Get Sleepy: Sleep meditation and stories - Beautiful Bovu Island (Premium)

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

This is a preview episode. Get the full episode, and many more, ad free, on our supporter's feed: https://getsleepy.com/support. Beautiful Bovu Island Tonight, Abbe takes our imaginations to Zambia, in Southern Africa. Here, we'll glide along on the smooth current of the Zambezi River, before spending a night on a paradisiacal island. 😴  Sound design: gentle river.    About Get Sleepy Premium: Help support the podcast, and get: Monday and Wednesday night episodes (with zero ads) The exclusive Thursday night bonus episode Access to the entire back catalog (also ad-free) Premium sleep meditations, extra-long episodes and more! We'll love you forever. ❤️ Get a 7 day free trial, and join the Get Sleepy community here https://getsleepy.com/support. And thank you so, so much.  Tom, and the team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, Thomas here. You're listening to a preview episode. You can enjoy the entire story tonight by subscribing to our supporters' feed. There you'll get access to the entire back catalogue, bonus episodes, and more, and it's all completely ad-free. Click the link below to learn more and thank you so so much. Me and the team really appreciate your support. With your eyes closed you stand upon the riverbank, enjoying the sensation of the morning sunshine as it warms your face. The pleasant feeling seeps down into your arms, legs and chest. The air here is cool and refreshing.

You breathe it in, feeling as it enters through your nose and mouth and flows through you from head to toe. It heals and replenishes every part of you. Opening your eyes now, you stretch your arms up toward the cloudless sky, feeling a welcome sensation in the muscles of your back and shoulders. You smile at the sun, giving silent thanks for this glorious day, giving silent thanks for this glorious day before allowing your arms to drop loosely by your sides. Looking forward, you savor the beauty all around you. You're standing on the sandy bank of the Zambezi River in Zambia, a landlocked country in southern Africa. At over 2.5,000 kilometres long, the Zambezi is the longest east-flowing river on the African continent and the fourth longest overall. longest overall. It rises in the wetlands of northern Zambia before moving into Angola, Namibia and Botswana. From there it travels along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe

before marking its grand finale in Mozambique, where it empties into the Indian Ocean. In the local Tonga dialect, the name Zambizi means great river, and it's quite a sight to behold. You find it mesmerising, the way the sunlight bounces across the greenish blue water, and the sounds the river makes as it ripples along the surrounding land. You listen now as water laps against the canoes more nearby, one of which will soon transport you across its enchanting expanse. This stretch of river is classed as the midsection of the Zambezi, and it holds a particular charm being that it flows between two countries. Your currently on the northern side, not far from the city of Livingston,

across the water to the south lies in Barbue. Soon you'll be heading for Boeville Island, which sits happily in the middle of the river, almost as if it were a country on its own. You're so hypnotized by the sights and sounds of this great waterway, that it takes you a moment to register, that your friendly local guide has already begun pushing a canoe offshore. Emotions to you now, asking that you wade a little ways into the river in order to climb aboard the boat. Filled with a sense of childlike adventure, you splash through the warm, shallow water. The reeds tickle your wet legs and you find yourself smiling the whole time.

The dug out canoe wobbles slightly as you position yourself inside it. You laugh, playfully, gripped by the nervous thrill that you might just fall in, while also utterly certain that you won't. That's because your guide is holding onto the sides as you board. He built this boat with his own hand, he tells you, like his father before him and his grandfather too. It's a traditional type of boat sculpted from the trunk of the Mongongo tree. The wood is strong yet lightweight and it always stays afloat. How grateful you feel to be here right now. Your content upon the soft pale wood of the canoes bottom, feeling it sway from side to side. Behind you is a mound of velvety cushions that allows you to remain upright and relaxed, without missing a moment of the breathtaking landscape around you.

Your guide moves to the front of the canoe where he stands with a single sturdy awr pushing it down into the tall reeds of the riverbank and turning it at an angle, smoothly directing you out into open water. The river laps gently against the wooden exterior of the boat you and the Zambezi.