ancient as the world and older than the flow of
human blood in huma n veins....” The r iver is a
world in ripeness, never still, never silent. As
we stood watching, half a dozen elephants, led
by a matriarch, came down to drink, standing
on their reflections and keeping their calves
close. The water was silvery brown, low and
indolent, the bends humped with pods of
hippopotamuses like large blue slugs. Nearby
were crocodiles as long as cars, waiting months
for a meal.
The Shentons have built blinds on the
riverbanks and near the watering holes from
which guests can watch wildlife unnoticed.
One is beside the Luangwa, where later that
afternoon, just as night fell, we witnessed a
sudden eruption of panic along the bank.
Impalas fled, pursued by lions. Close by there
was a cry and a thump; from behind a bush
came a single lioness, a young impala limp in
her jaws. She hurried into cover and tore into
her victim, bolting down the entrails, her face
masked in blood.
The urgency with which she ate and the
wary way she kept raising her head spoke of
the layered ferocity of life in t he bush, of t he
daily campaign against hunger. As we drove
back to camp, Saturn and Jupiter glittered low
in the sky, eternal witnesses to all of Earth’s
tiny lives. How infinitesimal existence is,
and how infinite in its moments, I thought, as
the moon rose above us in a lopsided grin.WE LEFT SOUTH LUANGWA’S
stories to their unfolding and took a tiny plane
toward the Bangweulu Wetlands. Rod pointed
out the watershed that divides the Zambezi
river basin (which drains into the Indian
Ocean) from the headwaters of the mighty
Congo (which flows into the Atlantic). As we
circled the airstrip, I gazed down on a sea of
green reeds, broken by the occasional sheen of
open water. The on ly road r uns out at t he
airfield; beyond lie hundreds of kilometers of
water and wilderness.
As we stepped out of the plane, grasshoppers
leaped away from our feet in clicking shoals. The
sky felt limitless, full of light and a feeling of
joyful freedom. We were met by Jackson
Ng’andwe, a solemn guide for African Parks,
which today manages these wetlands in
partnership with the 50,000 people who live
here. Jackson conducted us to a flat-bottomed
punt in which two boatmen poled us through
ditches, then channels, then lagoons, on our
way to Shoebill Island Camp. We scraped
through tiny channels, the punt tunneling
through reeds. Rod was in ornithological
nirvana. Herons, stilts, snipes, ibis, storks,IT FELT LIKE I WAS
ENTERING A DRAMA IN
WHICH HUMANS HAD
DECENT PARTS, BUT
NOT NECESSARILY
LEAD ROLES
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