Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe (Oct. 16, 1998)

Kipling's on Lake Kariba was a pleasant surprise -- it is a very posh place, the people who run the place are very nice, the other guests were interesting people, and you can decide for yourself if the scenery was good.
Lake Kariba is a great place to observe and photograph wildlife, since boats don't seem to scare most of the animals the same way a car does. In fact, all of the pictures below were taken from a boat in one afternoon, including the two sunset pictures.

Buffalo

Darter

Elephant

A Gorgeous End of the Day on Lake Kariba


Well, not quite all the pictures -- Lake Kariba National Park serves as a rhino orphanage, with 4 baby rhinos in the park. They're kept penned up at night until they get 3 years old, which is how long they'd stay under their parents' protection. The babies are pretty tame and used to people now but the guide said they get ornery towards humans in short order after they're released. The best part for me was that I got to touch this rhino -- the skin is pretty rough, but it's smooth in the flap of skin where the leg joins the body.
After one wonderful day there, I left for Victoria Falls. Generally, I don't want to return to places I've been, since I figure there are more new places to see, but one day wasn't nearly enough.

Back to the Main African Trip Page

Tom Loos