Along the Zambezi, Game’s Afoot

“Hold your paddle at least halfway up the shaft. If a crocodile does go after it, at least he won’t get your hand,” river guide Victor Ncube said with a hint of a smile. “And so that you don’t rock the boat, you are not allowed to stand up, talk politics or religion, and especially”--he paused for effect--”you’re not to shout at your spouse.”

Instructions complete, with a splash of paddles we were off on a gentle African river journey that began just west of Mana Pools National Park in northern Zimbabwe. Of the seven of us on this 55-mile trip on the Zambezi River, only two--guide Victor and I--had steered a canoe before, so it was not a graceful flotilla that zigzagged down the Great River, as Zambezi is translated from the language of the Tonga people. At times we veered into the lush rafts of purple water hyacinth that lined the channel riverbank; at other times, the canoes spun in circles or headed upstream with minds of their own.

No matter. This path, a narrow, snaking channel split from the broad flow of the main river by tiny islands and bright green aquatic vegetation, was placid. But the 2,200-mile Zambezi, which begins life in neighboring Zambia and flows through five other countries before emptying into the Indian Ocean, isn’t always as calm. It tumbles over Victoria Falls, a thundering explosion of clouds of mist, then squeezes between the walls of stunning gorges to give rafters the ride of their lives before the river stalls behind the wall of a dam at Lake Kariba. Here, it also forms part of the border with Zambia.

Below the dam the river spreads wide, almost three miles in places, and that is where our canoe group gathered in October. In our four-day journey we would come face to face with an astounding array of animals, some frightening, all fascinating.

Summer, which lasts from October to April here, was just beginning, and most of the tourists had left. In some ways this is the best time to visit southern Africa. Abandoned oxbows (bends that formed when the river changed course) remain; they retain rainwater, even when the temperature is in the 80s and 90s (as it was during this trip), and teem with birds. The heat has dried up all but a few watering holes, so the game is concentrated in a small area.

Barely 20 minutes passed before we rounded a bend and found a family of elephants, including two youngsters, wading in the reeds. They blinked at us and continued shooting water into the air through their trunks.

Victor, in the lead canoe, was suddenly on his feet, waving his paddle wildly. Forty feet ahead, a dozen hippopotamuses were half blocking our exit into the main river. Their broad backs glistened in the sun, and their candy-pink ears twitched. With astonishing speed, one big hippo roused itself from the shallows and charged toward us like a lethal 45-gallon drum on stumps.

“Move toward shore!” Victor shouted, and instantly everyone mastered the elusive steering concept, beelining for the bank as our trusty guide slapped the water with his paddle. He progressed through his hippo-vanquishing repertoire to banging the side of his canoe with his paddle. Meek “Oh, mys”

emanated from Pauline, half of Dennis-and-Pauline from Birmingham, England, who clearly had her sights set more on bird life than on toothy or tusked mammals when she signed up for this jaunt. The hippos yawned in unison, but they fooled no one; they weren’t a bit sleepy. I suspected they were offering a glimpse of the chisel-shaped incisors that resemble the mauls one uses to crack open logs.

With much snorting, the advancing hippo reluctantly backed off, and we continued in adrenaline-charged silence along a course that would take us 11 miles before our first stop for the night.

We pulled up on the grassy shore beneath the tidy row of three army-green canvas tents. We were helped out of our canoes by one of the camp attendants, Lucky, as another attendant, Clever, pointed us toward the beer cooler. (During my Africa trip, which included a walking tour in Zambia before I joined the canoe group, I also encountered a charming teenager named Mattress and a little girl named Colander.) Directors’ chairs surrounded the tidy campfire alongside a table full of snacks. As the staff secured and unloaded the boats, I settled in with my “sundowner,” a Zambezi lager, to watch a burning globe of African sun melt into the river.

I love canoeing. I have dipped my paddle on five continents: at home in Quebec, on the Torrens River and in Darwin Harbour in Australia; down a stretch of the Iguacu in Brazil; along the Mekong in Vietnam; in the Danube in Austria. So when my parents offered the Zambezi jaunt as a present for my 44th birthday as part of an African trip I was planning, I seized the opportunity to add another continent to my collection.

After some Internet research, I settled on a small canoe safari outfit, Mukuyu Classic Africa Safaris, based on the Zimbabwe side of the river. Most canoeing safaris are participatory trips in which guests help by pitching tents, cooking and cleaning up. Mukuyu classifies this trip as “semi-luxury.” To me, it was unadulterated luxury to have someone break camp and set it up at the next location, schlepping the luggage; to have a private shower and toilet in my tent; to arrive to chilled beer and a fine dinner being cooked in the middle of the Zimbabwe bush. I also liked the idea that Mukuyu groups are limited to nine to keep the trip manageable.

