LAKE KARIBA
A spectacular, if eerie,
place, Lake Kariba is among the largest man-made lakes in the world.
A home to hundreds of "drowned" and petrified mopane
trees, as well as bream, fighting Tigerfish, and kapenta (a
sardine-like fish); egrets, kingfishers, cormorant, fish eagles, and
heron, including the Goliath heron, which we saw in flight early one
morning. Crocs and hippos inhabit the shorelines, and elephant,
water buck, and impala are among the animals you can spot on land.
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The Lake and Park
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| The Kariba Dam, which has changed the face of the
Zambezi valley, by creating the Lake Kariba. Here we are looking at
Zambia from the Zimbabwe side. |
Kariba is not the best
destination in the rainy season, as it has been know to reach 50
degrees Celsius. Keith is trying for tigerfish, a popular game
fish in the lake, and he is completely covered up because of the
sunburns from yesterday's fishing expedition.
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| Above, a rare sighting of hippos on land. Normally
they come up to shore only at night, to feed on the grasses. |
The
very pretty water hyacinth was introduced to Lake Kariba by a
well-meaning European: now it chokes much of the Lake and the Gache
Gache River. It is proving difficult to control without upsetting
the delicate balance of life on Lake Kariba. |
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| Keith is photographing a huge bull elephant we
spotted on shore while fishing. |
He
was a magnificent sight and almost seemed to pose for us. He
is covered with red Kariba dirt. |
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| Finally he and his companions, the cattle heron, go
back inland. |
Here is a fish eagle, a beautiful predator who had
much better luck fishing one day than we did,
judging from his loud laughter as we pulled up
our empty lines. |
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| Water buck are shy and not always seen on game drives. |
Impala
wonder if we are a threat. Our guide took us on a game drive through
the lodge's private reserve. |
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| The clouds rolled in one afternoon, and Keith and I
were caught in a sudden rainstorm while in the open jeep. It had
been hot and the rain was welcome. |
Our
guide Reuben ponders the next moves of a pair of leopard tortoises.
He also guided our early morning canoe safari, a frightening
experience as we were stalked by almost a dozen crocs. Reuben
was a thoughtful host at the lodge too, and arranged a special meal
of traditional Zimbabwe food for us. |
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