Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Zimbabwe Memoire #3


karibamotel
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.
The fourth leg of my tour of Zimbabwe was a day spent on Lake Kariba. It's the largest man-made body of fresh water south of the Sahara, and second on the continent to only Aswan in Egypt. The day consisted of a boat trip across the lake with a brief visit to one of the islands that the dam created called Zebra Island -- where we only saw these awesome storks, and some comorants.

On the return journey, we were given box lunches by our hosts. Now I must say that Lake Kariba was hands down the most oppressively HOT place I visited in Africa. The lunches contained hard boiled eggs, an orange and a ham sandwich dressed with mayo. Now I'm no rocket scientist, but the only thing I ate was the orange. My companions chose a more trusting posture and devoured it all. That was a mistake on their part.

Afterward, we settled into our motel. All I could think of was taking a swim in the pool to cool off. The pool was very alluring, unfortunately it was also lined with black volcanic-appearing rock. When I dove into it seeking respite from the heat and found myself in a steamy bath, I don't know which was more acute; my surprise or my disappointment.

Appearances really can be deceiving!

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