Our three 18-foot fiberglass canoes were stable and easy to paddle; despite my background, no previous canoeing experience was necessary. Paddling this part of the Zambezi, though not without its risks, is not particularly dangerous or difficult, but a guide is a must. Victor knows every sandbar, knows the deeps and the shallows. “Without a river guide,” he said, “this would be a very dangerous trip.”

We danced around the edge of danger during our four days paddling and overnighting along the waterfront of Mana Pools National Park, considered the crown jewel of the national park system of landlocked Zimbabwe. Although only 858 square miles, the park is so rich with wildlife that congregates along the river and at the four permanent pools on the flood plain that it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. The designation protects it from development and ensures its survival as a wild place.

From Harare, I flew to Kariba on the shores of Kariba Lake, and it was a short charter flight into the park. We got into the animal aspects of our trip immediately: Our plane had to buzz two elephants off the red dirt airstrip to land. Just two hours later, we were on the river dodging hippos.

An avian wake-up call, accompanied by the unmistakable cry of a far-off hyena, was accompanied by the splash of hot water in the collapsible washbasin outside my tent at 5:15 a.m. A quick cup of tea and a slice of poundcake and we were off on a morning walk in the bush, single file. Victor was in front, then Dennis and Pauline, then a San Francisco couple, Bruce and Michelle. I brought up the rear with my paddling partner, Olivia, Victor’s 22-year-old niece, who was on the trip to learn more about the Zambezi River.

Mana Pools is the only park in Zimbabwe where you are allowed to walk alone without a guide, although it’s best to have one. The landscape is wide open and dotted with big sausage, fig, tamarind and rain trees that shower the earth with purple flowers. The animals eat the view-obstructing shrubbery.

Victor, a stocky and strongly built native Zimbabwean, honed his bush skills during his 18-year career as an officer in the army of Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was called until it won independence from Britain in 1980. The years preceding the break were turbulent, but the country has been largely stable since then.

As he did on the river, Victor carried a rifle on our morning walk. “I’ve had to shoot warning shots over the heads of hippos and elephants, but it’s never been necessary to kill one,” he said. A string of elephants lumbered across our path. A single lion peered from the shrubbery, and although Victor pointed him out, it took me a few moments to see him; I had not yet acquired African “bush eyes.”

By the time we strolled back into camp, the wind had begun to blow, and the whitecap-flecked river had a sizable chop. “Eat up,” Victor said. “You’re going to need it.” Breakfast was lavish: cereal, juices, bacon and eggs, toast and jams such as South African Cape gooseberry. And because the British make up so much of Africa’s tourism, there was exotica like Marmite, a salty yeast-based spread, definitely an acquired taste but one I’ve come to appreciate.

Stepping into the rear of the canoe behind Olivia, I tightened the strap of my wide-brimmed cotton hat. The paddling was steady but not difficult; the rhythm and cool sprays of water over the gunwales were relaxing. Being on the river in a canoe alters your perspective, so you’re gazing up at herds of Cape buffalo clustered atop the riverbank or are at eye level with wading storks, tiny brilliant malachite kingfishers and snowy white egrets.

Then there were the hippos.

Olivia moaned in fear each time she saw another pod of the submerged river horses, then paddled with gusto while I scrambled to keep the boat on course. Bruce and Michelle, meanwhile, continued to have steering “issues”; with each hippo encounter, they broke Victor’s no-shouting-at-your-spouse rule in outbursts peppered with profanity and unpleasant observations about the other’s sanity and motor skills. It is amazing how quickly hippos lose their novelty and simply become annoying, beefy land mines blocking our path.

I asked how many hippos live in these parts. “Exactly 5,792 hippos in this 40-mile stretch of the Zambezi,” replied Victor, who was involved in a hippo census in the mid-1990s. “Hippos are territorial so I know where to expect them.”

Victor knows hippos. He has seen them as 100-pound newborns and later as adults that eat 100 pounds of grass a day, and he can sense their aggression by reading how they bring their head back or flare their ears. The rule of thumb on the river: Never get between a hippo and the deep water, where the animal feels safe.

Just after noon, when the true, blasting heat of the day began, we pulled over beneath the canopy of a grove of Natal mahogany trees for a long, leisurely lunch of cold cuts and salads, followed by a siesta. I grab a mat and headed off for a siesta in the shade, snoozing lightly. When I awakened, a group of waterbuck was grazing less then 20 feet away, oblivious to my presence.

