Hungry, Hungry Hippos

Today we took a 7-hour kayak trip down the Zambezi River. Our tour guide met us at the hotel lobby around 7:30 am and drove us 20 miles upriver from Victoria Falls. It was just me, Betty and Dawn on the trip. The Zambezi borders Zambia (west) and Zimbabwe (east). As we got into our kayaks, Bernard (our guide) said we could possibly encounter wildlife along the river. “Worst case, we’ll encounter hippopotamus.” Well, we did.

Betty and I were in the rear canoe and followed closely behind Bernard. About one mile down river, we came across a herd of 12 hippos right in the middle of the river. We paddled along the Zimbabwe side of the bank about 20 yards from the herd. All of a sudden, they started howling (that’s what I’m calling it) and opening their mouths. They call this “mock charging.” There wasn’t much mocking about it. They started moving toward our kayak. I can honestly say, I’ve never felt the fear I felt that moment. My knees and ankles went numb. Betty started crying. After we got passed the herd, we encountered a lone hippo about two miles down river. Bernard said lone hippos are unpredictable so we went ashore on the Zimbabwe side and walked along the banks of the river with the baboons and impalas. From that point on, Betty rode with Bernard, leaving Dawn and I to fend for ourselves. I stayed in the back to steer. We stopped for lunch and had a great conversation with our guide. He’s from Zimbabwe and had been a kidnapped four times in Zimbabwe before fleeing with his wife and two kids for Zambia. He escorted Hillary Clinton to Victoria Falls while Bill Clinton was in office and later escorted Madeline Albright while she was still Secretary of State. We could have stayed there for hours talking to him. At 3:30 pm we went ashore and the trip was complete. We drove through the Mosi-Oa-Tonya National Park and saw zebra, giraffe, elephants, baboons and wart hogs. On the African Queen cruise the night before we saw Zambia’s only rhinoceros which also lives in the Mosi-Oa-Tonya (“the smoke that thunders”) reserve. Less than a year ago, the second one was killed by poachers. Merchants in the Far East use the rhino horns as aphrodisiacs. The ground up dust goes for $25,000 a kilogram!

We are back at the hotel now to clean up. We are eating at the hotel tonight, and will probably watch a rented iTunes movie in my room. My roommate is a 21-year-old student at the University of Arkansas studying finance.

Tomorrow we go on a safari in Botswana. We did this last year and it’s one of the highlights of the trip. I’ll enjoy it from the safe confines of the boat and Jeep. Now it’s off to my hotel room to put on a clean pair of underwear. I'm only half kidding.