The Globe and Mail: A spectacle of nature on the Zambezi River

By Alec Scott for The Globe and Mail

When I reach the thatched cottage on the banks of the Zambezi River, an otter plops off the deck and into the reeds below. Across a wide, sunlit swath of water is an island and there’s this curious snuffling, grunting and even singing coming from it.

“Hippos,” guide Obby Njekwa says, as he starts the engine on a pontoon boat we take out from the Tongabezi lodge. As we motor toward the mid-river island where the hippos, among other wild things, are, he says that mild-mannered otter sunning itself on the deck could likely hold its own in a fight with a crocodile.