I wake to the sound of water lapping gently outside my cabin. It’s an unusual morning call for a safari: dawn in Africa is normally heralded by the tunes of songbirds and cicadas and perhaps someone tapping on your tent, making sure you’ll be ready, bleary-eyed, for that early morning game drive. But this is no ordinary safari. Welcome aboard the RV African Dream.
We’re in no rush to dash out. Instead, I stand on the deck of our boutique riverboat, admiring the blood-red sunrise over Zimbabwe’s glistening Lake Kariba and watch the silhouette of an elephant gradually disappear as we drift from the shore.
After breakfast we head to Gache Gache Bay on the tender. It has an eerie beauty, with the tops of drowned mopane and leadwood trees rising above the water like ghosts. The haunting cry of African fish eagles and the long lonely whistle of a shrike add to its otherworldly atmosphere. Hippos wallow in the water, although all we can see are their cartoon-like eyes and ears popping up now and again to spy on us. Impalas frolic on the grass and crocs slither furtively off the shore — we’ve been warned not to dip our hands in the lake.
Our days on this watery safari are spent meandering around the lake’s eastern shores, exploring its nooks and crannies. Although I’m not normally a cruise fan, I find myself melting into the easy-going pace of life on board.
Life on the lake wasn’t always this calm. In the late 1950s, according to legend, Nyami Nyami, the river god of the mighty Zambezi, wrought havoc on the builders of the Kariba Dam. A serpent-like creature with the head of a fish, he was hell-bent on revenge against those who disturbed his home and his people, creating terrible floods that destroyed bridges, wrecked dam walls and killed workers. Despite the creature’s best efforts, Kariba is one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the world. It’s 175 miles long, looks more like a sea than a lake, and is a great place for a holiday.
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I had boarded the African Dream in Kariba town, a 90-minute flight in an 11-seat Cessna from Victoria Falls. The ship and an exclusive lodge in Namibia are the first forays into Africa by CroisiEurope, a company well known for its riverboats across Europe. Its southern African tour visits Namibia and Botswana as well as Zimbabwe, with Kariba the first port of call.
We cruise past coves, inlets and islands to the emerald-green Sanyati Gorge, too steep to tempt much wildlife, but beautiful nonetheless. I wonder about the 57,000 people of the Tonga tribe who once lived in these now submerged valleys. They were forcibly evicted, despite strong protests, and relocated to settlements along the lake’s shores; it must have broken their hearts to leave.
Today the only people here are a few holidaymakers in houseboats, or fishermen, even though it’s Easter weekend. “We normally have this place all to ourselves,” Evy Duville, the cruise director, tells me.
The elegant boat that is my home for three nights has eight cabins. All are decorated in soothing creams and greys, with floor-to-ceiling windows to make the most of the fabulous views. Sunbeds lie around the top and upper decks, with a small plunge pool on the lounge terrace. Dining on board is a delight: Croisi’s team has been trained by the South African celebrity chef and MasterChef judge Peter Goffe-Wood, serving delicious meals that include fresh bream and tilapia from the lake.
Although we don’t spot masses of wildlife from the African Dream, trips out on the small tender and on game drives yield some beautiful sightings. At 5pm, after mooring for the night at Palm Bay, Duville knocks on my cabin door. “We’ve just seen elephants on Spurwing Island, so we’re leaving on the tender if you want to come.”
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Within minutes I’m bobbing quietly on the water, watching an enormous bull elephant mooching on the shoreline. Impalas wander close by, looking tiny and toy-like alongside him. It’s a blissful moment, with a cold G&T in hand and an extraordinary sunset of golden rays spreading out like a Japanese fan over Kariba’s vast skies.
Next day we take a more traditional game drive around Matusadona National Park along the lake’s southern shore. It’s home to the Big Five — elephant, Cape buffalo, lions, leopard and rhino — but they mostly remain elusive, which is normal just after the rains, with water available everywhere. However, Cliffy Mandu, our guide, tells us he saw nine lions the day before. “We have two prides here, about 40 lions,” he says. “And four big males. Between them, they killed 18 baby elephants last year. They even kill crocs.”
On an unsuccessful mission to find these lions, we spot yet more frisky impalas jumping over shrubs, elephants playing and splashing in the lake, a grumpy muddy buffalo, hippos and crocs wallowing near by and a dazzle of zebra grazing in the shadows of the Zambezi Escarpment.
Some of these creatures are likely to be descendants of the 6,000 animals rescued during Operation Noah. When the dam was finished in 1959 the water levels gradually rose, leaving wildlife struggling to survive on higher terrain that rapidly divided into islands. Over five years rangers moved elephants, antelopes, lions, leopards and more to safety in Matusadona. The team, run by the senior ranger Rupert Fothergill, had minimal resources beyond wooden rafts and their incredible bravery and tenacity. Fothergill’s pioneering techniques in animal relocation are still used today.
For our last night aboard, we navigate to Antelope Island having tried our hand at fishing off the tender — we catch weeds but little else. I feel sad at leaving the African Dream and could have stayed longer. But Cascades Lodge in Namibia beckons.
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Visiting three countries in one day, we first fly back to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, then drive 50 miles by private coach to Kasane on the Botswana border. Finally a 15-minute boat ride takes us to Impalila Island on Namibia’s Caprivi Strip.
A legacy of the colonial Scramble for Africa that carved up the continent in the 1890s, the skinny sliver of land that is the Caprivi Strip juts into neighbouring Botswana and Zambia. Dominated by lush wetlands and the mighty Zambezi and Chobe rivers, it’s more akin to the Okavango Delta than the parched desert landscape normally associated with Namibia.
The Zambezi, Africa’s fourth largest river, is never far away on this safari. Its wild waters flow fast and strong over the Mambova Rapids beside my gorgeous suite at Cascades. Open only to guests of the African Dream cruise, this lodge is exclusive in every sense. It’s also a crucial lifeline to the islanders as part of Impalila Conservancy and employs all local staff.
As at Kariba, we spend most of our three days here on or near the water, drifting on the lily-strewn channels of the Zambezi, lunching on a floating restaurant called the Raft and exploring neighbouring Botswana’s Chobe River and its eponymous national park by boat or game drive.
The rains have been heavy this year and water is plentiful in the bush, making wildlife sightings tricky — animals don’t need to venture to the river. Birds are prolific, however, with blue-throated bee-eaters and tiny malachite kingfishers providing brilliant flashes of colour. As the day warms up, we come across 20 elephants ambling across our track and see waterbuck with their distinctive white markings on their backsides. An ageing male kudu strides along the river, the sun casting shadows of his long spiralling horns right across his back. And we spot a rare sable, black and glossy with curved horns arching to his shoulders.
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Our trip ends in Zimbabwe, at Victoria Falls. Here, the Zambezi is at its most powerful and majestic, thundering 350ft into the gorge in the world’s largest curtain of falling water. I love this place. I take a spectacular ten-minute helicopter flight over the gorge and then wander around on the ground getting drenched in the spray. I see souvenirs in the shape of Nyami Nyami and hope he will always look after this wild and wonderful river.
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Sue Watt travelled with CroisiEurope (020 8328 1281, croisieurope.co.uk) which has a southern Africa cruise from £3,713pp (December 7 and 19 departures). This includes the four-day cruise on the African Dream, with all meals and drinks, the four-day stay at Cascades Lodge with all meals and drinks, a domestic flight between Johannesburg and Victoria Falls, overnight stays in Johannesburg and Victoria Falls, and excursions as listed in the itinerary. Return flights with South African Airways from Heathrow to Victoria Falls via Johannesburg cost from £1,080pp (0844 3759680, flysaa.com)