Day Four

Shepard came in the room at 6:00 to wake us and open the doors, this bed was so hard to leave, it's so warm and cozy.  Breakfast again on the deck.  The oatmeal and toast are cooked in the fire pit..  The plan for the day was canoeing on the Zambezi.  We had heard the other guests tell of two hippo charges that they experienced and were a little concerned but since we were told it was a must do activity we said geronomo and barreled ahead…..well tentatively barreled ahead.

"Chris, crocs to the left and hippos to the right and not much room in the middle!!!!"  I developed a strategy that would assure my safety, I paddled fast and looked at my shoes.  If I can't see them they can't see me and it worked since after 3 1/2 hours dodging hippos in a small channel we made it out alive.  In fact I thought we were through the worst when Chris said that we were entering the part they call "Hippo City".  The scary part is so many times they congregated in the narrowest part or if they were on the shallow side and we were on their favorite side which is the deepest side…..I will say that is an adrenaline rush.  But, It was incredibly peaceful seeing elephant, buffalo, impala, baboons, and an incredible amount of birds.  

We stopped half way to "make a bush happy" (men to the right, girls to the left) and have cake and tea.  At the end there was a boat waiting to take us back, that's the way to go, one way and down stream.  Lunch followed and then a siesta.  I took the outside lounge and Caroline slept inside today.  The hippos kept waking me up but that is my new favorite African sound, hippo grunts.  It goes on all night right outside my tent.  Last night we could hear the lions in the distance.  The other couple slept with their doors open.  Caroline and I discussed doing this but its not the wildlife but the spiders that got to us.

We laughed today about the 1st night seeing one spider, 2nd seeing two and would we see three tonight…..well we had the first one, another flattie, already before dinner and had to actually use the radio to get someone to come get it.  I sprayed it but it wouldn't die and neither of us would slap it with the shoe.  The manager came and picked it up with his bare hand while we shrieked like little girls.  Dinner is at eight, stay tuned!!

We're in bed and again I hear the lions and now I can tell the hippos are leaving the river moving past our tent to forage.  We leave tomorrow to go to Livingstone and there seems to be some confusing about our flights that will need sorting tomorrow.

I was a little uneasy last night hearing strange animal sounds.  The lions were getting closer and the hippos sounded like they were just outside.  I told the manager about it including that I was sure it was may imagination but I thought I heard a leopard rasping, he said there was a leopard in camp and that he had heard the same thing.

We flew back on an even smaller plane and Caroline was the copilot.  She said the pilot told her very landing is a controlled crash on those dirt airstrips. We are now at the Royal Livingstone at Victoria Falls.  The fall is very impressive and the hotel lovely.  Giraffe and zebra roam freely on the grounds.  We have a helicopter ride and the lion walk tomorrow.