Gliding silently through the water means you don’t scare the animals off (as you might from a motorboat or 4x4), as well as getting a front-row seat watching them come to drink. This is especially true of the smaller animals like frogs, insects, and birds, who can fright easily with a motorboat. There is also plenty of action at the riverbank! Crocs can lie in wait and other predators see it as an opportunity to catch animals off guard.
There are two areas in Africa that offer indisputably some of the best canoeing – Botswana's Okavango Delta and the Zambezi river, each offering its own unique canoeing experience.
In the Okavango Delta, canoeing safaris give you a magnificent view of aquatic life and are a signature activity of the region, as you drift peacefully along the many shallow waterways in a mokoro or dug-out canoe. This is one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet and the quantity of species is breathtaking – your guide will point out the many smaller creatures that live in the Delta, as well as the more obvious wading eles!
On the other hand, the parks and reserves that fringe the Zambezi river, such as the Lower Zambezi (Zambia) and Mana Pools (Zimbabwe), offer an engaging and thrilling experience, where guests will see large numbers of elephant, hippo, and other big mammals vying for river space in a spectacular scene. This is river canoeing with lots of action – elephants on their hind legs tugging at riverside trees and huge pods of implacable hippos!