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| I think that's me beside the captain |
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| Not much further.. |
To get to the campsite we had to drive to a small airdrome, parked the jeep and got on a small plane, then we get on a motorboat and travelled across Lake Kariba to the hotel/campsite in the bush.
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| Car parked and bout to get on the plane, got given a nice flower. |
I was impressed with our surroundings. Just such a beautiful place, a stunning lake and the hotel had a huge wood cabin bar with tables all around, a large veranda and a big pool outside.
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| Bar and main reception |
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| Inside, well as inside as it got. |
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| lovely bar tender |
The owner was another ex pat dressed in full jungle style clothes. There were busy waiters and gardeners bustling around who cut grass with large scissors, we were guided to our room where we would be staying for 3 days. It was at this point I got my first surprise because although it was considered camping we were in a man made three-sided cabin, which looked out onto the
lake. No doors, no nothing, bit like sleeping in a double garage with the garage door open.
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| Yup...this was our room |
First question from Steven “Is this safe?” “Yar yar, but no go out for walk after lights out, ok?” For myself at this time…one word…. oblivious. Happily unpacking and admiring the view, Steven a bit naggy, kept telling me to check my shoes before slipping them on, we walk up to the bar to meet Clive for a drink and the hotel owner joins us. The evening consists of chatter about the events of staying in the bush, like the German man a couple of years ago that got too hot and took his bedding outside the cabin to sleep in the cool night air. A very old and hungry lion sniffed him out and began to eat him legs first. German man did die. The couple that took a midnight stroll and not being able to see anything bumped straight into a buffalo…gorged to death. The angry hippo they found in the pool one morning…endless endless stories…As this was going on I noticed a tiny buzzing bird hovering around me then making a dash for under my chair. I looked more closely and notice it wasn’t a bird…it was a WASP! Biggest bloody wasp ever, oh my god nothing like the British wasp, this one had fangs, yes you heard me..fangs! When in gods name did you ever hear David Attenborough mention them? Then I noticed the ants…I reckon 50 of them could have carried me away, a bit aggressive looking and me of. It was around this time I began to reassess myself as a fearless intrepid explorer…
Glancing across at Steven I realised the wild stories had also unnerved him as we meandered our way back through the bush to our cabin. Once inside I felt comfortable though and slipped into my pj’s, we had a light and a mosquito net so all would be well and I had bought a great book to read (can’t remember what it was now). There were two single beds so Steven tucked me inside mine lowering my net and wrapping it under the mattress. At this point I noticed my net was full of holes and insisted on having his, which he gave over, and I left him to tuck himself in with my holey net. I had had no alcohol unlike all the men I was with because in my head I was one jump ahead and planning my escape should a hungry lion, hippo, hyena and even elephant come lumbering in. The cabin had huge beams and I had worked out that I could get on them quietly, not bothering to warn Steve so that any animal would concentrate on eating him and leaving me alone. I’m afraid my urge to survive no matter what has ruled my life. I looked up at the beams as I lay there with some satisfaction while listening to Steven’s drunken snores in the bed beside me. Then I spotted spiders! Big black ‘flatties’ all whizzing about over the beams. “Shit” I thought…”STEVEN STEVEN!” Mumble mumble “What?” “The cabin is covered in spiders and there are some about 6inches long!” “It’s ok, they are about the only things in here that are harmless and eat mosquitoes so stop becoming hysterical” I decided I didn’t like Steven anymore and why had he brought me to this terrifying place? Then I told myself of for being a weakling and too middle class and I had better pull myself together. I began to read my book..bravely .
Nobody mentioned that a single light bulb in the middle of the jungle would gather together followers from basically all over the country and it wasn’t long before a million varieties of insect began to fly, walk and crawl all over my bed. Greatly involved in my reading, it was a while before I looked up and saw that my net was moving taking on a life of its own. Screaming and sobbing ensued. Steven thought I was now being eaten by a lion and woke with a start. There was me huddled in my little bed looking at him from the inside my net with eyes out on stalks but still rational…that was until a bright emerald green very large spider crawled up my net from the inside. At this I became superwoman and leapt through my net leaving a human size hole and landed on Steven’s bed, howling. Steven murdered the emerald green spider with his shoe and I refused to leave his bed despite the temperature being about 40C. Another thing they didn’t mention was that the electricity came from a generator and when the boss went to bed the electricity got turned of. He now went to bed.
I admit that without me Steven would have happily slept through till the morning without incident but with a sobbing sweaty girlfriend in his single bed he had become..irrational. He seemed to be babbling and was now also scared and we could bother hear lions roaring and many strange sounds all of which in our heads meant death. He searched around for a little box of matches and lit a few, never have I known such darkness. We needed to see what was out there…in our cabin. First thing we saw were solder ants, thousands of them…they had gone up on leg of my bed, across where my pillow used to be and had collected the green spider and were half way up the wall with it. Then I remembered Steven had the net with all the holes and began to sob again. However, Steven well he sort of gave up being vigilant and fell asleep leaving me and my imagination to overheat. I decided this was very unfair so I lightly brushed the back of his leg with my fingers in the manner of a snake slithering over him. Well!! , he jumped about 10ft up in the air screaming. I was quite surprised, in the dark I was quietly laughing but trying hard to act shocked and from his reaction definitely too scared to tell him what I had done. He began frantically looking for the matches and shouting WTF WTF was that???? I suggested a snake.. he stayed awake with me all night.
