drive...


...you will feel like your really there... :)

...heh there, hello hippo, don't mind us...

... i drape my scarf over my head and pretend I'm an African queen, with my own personal paddler and photographer, haha!...





....you never know what lies on these grassy banks, until you come right up to it!...

SPLASH. I said oh! there's a crocodile. Tendai said there's one approximately every few metres. OH.

So, we were drifting along taking it all in, the water,the sky, the wildlife when we hear a shout!

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS??

We turned to see the Australian, Nickolas thrashing around in his boat. A fish, a tilapia, had jumped into the canoe, hit him on the chest and fell to the bottom of the boat where it was flipping and flopping madly. Jeff was laughing so hard he was shaking the boat further. Poor Nickolas was yelling what do i do? Tendai called " Throw it out".

And he did, but while they were doing this their canoe turned all the way around and now they were going backward. We went to the rescue and got them sorted.
For the moment.

After their canoe went backwards, it also went sideways and then got altogether stuck. They had to get out of the boat, all the guys, and help push them off. I was doing my best to keep watch.

And not laugh.

...as we were nearing this small sandbar in the middle of the river, Tendai guided our boat to it and said " We are stopping here" and we did.

And then we all climbed out of our boats to this temporary little sandbar and had Gin & Tonic's, wine and beer and toasted our good fortune and amazing adventure.

..."Be careful where you step" I was warned as I stood back for a photo...

Sundowners on the Zambezi

Thank you honey for this...My husband truly gives me the world

Hippo were here, notice their four very cute toes...

...time to continue down the river, see how casually Tendai strolls through the water to push us off? Every time I gasped, he laughed. Lord have mercy.

...if you don't care for crocodiles you may not like this canoeing activity so much...

...or hippo's...snort snort grumph bluph...grunt grunt grunt...

from my journal again:

"at the end of our paddle all of us came close together, three boats side by side. Paddles were put down and we drifted in silence ~ taking it all in. One big collective sigh...

SUDDENLY...we noticed one large solitary male hippo take notice of us. The rest happened so quickly it's all a blur, but the hippo got angry, then snorted loudly and then began

CHARGING TOWARDS US!! Tendai shouted GO NOW!!

And all three of our boats shot forward. Chuck said he shoved one boat away from us so we could paddle quickly. Well, luckily it was a mock charge and the big grump went away. We all laughed so hard again, the image of how funny we looked playing through our heads. And then the nerves racing through us, makes you giddy."

It was the perfect ending.

...hi hippo's we still see you :)...

we paddled our boats up to the waiting Land Rover and now we were going on a night game drive. It had been so hot on the river, so hot, but now the temps dropped and even my down jacket was not enough to keep warm...

No matter, we were out in the beautiful evening and we saw three hyenas, a civet, a genet, two giant Eagle owls !! ellies, antelope, waterbuck...

and a group of lights?

We were driving along in the pitch dark when in the distance we saw all these twinkly lights hanging from trees, on poles, and tables...

Tendai turned around and smiled "Welcome to dinner!"

The camp had made a special bush dinner for all of us, my sister was already there

and there was Clia, Caro and Nikita, the lovely girls who work at Ruckomechi,

"How was your Safari, they smiled?"

:)

...where do I begin?...

Love, Lori