Africa Water

Africa Water We follow a group of interpid bikers as they follow the majestic Kavango River. A kilometre wide it moves down through the desert sands of Botswana, a country with virtually no rainfall. The source of the river is tropical Angola, where the rain can be torrential. The Kavango drains that rainfall - not to the sea, nor even an inland sea, but into the Okavango Delta, where it broadens and divides into many channels. It becomes one of Africa's richest habitats --in the middle of a desert. Imagine a lion at three metres, elephants you could almost touch, kudu, giraffe, impala, baboons, crocodiles, hippos bent on snapping you out of your dugout, and stunning varieties of birdlife. Then there is Zimbabwe: the roads were almost deserted, the economy has almost ceased to exist, food is scarce. Bulawayo, the country's once-thriving second city, is now just another run-down African town. But one positive thing - in a country where almost all the news is bad - despite reports that poachers have had their way, the animals of Hwange national game park have survived. A herd of 22 elephant come down to the waterhole in front of our lodge. We see a thunderous herd of 300 buffalo a short drive away, a lion guarding the carcase of one buffalo he and his pride had brought down the previous day, kudu, sable antelope, impala, warthogs, baboons and vervet monkeys. And almost no tourists to enjoy them. The Kavango, that river to nowhere, was doing what it always has done. It was carrying Angola's overflow to the animals in the desert, then disappearing into the sands of the Kalahari.

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