The Zambezi River Runs Through My Heart

We all have our own personal paradise. It could be a forest where you can breathe deeper, a remote beach where you go to skinny-dip, a mountain top where you can see the bigger picture, or even a city park, where you can hear the birdsong above the traffic.

I’ve fallen in love with so many of Africa’s wild places, but the Zambezi River valley is maybe my favourite. If you go 400kms north-east from Victoria Falls, between the Kariba and Mupata gorges, the great river becomes languorous, widening out on the floodplains, giving life to thousands of wild animals.

I’ve taken some of my favourite photos on these floodplains, including the cover of Spirit of Africa. If you haven’t done so yet, I wish that – at least once in your life – you get to walk with elephants through the albida forests at sunset, when the dusty air turns to gold powder. (I hope to photograph the forests and their elephants in the light of a full moon…sometime.)

It just feels so good to be near the Zambezi River, especially on a sweltering October day (an ice-cold Zambezi Lager is essential). If Africa was a living creature, then the Zambezi River would be its aorta – the vital artery that pumps oxygen-rich blood.

Once, when camping at Mana Pools, we lit our campfire on the edge of the Zambezi, and cracked a cold one. In the sensuous afterglow of dusk, we sat and watched a bull elephant come strolling along the river bank. He saw us, then walked straight towards us, stopping on the opposite side of our campfire.

The big ellie smelt us with his trunk, waving it over our heads, almost touching us. I saw the firelight reflecting on his toenails, and felt the breath come through his trunk. We didn’t dare move. Then he let out a big exhale, turned and walked away slowly.

I’m not sure if it was the ice-cold beer, or the spirit of the moment, or both, but afterwards I felt like I was levitating, in complete awe and gratitude for the great Zambezi River and its wild animals.

All these images are in my latest book Spirit of Africa, and they can also be purchased as fine-art prints.