|
THERE’S an old (and inaccurate) saying a picture’s worth a thousand words!
As a professional wordsmith and snapper, who’s also spent much time on sub-editing, design and lay-outs of newspapers, magazines and books, I can assure you a picture’s very rarely worth 1 000 words: usually about 333 words in my rule-of-thumb in “casting-off”.
This weekly article, usually a restaurant review, but it can be about food in general, drink (usually alcoholic) or travel, usually comprises around 900 to 1 100 words and is often illustrated with one or more pictures of various sizes, subject to space available.
That’s probably news to legions of overseas readers who follow Zimbabwean events on-line (or are just hooked on foodie stories) because they don’t see pictures: or ads.
Which is a crying shame when, like today, my article’s about a heaven-on-earth place like the wilds and wildlife of Lake Kariba and some of my pix are stunning.
After an underwhelming overnighter at Caribbea Bay Resort: still superbly attractive in its paradoxically totally un-African architecture: more reminiscent of Sardinia or Corsica (see last Friday’s Zimbabwe Independent) it was an early un-washed and unshaven move to the usually busy, nowadays pumping, Chawara Harbour.
Because my host firmly ticked the “No Publicity” box, I can’t name him or identify his family, so the 20-sleeper houseboat must also remain anonymous to avoid providing clues!
Suffice to say he’s a good friend of many years, a Harare-based entrepreneur, embarrassingly generous to a fault. There were 16 of us aboard, ranging between about 60 months to upwards of 60 years and, as in my previous voyages with my host, his family and pals, it proved a gregarious ships’ company, without fall out: important when you’re living cheek-by-jowl.
The crew is stupendous: Captain Aaron or his aide, Jonas, will guide you unfailingly to the very best, most prolific, fishing spots, regardless of time of year or day and weather conditions and sagely advise which rod, reel, line and bait to use.
They’ll accurately identify the tiniest bird on the wing, tree or plant, with naked eye at 200 metres or more.
Tell them which animals you want to photograph, paint, study…or just see… and if there’s one within five kilometres of the boat’s route it’s yours.
Jonas claimed I brought him luck this trip. I haven’t seen many, if any, buffalo at Kariba for two or three years (as opposed to Chobe, Botswana or Kenya’s Maasai Mara where you can’t move for them!) Jonas confirmed it was at least 18 months since he’d seen buff.
The commonly-held belief is our gallant soldiers shot out the noble, fearless beasts for rations.
But on the first afternoon’s game cruise (near Sanyati West), we had a herd of 50 to 60 “visual” (a fellow passenger pedantically claimed 53; but she’d been on the G&Ts!); there were more in thick bush beyond the tree line.
Elephant were plentiful, as were impala and kudu and of course impis of hippo formed menacing, semi-submerged skirmishing lines, sometimes sunbathing on the lake’s foreshore and what remain of islands which were tops of gomos before the river was dammed. I’ve never seen the lake so high in almost 40 years and it had apparently dropped two metres from its peak.
I am not the greatest fan of crocs (aka flat-dogs/mobile handbags!) but felt sorry for a 15 foot monster with a poacher’s plastic net firmly wrapped round a fearsome snout. He wouldn’t have been able to eat (but they needn’t for yonks), looked to have trouble breathing and clearly couldn’t dive.
A leguaan (Dutch for iguana: aka monitor lizard) went for a kapenta lure of one of our bream fishermen, snapping the line. I heard the manic call of hyena near the houseboat; others claimed to have heard lion on a kill in the wee hours. Baboons and monkeys were, oddly, infrequently seen.
Bird life was magnificent. I saw the second gymnogene of my life, being harried by scores of much tinier birds. This handsome raptor, a cousin of the goshawk, raids nests to eat fledglings. (My first was on Hammy Hamilton’s once beautiful tobacco and ostrich farm at Nyazaura.)
White-tailed swallows nested UNDER the houseboat, between catamaran pontoons, raising chicks to the throb of the craft’s twin, powerful six-cylinder Perkins inboard diesel engines.
We saw giant and pygmy kingfisher and possibly every size in between: white-collared, malachite, brown-hooded, striped and woodland are recalled, writing this, four days after returning to the traffic chaos, dirt and noise of Harare.
A few guinea-fowl have taken up residence in our suburban garden, but in Kariba the foreshores and beaches were dense with them.
We saw dabchicks and darters, dikkops (both spotted- and water), half-a-dozen different species of duck, Egyptian and spur-winged geese, harriers, hawks, herons, hornbills and ibises, darters, cormorants and jacanas, crakes, stilts, stents and glossy starlings among many others.
We definitely clocked an uncommon long-toed plover, plus blacksmith, crowned and wattled varieties and argued long about a very rare white-crowned plover two novice “twitchers” claimed. Senegal and white-browed coucal also went into notebooks, giant eagle owl and Pel’s fishing owl.
The grandest local fish-eating bird is, of course, the magnificent, handsome African fish eagle. Their unmistakable haunting, hunting cries woke us, pre-dawn; they were the last birds to pipe-down at dusk.
On-board cook was named Butternut (they all were 30 or 40 years ago!) and proved splendidly able. He was bright-eyed delighted when I gave him a recipe for Yorkshire pudding to accompany a splendid beef joint roasted, rare, under the watchful eye of our host’s niece, Di, who—as always on houseboats—while catering for 16, produced enough grub for maybe 26!
“They” (the other 15) had braais, curries, roast ham, salads, cheese, charcuterie, fruit and gargantuan breakfasts. I was still in discomfort from a sore mouth damaged in a road traffic incident and had to make do with painfully, wincingly, sucking, sipping or slurping various soft items!
Five days in paradise! Tatenda, china!
For details on Kariba houseboat charters, phone Chawara Harbour on 0712 607 217.
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
 |
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
