Manuel, Hollie Black Mamba for Breakfast: Three Kayaks, One River, Six Months

What would you do if elephants tore breakfast branches from above your swinging hammock? If a pride of lions invaded your camp? Or you were knocked into the water by a charging hippo? Jamie, a colourfully blended character and possibly a careless adventurer, intertwines the tale of his 2009 Zambezi River descent with often hilarious and sometimes scary bush tales from all over Africa. The River drifts the three boys down towards Mozambique in sea kayaks that they have yet to master, through rapids they may not survive and through communities that tell of the disappearance of a way of life. Distance bears no relation to the time they take and mid trip, the back weary paddlers take a fortuitous river break, in which they deal with a ruptured appendix, the ear notching and chip tagging of a wild population of rhino, and the escape of two of these prehistoric beasts. The chase is epic and the boys cannot afford to fail. The rhino must come home.