As the sun went down an eerie silence settled over the vastness of the lake. The beach of pearl-white sand was gently lapped by water clear as glass. vacant space around me seemed to reach beyond infinity. There was not a breath of air that moved. The oil-slick surface stretched away and faded in a haze that blotted out the line where the horizon ought to be, giving this Zambian lake its name, Bangweulu – “where water meets the sky”. his tranquillity flushed out the bone-deep weariness of days on the endless ditched, potholed road to and from Lake Tanganyika. You didn’t measure this road in distance, but in time – but who could remember how many days and nights it took? You could also measure it in wear and effort – four tubes and three tyres, while, often at 4km/h, we slogged 600km in low-range 4×4. Most of all you measure this journey in experience.
The adventure of crossing a 5 000km² swamp or flood plain cannot be bought. Neither can travelling the course of a huge river like the Luapula or past lakes like Mweru and Wantipa, sleeping at waterfalls along the way. Driving during the cool hours of darkness, the night-long experience of being escorted in the glow of my headlights by a succession of more than 50 pennant-winged nightjars will stay in my memory long after I’ve forgotten the exhausting hardships of the journey.
Lake Bangweulu is where David Livingstone’s last journey ended. Although his body was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, his heart was buried here. The source of the Nile may have been his destination, but, like me, all he ever had was the journey. In a decade of wanderings through Central Africa I seldom had a destination, schedule or route.
Taking the least-travelled fork in the road, I not only discovered wonderful secret places, but myself and what life really is about. Everybody needs this, but most people only have a destination. Their whole life is one big rush and before they know it, they’re at their final destination. I gazed across the quiet water and my mind travelled over the journey of the last three months. It was a kaleidoscope of place names, landscapes and experiences. I also thought about this remarkable 1 250km² lake. To the east was an enormous swamp, three times that size, home to hundreds of wattled cranes and 30 000 black lechwe that occur nowhere else.
Despite its vastness, Bangweulu is quite shallow. During the day it heats up, but from late afternoon it cools down rapidly. This creates a high-pressure cell when the air above the lake descends outwards at the same time every evening. A gale-force wind blows in every direction out from the centre of the lake. When darkness fell and the lantern of the last fisherman’s mokoro moved to shore, I knew the wind would arrive within the hour. I retreated to the fire flickering its invitation through the screen of reeds around our camp. After supper we hardly had time to clear up and reach the shelter of the tent before the great wind struck. Lying in the creaking tent I listened to the howling wind and crashing waves and thought about the next day’s fishing. In the morning the shoreline would be littered with giant freshwater snails, washed up in the night. Fried in butter, they’re delicious, but they’re also the favourite bait for the imboa, that curious yellow, big-eyed catfish with the long, pointed snout. But I caught nothing the next day. Although the lake also contains tigerfish and bream, I never caught much there or at Lake Tanganyika.
Throughout northeastern Zambia millions of locals, producing nothing and living off the land, have depleted the fish population. If my wanderings there were solely in search of a fishing destination it would have been a total disaster. But being a wanderer rather than an arriver, the 11 000km we travelled will, until I arrive at that final destination, remain one of my greatest journeys ever. – Abré J Steyn Contact Abré J Steyn on 083 235 4822 or e-mail [email protected]. |fw
