An African Adventure: Part 3

Fishing the Zambezi is not necessarily the easiest of holiday occupations.

One of our camp-neighbours had brought a big fishing rod along, and set himself up in a nice area of pure-white beach between clumps of grass. His wife kept him supplied with beers and food, and there he sat, happy as a hippo in a waterhole.

We wandered over to see what he'd caught and found one of the strange fish of the Zambezi. It's gills have spines that it throws up on capture, poking holes in whatever has caught it. It refuses to die out of water - it hangs around alive for hours. It's not terribly big, but it's what was biting, so it's what he was catching.

We took a chance and wandered a bit further down to the river, closer than recommended, to see what we could spot in the water. We tried to identify what was logs and sticks, and which ones were crocodiles. I think we were pretty accurate - especially when one swam by a bit too close for comfort.

Back to the fisher-guy. As we were leaving to go back to our camp, a gigantic crocodile came out of one of the nearby clumps of grass and sloshed into the water. It had been there all the time and we hadn't seen a thing!