His very presence sends a chill down my spine, sitting there on the near bank of the rushing river, that prehistoric body frighteningly still, those unblinking eyes, clear and canny and unrepentant, staring back at me. Paired with the possible presence of hippos – Africa’s most deadly animal – it’s a tense situation, this crocodile so close at hand, especially given the fact that I sit just above the waterline with no weapon in hand, just a dual-sided paddle. But as we sweep through his pool at the foot of a raging rapid, I hear encouragement from behind. “Oh, he’s a beauty, isn’t he?” Rob Shattock shouts out, rhetorically and perhaps a little too loud, a hint of playfulness in his experienced voice, as my septuagenarian guide steers us steadily to safer waters.
I’m in the front seat of a two-person kayak, shooting a series of rapids on the Zambezi River, just a few dozen kilometres above the beautiful – and horrifying – splendour of Victoria Falls… [read more at TheGlobeandMail.com]