By 4 p.m. the wind had died and the day had begun to cool. With the late-afternoon sun painting the Zambezi escarpment across the river a glowing mauve, we set off to paddle the last six miles to camp. We had not seen another canoe all day. The number allowed on the river is tightly controlled; you would never know that more than 1,000 canoes ply these waters every year.

After a spicy chicken curry dinner, we turned in early after a rigorous 17 miles. As I readied for bed, a comfortable camp cot, I heard a lion in the distance, a deep, resonating roar that I felt as much as heard. The greeting carried across the river, where it was answered by a pride from the Zambian shore. Though lions, elephants, hyenas and other creatures might prowl around camp at night, it is safe inside a zipped-up tent. I drifted off to sleep watching the stars through the mesh; the breeze dropped leaves that sounded like the patter of rain.

Just after dawn Victor spotted a lion, one that I might have heard the previous night. After waking us, we spent the next two hours tracking a pair of males on foot through the bush. When we came upon them, they were grooming, eating and lying around, making no sign that they noticed us.

By midmorning we were back in our canoes. We encountered the usual roll call of elephants, antelope and buffalo, and a colony of carmine bee eaters, birds that nest in holes burrowed in the sandy riverbank. Once, just in front of my canoe, a 12-foot crocodile launched off the bank into the water with a huge splash that sent my heart into my throat.

It turned out to be a heart stopping day all around. At lunch, a yellow-billed kite swooped down from a tree and grabbed half a ham sandwich from Michelle’s hand. Remarkably unrattled, she reached for the other half of her lunch and muttered: “At home I can hardly eat because of our dogs. Here, it’s birds.”

On our final day’s paddling, we finished at Mukuyu’s permanent tented camp. No sooner was I shown to my spacious quarters (complete with wardrobe, luggage rack and a stack of magazines) than an elephant came straight toward my tent. It was so close I could have reached out and touched it. It sidled up to the acacia tree that provided my canvas home with shade leans against the tree and gave it a good shake, sending down a shower of seedpods that resembled the curling red apple peels. The guide who was showing me to my tent told me that a recent guest had been startled when a big gray trunk reached over into her open-to-the-sky shower stall for a drink of water.

At our final dinner as we dined on butternut squash soup and beef stroganoff served in the glow of a candlelight chandelier--hanging from the tree above the dinner table--elephants wandered out of the dark and past our table.

Sitting on the riverbank after dinner with a glass of Zimbabwe port in hand, I watched fireflies flit over the Zambezi, their reflected glow off the black water challenging the brilliance of the starlight highway of the Milky Way. This had been my best canoe trip yet, a combination of solitude and silence that afforded me a close-up view of animals and environs that I’d only dreamed of before this journey.

How magical it would be to launch a canoe into this moonlit scene, I thought. As if on cue, an unseen pod of hippos grunted and harrumphed. On second thought, maybe a moonlight cruise wasn’t such a good idea. Better to head off to bed, where a chocolate awaited me on the pillow.

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GUIDEBOOK

Navigating a Zambezi Trip

Getting there: The trip to Zimbabwe is difficult and long. You can fly from L.A. to Harare, Zimbabwe, by booking through South African Airways; round-trip fares begin at $1,429, starting Jan. 17. You also can fly on British Airways all the way from Los Angeles to Harare, changing in London; round-trip fares begin at $4,069, dropping to $3,832 on Jan. 10. Air Zimbabwe flies daily from Harare to Kariba; the round-trip fare is about $95. The round-trip charter from Kariba to Kariba Lake costs $225.

For information and bookings: Africa Travel Center, P.O. Box 1918, Boulder, CO 80306; telephone (800) 361-8024, e-mail info@africatvl.com.

Or Mukuyu Classic Africa Safaris, P.O. Box BW 81, Borrowdale, Harare, Zimbabwe, Africa; tel./fax 011-263-486-0064, e-mail classic@pci.co.zw, Internet www.discoverzimbabwe.com/classic.htm.

When to go: Canoe safaris are available from April 1 to Oct. 31. Groups are limited to nine, and trips fill up quickly; it’s advised to book six months in advance. A high-season (July, August, September) three-night, four-day canoeing and walking safari is $795 per person; off-season, the price drops to $715. All meals, bottled drinks, beer and wine served at dinner are included.

For more information: Zimbabwe Tourist Office, 1270 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 2315, New York, NY 10020; tel. (800) 621-2381 or (212) 332-1090, fax (212) 332-1093.