Africa Journal - Tracking with Petros

---

Thursday, September 28, 1995

---

Tracking with Petros
I am awakened during the night by the sounds of the hippos. At night they come ashore to feed. When one bellows, others answer in chorus. They sound like they are directly outside the door of the houseboat. I am losing sleep, but can’t stop smiling.

At 5:30 AM we are off on a game walk with Petros. He is a professional guide, certified the same year as Iona. On the trail of a breeding herd of elephants, ws have another close encounter. Despite the massive amount of water represented by Lake Kariba, the drought is still very much in evidence. We walk through a bone dry valley that was the original site of Water Wilderness. There is a wood structure in a tree that used to be an observation deck in the middle of a bay. I don’t think you can even see the lake from it now.We hear that if the lake drops another two meters, the hydroelectric power plant will be forced to shut down.

A Photo from the book "Spirit of the Zambezi" showing the original Water Wilderness, and the same site today.
After breakfast we bid adieu to Peter and Jane, who are heading home. For a few hours we have the resort to ourselves as Petros heads out to get more guests and supplies. We wile away the mid-day hours by paddling in the canoe and watching wildlife from the deck. On the deck, I smoke a Montecristo #4, and watch two plovers try to drive off a Fish Eagle perched in the highest branch of a nearby tree. I want to fish, but Petros could produce no bait.

Petros returns with Adrian and Cecily, newlyweds from the UK. They look exhausted but are game for combination boat drive and walk. Back in the speedboat, we find more hippos, and hike up a hill where we find leopard tracks, but no leopard.

The hill overlooks the valley we walked through that morning. It is filled with game, mostly antelope and waterbucks. Sigrid then launches into the definitive photographic study of a Lake Kariba sunset.

Two rolls of film and two gin and tonics later, it is almost completely dark. Daniel somehow makes his way back through the maze of drowned trees to the houseboat in the dark.

=================

NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: This is a back-post / cross-post from my first on-line journal/blogging effort - a journal of our Southern Africa Tour in 1995. Originally posted to an abandoned domain (NetSnake.com), the term "blog" had not yet entered the parlance. I am migrating the original posts to this blog. Links to the original journal Date Index or Africa Tour Home Page will likely eventually disappear. The images from the original post were graphics and screen caps from video which I am leaving in it's low-rez glory for historical integrity. My intent is to also add some of Sigrid's higher quality scanned photos to these blog back-posts.  The difference in images should be obvious.

Africa Journal - Matusadona Water Wilderness

---

Wednesday, September 27 , 1995

---

Water Wilderness
We decide to forego any game drives from Katete and take the morning to just relax and recover. We had not realized how exhausted we had become. I use the time to try and catch up on the journal which is now getting dangerously behind. On the last dial-in, I picked up a message from Harlan complaining bitterly about my shitty HTML and lack of planning for this project. He sent me an HTML template for future transmissions, and lets me know that the web page is up. He issues a demand for a carved full-size bust of a woman’s head. I don’t know that I will have any choice but to acquiesce in this blatant extortion. I guess I should make it clear that to the extent that this web site looks good, or is even functional, is completely due to Harlan’s efforts, since I really will not be able to view it until I return.

I get a call from Rob at Chokamella. I had left my power adapter in the outlet there. He will see that it meets me two days hence at the Matobos Hills lodge. Another crisis narrowly averted. He also wants to let me know the cost of the phone calls as we had agreed. With this information, I now know just how badly I’ve been burned by the Sheraton in Harare. Almost ten times the actual charges for a comparable phone call. I’m pissed off, but will just have to deal with it when I get back.

At 2:30 we are picked up and driven to the lake shore. Charles, the driver, chides us for not going on a game drive and claims that we missed seeing two rhinos. We later discover that he may have deliberately confused the dates of that sighting. At the shore we are met by Petros, who will be our guide at Water Wilderness, and are off on a high speed run across lake Kariba in a massively overpowered speedboat.


Petros briefs us about the resort over tea on the "mother" houseboat. He warns us about staying clear of the hippos. The day before, the chef had been fishing too close to shore, and a hippo came up from underneath and bit through the canoe. Then he gives Sigrid and I our canoe, and we paddle over to the houseboat that will be our home for the next two nights.

The facilities are a little primitive, but the setting is incredible. We are moored in a forest of drowned trees. From our deck on the boat we hear fish splash, and watch elephants and buffalo drinking on the shore. The bellow of hippos compete with the songs of birds.

After getting settled, we paddle back to the motherboat, and are off with Petros and the only other guests, Peter and Jan from Australia, on a game drive in the speedboat. I get some great video of hippos and a crocodile.

Then to a rocky deserted island for sundowners and yet another spectacular sunset. Peter explains that the quinine in tonic water will help ward off malaria, and that I am making a mistake drinking Zambezis.

  

 Despite the fact that there are no mosquitoes, I decide that his logic is irrefutable and switch to gin and tonic.

=================

NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: This is a back-post / cross-post from my first on-line journal/blogging effort - a journal of our Southern Africa Tour in 1995. Originally posted to an abandoned domain (NetSnake.com), the term "blog" had not yet entered the parlance. I am migrating the original posts to this blog. Links to the original journal Date Index or Africa Tour Home Page will likely eventually disappear. The images from the original post were graphics and screen caps from video which I am leaving in it's low-rez glory for historical integrity. My intent is to also add some of Sigrid's higher quality scanned photos to these blog back-posts.  The difference in images should be obvious.