Canoeing in Zambezi River

    Today we went canoeing in Zambezi River. We had three guides and they picked us up from the hotel and drove us to the canoeing place. Along the way we saw lots of animals. We saw birds, a bush buck buffalo, impala, baboons, wildebeest and even an elephant! We got to the canoeing place which turned out to be a bunch of big tents. We then got to the shore and the guides told us what to do in case of an emergency. There were hippos and crocodiles in the river, and we did not want to get hurt. The guides gave us life vests and  pumped up three inflatable canoes. Then one of the guides gave Mommy and Daddy their paddles. Since each canoe could fit two people, Mommy and Daddy went in one, I went with one of the guides and Acadian went with another. The last guide drove the truck alongside the shore in case anything went wrong. We started canoeing around eleven am. It was kind of uncomfortable to be wearing that big life vest while the inflated back-rest was pushing on my back, but it would keep me afloat if the boat tipped over.

    At first my guide was the only one rowing, but I wanted to row too, so my guide handed me another oar so I could help. Acadian did not want to row so he just sat in the front of his boat the whole time, and looked at all the animals. We saw king fishers (a bird that dives into the water and catches fish to eat), a crane, and so many other different birds that it’s hard to keep track of all the names. Daddy actually saw a small crocodile, and we saw lots of hippos. Once, the hippos were so close that we had to get out of the canoes and walk on the shore while our guides rowed the boats to avoid the hippos. The guides even found something called a sausage fruit which was very long, and actually look a bit like a sausage. One of the guides cut it open and we could see inside the fruit. The fruit was yellow with lots of seeds. They said the fruit was not that good, and baboons normally eat it. They also said that some people make a special lotion out of the fruit. We got out of the water at around one, which means that we were canoeing for about two hours. On the shore at the end of the trip we sat down at a table with a red cloth on it to eat lunch. The guides gave us lunch, and we even got soda! The lunch was chicken wraps and chips, and it was pretty good.

    Finally, they drove us back to our hotel. We saw lots of animals on the way back too. We saw more birds, mongooses, jackals, a herd of elephants (14 in total), a giraffe, some zebras and a crocodile. We had so much fun today, even though we got very wet from being splashed by water, and got a little dirty.

    We had dinner at a place called Mama Africa. The food there was pretty good. We got sadza (an African dish kind of like polenta) and meat sauces for it, and we also got an order of peanut butter rice. Acadian’s scrapes are starting to heal now, and so now he can grab stuff with his right hand.