Zambezi River

Meeting the Great Zambezi

, 1 November 2005

by Alison Westwood

I've come to Zambia to visit a river. It's not the longest or the most important river in the world, but it's certainly one of the greatest. The Zambezi, surrounded by myth and never quite tamed by man, runs 2700 kilometres (1680 miles) from its source in north-west Zambia to the coast of Mozambique.

Along the way it hurtles heartstoppingly over cliffs, rushes impetuously through rapids, swirls sulkily around drowned trees in Lake Kariba, ripples with hordes of hippos in the Lower Zambezi, spreads into the inland sea of Kabora Bassa, and then waves goodbye to Africa as it empties into the Indian Ocean.

The Zambezi acts as a border between three countries, as a source of clean hydro-electric power, and as the lifeblood of the land. It's also the focal point of some of Africa's last true wilderness areas, and one of the main reasons people visit Zambia. That is, of course, to see the Victoria Falls.

The Victoria Falls in figures

If words and photographs don't convey the size and power of the falls, maybe some numbers will help. The upper Zambezi plummets 100 metres (330 feet) over a chasm 1.7 kilometres wide (that's over a mile), making the Victoria Falls twice as high as the Niagara Falls and one and a half times as wide.

The Batoka Gorge roars with the stupendous force of millions of tons of water suddenly squeezed from a mile-wide river into a channel only 30 metres (100 feet) wide. Nine thousand cubic metres pour into the gorge every second. That's enough water to fill 200 Olympic-sized swimming pools in one minute.

The carving of a gorge

The Batoka Gorge, zigzagging between high walls of basalt, is a product of the falls. Falling fingers of water find faults and fissures in the rock, eroding them until a cliff collapses. The falls are constantly moving: retreating upstream, following the course of these faults. The winding trail of the Batoka Gorge marks their progress.

Scientists reckon that a few thousand years from now, which is just a wink of an eye geologically-speaking, the fissure next to the Devil's Cataract will collapse, and a new set of falls will be created.

Adrenaline capital of Africa

The adventure activities offered at Livingstone are as frenetic as this section of the Upper Zambezi. It is as though the spirit of the river has infected the people around it. The Victoria Falls area is known as the adrenaline capital of Africa. As the waters leap over the falls, the people mimic it and bungee jump 111 metres off the Victoria falls bridge, bouncing up again with the spray that flies a mile into the air.

The Victoria Falls Bridge is one of only five bridges that cross the Zambezi river. It was built in 1905 and celebrated its first century this year. This attractive and rather spectacular feat of engineering was designed by the same fellow who did the Sydney Harbour Bridge and spans the gorge in front of the Zambian side of the falls. A distinctive part of the view itself, it is worth walking across to survey the scene.

The river calls adventure-seekers

Stand in the middle of the bridge looking towards the falls. Your right foot will be in Zambia, and your left foot in Zimbabwe. In front of you, the falls will be a wall of water or rock, depending on the time of year.

Beneath you, the Boiling Pot froths and churns as white water rafters launch themselves into the current, looking like ants clinging to yellow leaves. Behind you, the silver river stretches into the distance and a series of rapids sing like sirens to the adventure-seeker.

I succumbed to their call, and set off to try my hand at the paddle. October is the hottest month in Zambia and the falls are at their driest, but if you are an avid white-water rafter, it's also the best time to experience the Zambezi at its most exciting.

This year, the rapids are especially vigorous, as the rains were scarce and the river is low. I listened to the safety talk (probably the scariest part of a rafting trip) and wondered what I was getting myself into.

The spirit of the Zambezi

On the way to the river, one of the rafting guides showed me a walking stick he had carved. Intricate and delicate, it was of an impressively fanged serpent rising out of a whirlpool. It was the spirit-god of the Zambezi, the Nyaminyami. The Nyaminyami is believed by the Tonga to control all life in the Zambezi.

