We recently returned from a true “trip of a lifetime” through South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia. Our first stop in Zimbabwe was to a Houseboat on Lake Kariba.

Lake Kariba is the world’s largest reservoir and manmade lake. During the filling up phase of the lake, the water was high in nutrients coming from decomposing, inundated vegetation, creating a thick layer of fertile soil on land that became the lakebed. Inhabitants of Lake Kariba include Nile crocodiles and hippopotami. Gamefish (particularly tigerfish, which was among the indigenous species of the Zambezi river system), now thrive on the kapenta, which in turn encourages tourism. Fish eagles, cormorants and other water birds patrol the shorelines, as do large numbers of Elephants and other big game species including Lions, Cheetahs, Leopards, Cape Buffalo and a myriad of smaller plains game species. The southern Matusadona National Park was once a haven for Black and White Rhinoceros, but recent poaching activity has dramatically reduced their numbers. Both Zambia and Zimbabwe are now attempting to develop the tourism industry along their respective coasts of Lake Kariba.

It was the vast number of elephants both on the shore and/or walking through the lake at sunset that caught our attention. The trees that are visible are normally well under water, but the recent years of droughts have lowered the water levels so dramatically that they are facing even greater power shortages in Zimbabwe once there in no more water going over the dam, something we were told was just weeks away.

Acrylic 18” x 36”