Lake Kariba - Zimbabwe's Inland Ocean

Lake Kariba - Zimbabwe's Inland Ocean

It might have been the heat, which was heading towards a sweltering 38o, but there was something about Lake Kariba that mesmerised me into a catatonic state of pure relaxation. Nothing I saw seemed to make any sense at all.

Nothing Seemed Real

While fishing nonchalantly from a houseboat I noticed a vertical drainpipe drift through the water - perhaps I had drunk one too many sundowner cocktails. It turned out to be an elephant's trunk emerging, attached to a large grey dripping body.

The next day a dark handsome man, who looked as if he had stepped out of the pages of a Wilbur Smith novel, strolled along the same remote sand bank and stared intently at the ground as if searching for something. The hazy heat made me feel as if I was living in a dream and I wondered if anything at Lake Kariba was quite as it seemed.

Kariba's magic is attributed to Nyaminyami, the Zambezi River God who was undoubtedly responsible for the once-in-a-thousand-year flood in 1958 during the building of the massive dam. The river was finally tamed in June 1959 and the lake formed an inland ocean 285kms long and 40kms wide.

Men lost their lives and people their land in the formation of this dam, but more than 40 years on, the new eco-system provides life in many forms. Villagers and their livestock have constant access to water and the fishing is good. Holiday makers flock to the lake for fishing, sailing, game viewing and unadulterated rest & relaxation.

Wildlife abounds and there are so many crocodiles, that to keep numbers down, the National Parks Board allow crocodile farms to collect the newly-laid eggs for their hatcheries. They breed them for their meat and skins like any other domestic animal. This explains the hero-like Crocodile Dundee I saw walking the sandbank. He was looking for crocodile nests to raid - a job with inherent dangers.

Crocodile Dundee

I was to experience these dangers first hand after I persuaded him to take me along on the next foray for eggs. It seems that the female crocodile is quite canny and covers her metre-deep nest so thoroughly, that even an expert finds it hard to locate. A dusting of sand on a rock may be the only clue that a nest lies nearby.