The story goes that there are actually two river gods. They were angered by the construction of Lake Kariba, and broke the dam walls by summoning floods of unprecedented power - two years in a row.

But human persistence (or stubbornness) won in the end, and one of the Nyaminyami was trapped in Lake Kariba, while the other must remain in the river below.

It's easy to understand why most of the river guides wear the symbol of the Nyaminyami around their necks. When you're whizzing into 8-foot waves in an inflatable dingy with rocks, whirlpools, and the occasional crocodile lying in wait, you need all the help you can get.

Wobbly legs & white knuckles

Rafting the Zambezi tends to make your legs wobble, knuckles whiten and eyes widen. If you're unfortunate enough to let go of the raft on rapid number seven at low water, it can also make your bottom turn blue. I would know.

After the river spat me out of the Gnashing Jaws of Death (as rapid ten is so quaintly called) and I realized that I was still in one piece, I bought myself a Nyaminyami necklace and put it on. I thought I might need it. The Zambezi and I were not parting ways just yet.

How far into the wilderness will you go?

One way you can estimate how deep into the wilderness you are travelling is the size of the aircraft you get there in. We flew in a succession of steadily shrinking planes from Cape Town. When we eventually landed at Jeki airstrip in the Lower Zambezi National Park, it was in a six-seater Cessna 206. The airstrip itself is a mudflat with a windsock.

It took an hour's drive past baboons, bushbuck, warthogs, elephants and kudu to reach Kulefu, a rustic tented camp on the banks of the Zambezi. We were escorted most of the way by a team of red hornbills doing their best Rowan Atkinson impressions.

Wake up call from a leopard

At five the next morning a voice outside my tent said, "Knock knock". It was my wake up call, tented camp-style. I had already been woken a couple of hours earlier by a less friendly voice: the blood-curdling, half-strangled cry of a leopard very close by.

I'm not sure how I fell asleep again, but in the soft pink light of sunrise, I sipped my tea and pretended to be delighted about the fresh leopard spoor running straight through the camp. The door of my tent was not exactly solid and did not fasten shut.

After scrutinizing the leopard spoor (and making quite sure that it did not lead back towards my tent) I climbed into a canoe and drifted silently down the river for a few hours. A canoe safari is a wonderful way to sneak up on animals and eavesdrop on birds.

Heat and hippopotami

In the Lower Zambezi, at the end of the dry season, there isn't much water away from the river. The birds and animals cluster around the Zambezi, and in many cases, spend most of their time in it.

Here the great river has a lazier, quieter and more timeless quality, but again the spirit of the river is infectious. Broad and smooth, it gazes back at the faded sky unblinkingly, basking in the heat, preserving its energy. I follow suit.

I've never sat still for so long before. Never had so few thoughts pass through my head. It's difficult to think, impossible to worry.

Time loses meaning and carries me as smoothly as the current. The seconds are washed away by the river, and I am left with the heat and the hippos.

I have no idea how many hippos are living in the short stretch of the Zambezi that we are gliding along, but it must be thousands. Pink and brown snouts poke through the water around every corner and in every direction.

A loud snort, a jet of spray and the calm surface of the river was broken by the indignant head of a hippo right beside my canoe. He regarded me with infinite suspicion, before disappearing again in a hippo-sized ripple. It was a thrill to realise he'd chosen not to bite my canoe in two. I touched the charm around my neck.

A donkey with sharp teeth

At sunset we went fishing and I offered the river the first sip of my beer, pouring it over the side of the boat. In return, I received delivery of an enormous tiger fish about thirty seconds later. A real donkey, the other fishermen told me admiringly. I've never seen a donkey with such big teeth.

As the Cessna struggled into the hot wind heading back to Lusaka, I looked down at the wide green river, marbled with sandbanks and dotted with hippos. I am not usually superstitious, but I wondered if the spirit of the river is stronger than I supposed.

Maybe it was all that water I swallowed when the raft flipped, or the gift of the tiger fish, but I feel tied to the great Zambezi river, and I know I will return.

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