The Mighty Zambizi

Lying here in our tent we can look across the ten meters of silver white sand to the waters of the mighty Zambezi river where we are camped on one of its many uninhabited islands. About one and a half kilometers behind us is the Zambian shore where we began our 3 day Canoe Safari earlier this morning and less than 500 meters in front of us, the shores of Zimbabe where we landed a short while ago to gather firewood for tonight's camp fire. The ease with which we illegally entered Zimbabe reminded us of the thousands of Albanians each year who risk their lives crossing the mountains into Northern Greece or swimming the one kilometer gap between the mainland and the Greek island of Corfu to escape the poverty of their homeland. How many Zimbabwian men and woman, we wondered, would do the same here?
The Zambezi is very beautiful and winds its way through some 3,000km of Africa. It is wide, swift moving and very dangerous. There are estimated to be 10 Crocodlies for every 100m2 and thousands of wild elephants and hippopotami roam its banks and islands. All are potential killers and only today a local 15 year old boy was taken by a crock just a few kilometers from where we are now camped. So, we are being very careful!
Today as we had our lunch on the Zambian side we counted more that 30 elephants walking within 50 meters of our picnic spot. It was midday, over 40 degrees and like us, they were thirsty and making for the river to drink. Later, many of them swam to fresh grazing on a nearby island. An amazing sight!
Tomorrow we will paddle a further 25km down stream, lunching, animal spotting and enjoying another breathtaking sunset before camping and returning the following day by road to our starting point some 50km upstream. Then a formal crossing into Zimbabwe to spend 4 days at Victoria Falls - elephants crocks and hippos permitting!