Back at the hostel, I met two fellas who had booked a 3 day/2 night canoe safari down the Lower Zambezi leaving at 7am the next day. After my friend/sabbatical role model Kat's story about getting capsized by a hippo on a similar trip, I signed up immediately!
Even though hippos are my favorite animal because they are depicted so cutesy and the ideal xmas wish list item, they really are dangerous, territorial animals. Hippos are vegetarians, but if startled or threatened, they can capsize your canoe with their bodies or mouths. They can kill a human with their bites, but the greatest danger is getting capsized in the river and getting attacked by crocodiles.
Besides this knowledge I already had, Stephen our guide did a good job of scaring us during the pre-trip briefing. We had a small group - Laura and Steve an English couple, Adiel and Niels the backpackers from the hostel, and me.
Since the canoes are 2-person, I lucked out and got to paddle with Stephen the guide. I was first to spot wildlife, and had an unparallelled view of the river from my perch up front. Although the boys later told me that Stephen didn't paddle much and I did a lot of the paddling....
We were off and within 10 minutes of our initial put-in, we paddled around several pods of hippos in the water (they do really pop up and go down into the water like that game at Chuck E. Cheese where you take the hammer and try to smash them when they pop up out the holes), and got up close and personal with elephants drinking from the bank of the river! What an adventure!
We camped on one of islands between Zim and Zam (short for Zimbabwe and Zambia). It was lovely meals prepared by Stephen and the rest of us pretending to help. But really we were just stuffing ourselves with salt'n'vinegar potato chips, watching sultry sunsets, or stargazing.
The first night, after we set up camp, we could hear hippos and elephants nearby and lions in the distance. We could also faintly hear disco music. We made jokes about our guide sneaking off in the middle of the night leaving us alone with the hippos.
The next day, as we were paddling, we still heard the disco music. The guide commented that it is a 24-hour disco, and I made a crack about it being the Ibiza of Zambia. Niels started calling it Zam-biza and we had to take a photo when we were back on land and driving back...
The trip was amazing, and we saw incredible wildlife up close - bushbacks, crocodiles, baboons, monkeys, exotic birds, impala and of course countless hippo and elephants.
The highlight of the trip was probably the one day we were about to take-out for lunch, and we saw a small family of elephants on the shoreline. We paddled closer and closer and they didn't seem scared, and more kept coming to the shoreline.
We got so close and just sat there watching themselves drink from the river and take mud baths. Eventually, the entire family of 7 formed a line in front of us, faced us in unison.
It almost seemed as if they were posing for us and maybe even taking a bow, like after a Broadway play. In any case, we were thinking, "Bravo, Bravo!"
Lucky for me, I have 2 more safari's planned and will get the Encore performance!
Are you doing a triple-H move pointing at the elephants? Love the pics. Very jealous.
ReplyDelete