ZAMBEZI VISION
As I scribble these notes sitting on the riverbank 100km upstream from the Zambezi Delta, our bolt-together pontoon boat swings lazily in the current and a small pod of hippo grunt nearby as the setting sun turns the water pink and gold. It’s ‘magic hour’ on the Zambezi. We’ve set up camp under a wild fig tree that’s home to thousands of noisy, twittering giant fruit bats that mess in our camp stew and try to outdo the orchestra of riverside bullfrogs.
This great river starts life inconspicuously in a small, spongy, cup-like valley in northwest Zambia, at a gently sloping watershed that divides Africa like an invisible line. For it is here that a drop of rain falling on the west side will