Before light we were woken to a waiter shouting, “knock knock, knock knock” through the wooden wall on the left. You see there wasn’t a door and it would have been rude to have just walked in peering at guests while they slept. I had had about an hours sleep so it took many knock shouting to wake either of us. We were greeted with tea and toast and it gradually came back to us that we were being woken so early because we had arranged to go Bream fishing in the lake, which was a dawn start. Steven immediately checked my shoes…annoying a bit. It was only after our time was up at Lake Kariba that he told me on the first day he had found a little black scorpion in my shoe and had edged it into a matchbox, then taken it to Clive in his cabin and asked him if it was dangerous. Clive had leapt out of bed at the sight and told him it was deadly and what the hell was he doing carrying it around in a match box! They had both decided not to tell me for fear of reprisals and hysterics.
I’m not sure I’m coming out of this tale very well.
The reason for the early start to the fishing expedition is the heat; sitting in a small fishing boat in the middle of a lake (although Lake Kariba is more like an enclosed ocean) at over 40C is not a good idea. I didn't even know why we were doing this to be honest, having never fished and have never had any desire to learn but the men seemed to think it was a brilliant idea to do this every morning (as I found out). I did think it would be a good way of seeing animals though. I was given a big fishing rod and of we rowed/motored.
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| Clive fishing |
Clive and the nice man in charge of the boat and an employee of the hotel who spoke broken English instructed us (Steven and I) in the mentality of Hippos and Buffalo and Crocodile, all very grumpy especially hippos and they are not laughing when they open their mouths up wide. Also, despite it being boiling hot “try not to touch the water or trail your hand in it to cool of because it contained Bilharzia” but that instruction was impossible to obey. My first go at casting of proved to be disastrous because I flicked the rod back and got the end stuck in a passing tree. My second attempt was even worse as the hook got stuck in the arm of our guide.
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| I have no idea what these birds were. |
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| Calm Lake Kariba |
From that point on the men would all creep to either end of the little boat when I had to cast of.
About two hours in I loved it, we were able to view hippos and their babies, buffalo were grazing by the banks, fish eagles were flying overhead and I learnt to open glass beer bottles with only my hands. Then our motor broke and we began to float and we lost an oar and there were the hippos and their babies that we were looming towards and our guide began to panic.
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| Here we are floating towards a not impressed hippo |
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| Floating towards elephants |
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| awww forgot I had taken this. |
I was in the middle of the boat happily staring at the hippos with my camera. Steven offered to swap places, stood up and pushed me to move to the end of the boat nearest to the hippos and before I knew it he was in the middle and I was closest to the hippos and a couple of buffalo’s glaring at us from the waters edge. Then it
dawned on me, “Steven! You have just moved yourself to a safer position and are using me as a buffer” He agreed. This being the man that on our first date walked on the edge of the pavement to protect me from any cars that might splash through puddles going past. The hippos became anxious and the mummies had their mouths open, I was now staring at their tonsils and I got within 5ft of a buffalo! The boat at the last minute kicked into action and we pottered away but it kept breaking down at inopportune moments throughout the morning. Did we catch any bream? Yes lots! But we had to put them back again so I couldn't see the point. The next day we attempted to catch Tiger fish which have poisonous spines, aren’t in anyway edible and will fight back once in the boat. Men are so odd. These fish grow very big. This is what they look like:
I got one on my line and that was a mistake because it was a big one and it fought while I screamed in the boat and the men screamed at me. It escaped before I could land it but Clive and Steven landed a couple but they were much smaller than the one that I was attached to for a while. I know this because mine leapt out of the water with teeth bared at one point. Quite glad it got away.
We had now realised that Africa – real Africa was incredibly dangerous, I haven’t even mention the mosquitoes and tsetse fly that carries sleeping sickness and malaria. The malaria tablets given to us in England were not up to standard so we bought the lasted version from a chemist in Harare as advised. I discovered that no insect liked biting me, it’s strange but this is still the case but they did love Steven who got bitten in a hundred places. I have no idea why. A tsetse fly while in the pool bit him and I told him to let me know if he gets sleepy. Our plans for being able to sleep on night two in our camp were very different. Steven decided to drink inordinate amounts of alcohol and be so drunk he would pass out and be oblivious to and nighttime activities. I decided to drink no alcohol but not turn the light on at all and asked for a new mosquito net.
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| Steven getting very drunk |
My plan didn't take into account that I would have a roaring snoring man lying beside me all night. In three days I probably only had about 10 hours sleep.
While there we also went midnight tiger fishing on a kapenta boat and went on a bush-tracking walk, which I loved best. I have also stood and stared at the Kariba Dam and watched the enormous crocodiles floating around at the base.
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| Looking down from Kariba Dam |
What an amazing experience, I am very lucky. Part of me dies when I hear over the years what is happening in Zimbabwe, so beautiful, so many resources and natural minerals. I can see why Rhodesia was so closely fought for by the people from here that had made it their home. Its probably not ‘pc’ to say this but that country would have been much better of if it had stayed Rhodesia and changed politically over a period of time in the way South Africa did. We visited Cecil Rhodes house and one can only admire a man that made a life and changed a country in a place so alien to where he had been born.
