Queen takes you cruising in urban cool where fierce lions feed

Cocktail hour: a barman is shaking up a mean cosmopolitan, Dean Martin is crooning and, under a constellation of twinkling LED lights, the tanned clientele are sprawled on funky suede sofas, gin and tonics in hand, gossiping into the dusk.

So far, so metropolitan – but, just 30 yards away, across an inky-black surge of water, three blood-splattered lions are snacking on freshly killed warthog, and the soundtrack is a screeching fish eagle. The Zambezi Queen is the planet’s most unusual safari. Cruising down the muscular Chobe River between Botswana and Namibia, past banks seething with wildlife, the converted casino boat injects a serious hit of urban cool into the remote wilderness. As I board at the isolated custom post of Kasane, it’s difficult to remain unimpressed by what Brett McDonald, the boat’s co-owner, calls “wild Africa with whistles and bells”. For starters, there’s the 14 en-suite cabins. Their understated interiors mix crisp white linen with monochrome animal photographs and glass doors onto private balconies. Spears and thatch do not feature. Then I see the top deck. Like all the other guests – the Queen holds 30 – I’m slightly stunned. One end has the sharp elegance of a city restaurant; the other is party central, with clusters of cream sofas, club chairs and drum-shaped stainless-steel stools around a bar of white Italian marble. Windows are drawn back, revealing 360 degrees of sky, river and land. It’s dazzlingly light, bright and white. The coolly eccentric space is book-ended by sun decks, one spearing into a six-sided plunge pool worthy of Philippe Starck. Two guests are already in there as I arrive, clutching iced Tafel beers and scanning the horizon slightly pretentiously – and the tub isn’t even filled yet. After a night serenaded by grunting hippos, we still h av e n ’t set sail. There’s a game drive to do first, on dry land. It might sound a tad conventional for such a mould-breaking waterborne adventure, but the Queen is moored off the wildlife honeypot of the Chobe National Park, home to 120 000 elephants. We see jumbos. Tons of them. And they’re far from the only evidence that a shoot-to-kill policy in Botswana’s game parks has deterred poachers. There are vast numbers of impalas, hippos, baboons and crocs. Marabou storks gather like grim reapers, guinea fowl huddle nervously and a tree is besieged by hooded vultures – flagging up a pride of lions gorging on kudu sausages or perhaps gazelle fritters. “It’s definitely a kill,” whispers our guide, Boata. “I heard the crunch of bones.” We finally head west on the second afternoon of the three-night cruise, and, under tropical sun, the vibe switches from cocktail lounge to Balearic beach bar. The plunge pool’s full, guests in bikinis lean against the deck railings and a dude in shades and surf shorts strums a guitar. Cape vino flows. The Queen might weigh 157 tons, but with jet drives, rather than propellers – one of several green features, including solar panels and low-emission generators – it travels almost silently. It’s a mechanical big cat, stalking wallowing hippos and drinking elephants. I’m sure I saw a huge buffalo do a double take. Equally surprising is the fact that we travel only about 21 kilometres b e fo r e the Chobe becomes unnavigable. But these are a far from an ordinary 21 kilometres. We ’re passing the densest concentration of wildlife on any riverbank on earth. “On winter days at Luguva, our second-night anchorage, you’ll see herds of 1 500 buffalo and up to 1 000 elephant,” Bret t explains . “It’s the Galapagos of Africa.” The Ngorongoro Crater, in Tanzania, might dispute that title, but it also has many more visitors. For the six miles past Chobe Game Lodge, we don’t see a soul. With Brett buying the mooring rights to the only two pushbacks – shor t tributaries for safe anchorage – on this stretch of the river, it’s guaranteed to remain exclusive. “It’s like my own private game park,” he smiles. Rebuilding the rusting hulk of the Zambezi Queen, discovered further along the Chobe – a task completed in the bush without a crane, let alone a shipyard – had echoes of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. “I was like Noah building the ark,” Brett says. But, partnered by a Cape Town luxury-property developer, he eventually launched his safari boat after a £2-million (R22-million) refurbishment. It’s terrific for the 56 builders and fishermen retrained as staff, but awful for my physique. The two men h av e n ’t just created the world’s most remarkable safari, they’ve created its laziest. I don’t even have to get out of bed to see scenes fit for an Attenborough documentary. And that’s before you eat the food. With serious tuck – butternut and macadamia soup, fillet beef with bordelaise sauce – wa s h e d down with acclaimed D’Aria wine, you could board a gazelle, depart a hippo. It’s float and bloat. Once we’re anchored, the Queen launches its five satellite boats – the equivalent of a lodge’s Land Rovers – for river safaris and fishing. We can now, theoretically, travel a further 130 kilometres along the Chobe. So, late afternoon brings more abundant game-viewing, followed by an evening of bush culture. About 150 flaming torches lead us into an enormous boma on the Namibian shore, with high bamboo walls, animal-skull decorations and a bar forged from an upturned mokoro. After exploring a milky quilt of stars through the Queen’s high-powered portable telescope, we tuck into impala stew, oxtail and sudsa (corn meal). It’s an aperitif for the Luguva Cultural Group, who use drum ’n dance to illustrate local dramas. Touristy? A little. Entertaining? Absolutely. We ’re back next lunchtime, scoffing pizza baked in a river-bank oven, but the highlight is the early-evening fishing. The tiger is the world’s greatest fighting fish and, for a golden half-hour, every cast spawns head-shaking, silver-skinned adrenaline. Back at the mothership, sipping an al fresco single malt, Brett calls for silence. He waves an imaginary orchestral baton and counts in cicadas, splashing hippos and, finally, laughing hyenas: a wilderness symphony. It’s electric, compulsive showmanship – you won’t, to my knowledge, find anything similar in any Manhattan cocktail bar.