Canoeing the Zambesi by Daniel Scott

Paddle, paddle fast” I shout to Nick at the front of the canoe.

The sound of a wild hippopotamus exhaling at close quarters is a bit like that of a 1000cc motorcycle revving up. It is a noise half-way between a lion’s roar and the trumpet of an irritated elephant. It is very, very loud. A snorting, rumbling gaseous emission. It is as though Henry VIII had turned up for a twelve course dinner and is expressing his appreciation in the time-honoured fashion right into your ear. Rude is definitely the word. And somewhat alarming.

No, scratch that. Being within metres of an open-mouthed hippo who obviously never flosses is downright terrifying. Apart from the implications of a total disregard of dental hygiene, there is the sight of his tusklike lower teeth, which can grow to 70 centimetres in length and weigh almost 3 kilos.

“He’s a grumpy old man” chortles Biggie, our young Zimbabwean guide from another canoe, as Nick and I do a passing imitation of going for Gold in the two-man Olympic sculling event. Well, if I was an old hippo has-been, cast out of my family group at around sixty to live out the rest of my years in solitary, I’d be peeved too. Never mind, assisted by a daily diet high in baked beans, we’ve put him behind us now and we’re heading fast for the safety of the river bank. Too fast.

“Back paddle, Nick, back paddle”. Oh no, here we go again. Into the reeds.

This is the second day of a four day canoe safari down the lower Zambesi River in Zambia and we have just encountered one of the potential hazards of the journey - others include submerged tree stumps and the odd crocodile - outlined to us at the outset by Biggie. “Never get between hippos and deep water” he’d warned us, disconcertingly downplaying the creatures’ threat whilst acknowledging that they have been known to bite both canoes and people in two if you get too close to them.

In truth, now that we are through Hippo City, a sort of Supermall for sociable ungulates, where literally hundreds of black eyes and endearingly small pink ears seem to float around a narrow, shallow channel in the Zambesi, the only real danger we have to deal with is our steering.

But while there are several other moments of cartoon-like drama on our four day trip - mostly arising from close encounters with animals - the essence of this fully supported canoe safari is its serenity. That, and the sense of freedom that paddling yourself brings with it. When Nick, my Greek-Australian canoeing companion finally reaches the end of his medley of 70s and 80s pop hits each morning, and we let ourselves drift downstream, we seem to be the only thing in the entire roasted landscape that is moving. Yet this is when our senses start to adjust and observe the pulsating rhythm of life that surrounds the Zambesi.

It is then that you begin to notice the small things that make a trip like this so memorable. There are around 920 species of birds along the river banks, I am told, and though I am at a loss to identify anything other than the common white cattle egret and the occasional fish eagle, I am struck by the variety in their size - from the tiny and twee to the meaty and mean-looking - and markings. The colours of the squadrons of butterflies that flap around us as we eat lunch each day on the riverbank are equally miscellaneous.

Indeed, the only epic struggle of nature which we witness on this safari is minimalist in scale. After lunch by the riverside on our final day we watch as a small black beetle battles with a much bigger spider, assuming mistakenly that the larger insect has it all sewn up. But within minutes the wily beetle has dragged the spider across a hillock of red earth and crammed it into its small hole.

Not that larger creatures are ever far away - the discovery in this very same spot of an enormous elephant bone and a warning from Biggie not to go wandering in the bush, as a pride of lions are known to be in the area, confirms this. Apart from negotiating our way past periodic clumps of hippos, we also regularly encounter herds of elephant - either crossing the Zambesi in Jungle Book style single file or bathing at the river’s edge - as well as large groups of buffalo and impala. On a night drive near Mwambashi Camp, in the Lower Zambesi National Park, on our final evening we also spotlight a leopard, several smaller cats (servals and civets), zebra and a white-tailed mongoose.

Mwambashi Camp is typical of our accommodation along the river in providing about as much indulgence as is possible without losing a feel for the wildness that surrounds you. It features “East African” style tents on raised wooden platforms with wood-fired hot showers and mattressed beds, a central viewing platform overlooking the river for those obligatory sundowners and a thatched dining area where royal rations of food and wine are served by white-jacketed waiters. The resonances of colonialism are clear but not intrusive.

Each day on the river begins early - the belting sunrise and/or the local wildlife has a habit of waking even the most hungover with a start - and continues with a camp breakfast . The bulk of the hardly strenuous paddling in the light Canadian fibre-glass canoes is completed by lunch. Then just as the insinuation of tiredness begins to spread through our limbs we invariably sight that night’s camp on the river bank. The maximum we do in a single day is around 32 kilometres.

At the camp, tea and biscuits await. Later, showered and refreshed, we pay homage to another purple-prose enducing African sunset from around the campfire. Then all of a sudden the only thing you see is the faces of your fellow canoeists reddened by the firelight. But beyond the sound of their chit-chat, or in Nick’s case an endless conveyor belt of Greek grandmother jokes, you sense the sonorous vibe of the African bush - from the hum of mosquito through the drum of cicada to the snorts of the still gaseous hippos - closing in. It is quite magical.

Obviously, given that the Zambesi is the fourth longest river in Africa, forming a natural border between Zambia and Zimbabwe for much of its lower section and flowing 3540 kilometres altogether on its journey to the sea in Zaire, the 60 kilometres or so that we travel along is a mere snapshot of what it has to offer. But by topping and tailing our canoe safari at other locations along its course we also experience something of its immense power. Firstly, we stop at landlocked Zimbabwe’s equivalent of a seaside resort at Lake Kariba. This huge waterway was formed as a result of the damming of the river by the British in the 1950s to provide power for what was then known as Rhodesia. Later we visit the mesmerising gush of Victoria Falls, where no less than 550,000 cubic litres of water per minute crash down, creating rainbows and throwing up billows of spray tens of metres high. A dawn microlight flight over the Falls, including the odd loop-the-loop, adds stomach-emptying excitement to the adventure of the previous days’ canoeing.

“It is a paradox” says Marc Reading, whose South African based company Safari Par Excellence run this trip, “that the best way to experience the African bush is by canoe”. Certainly such an unmotorised safari is less invasive than the traditional vehicular equivalent and there is no doubt that we get as near as we could possibly desire to some of Africa’s untamed creatures. Believe me when you’ve been kept awake all night by the extravagant belches of hippos making out in the long grass behind your tent, you wouldn’t want to get any closer.