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Caribbea Bay Resort

Lifestyle Writer
The breeze from Lake Kariba sifts through rooms at Caribbea Bay Resort to announce the arrival of a new day.

The resort, which is on the shores of the Lake is one of the popular accommodation destinations for tourists that favour this part of the country which offers various lifestyle and leisure activities.

Singing birds jovially welcome the new day as other animals close to the resort also announce they have had another day added to their lives by the Almighty.

Baboons stroll in a nearby bush and they seem keen to check on the guests at the resort as they keep going up and down trees peeping towards the hotel.

The sounds and sights are refreshing.

As guests start their day with different activities that include morning walks, visits to the gym and going for breakfast, activity in the waters that seem to spread endlessly also peaks.

Throughout the night, the waters, which appeared like a dark cloud spread on the ground, were dotted with lights as house-boats, boats of fisherman and security patrollers littered the Lake.

A houseboat on Lake Kariba

A new night visitor to the Lake could mistake the dotted lights to a location of scattered human habitats.

But on this early morning, as the boats start making their ways to the shore, the picture completely changes.

Now, the lights and dark ground cloud have become moving white objects that slowly sail on blue surface — the water. What a beautiful morning!

Outdoor activity at Caribbea Bay Resort also peaks as some guests go for early morning photo-shoots by the lakeside.

The resort, which is under Africa Sun, is currently undergoing refurbishments. The first phase was to give the outside of the hotel an exciting facelift and the second one, with attention to rooms has just begun.

The temperatures are usually high in this part of the country, but this particular winter morning promises a fine day.

It is not cold. Just a favourable weather and staffers at the resort concur that this is one of good days in Kariba.

“The weather will be fine today. Usually the sunrise comes with rapidly rising temperatures and this breeze today shows that it will not be a hot day. It has been like this for a few days now and people that have visited the place in this period have been luck to experience such weather.

“However, even if it is hot, people will always cool themselves on boat cruises and in swimming pools,” narrates one of the staffers. And talking about boat cruises, some people are already making their way to a boat on the edge of the Lake to go for a morning cruise. Few people enjoy this early cruise because most guests like to be on the waters at sunset. The sunset cruise is the most popular as it brings classic experience of seeing the sun gradually descending as if it is sinking in the endless waters, colouring the surface orange and giving tourists the best photo shoot background.

On good days when there are many people around, boat operators make good business with sunset cruises. Many boats from other hotels and lodges dotted on the shores of Lake Kariba compete to bid the sun farewell everyday as they embark on sunset cruises.

It is one of the activities that attract people to the Lake.

The Lake that remains one of dream destinations for domestic and international tourists.

As our crew learnt later that day, the boats can only go as far as mid-lake because the waters belong to two countries.

“An invisible border, directed with distant islands separate Zimbabwe from Zambia.

“We can only go as far as this island,” one of the waiters on the boat announces as we embarked on a sunset cruise.

“The other part belongs to Zambia and we cannot encroach into their territory without permission.”

Still the experience if fascinating because the cruise can go for about two hours as people enjoy sailing on the vast waters.

The upper part of the boat is the music section and the DJ selects various songs to people that dance and enjoy their drinks.

The lower part is a bit relaxed. People at this bottom section prefer to enjoy the waves and admiring nature.

The sun begins to set as the boat makes its way back to the shore and it is time for photo-shoots.

The distant sun fascinates tourists as it ‘sinks into water’. Such is the way that tourists usually end their outdoor day activities at Lake Kariba. But, besides the activities in the Lake, others prefer to cool down in ‘minute lakes’ — the swimming pools — that are at most accommodation facilities in Kariba. At Caribbea Bay, they have two of them. One at the foot of the structure and another overlooking the lake.

And away from these ‘big and small’ waters, Kariba also offers off-lake activities. The most popular of the activities are game drives. People enjoy seeing different animals in the game park and the most popular game drives also come towards sunset.

Animals like elephants, leopards, lions, elands, zebras and warthogs among others are found in the game park and the environment in the forest is also refreshing.

One operator of cruises and game drives, Sunset Safaris, has been in the industry for a long time and they shared their experiences with our team.

“People that come here for many days want to experience boat cruises and game drives. We take people on exciting experiences in water and on the land. We have had many tourists that come here several times and can never have enough of Kariba. Indeed this is one of the best destinations in the country and we will try our best to give people best services,” said Crabbie Mukwesha of Sunset Safaris.

Commenting on leisure and tourism in Kariba, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority head of corporate affairs Sugar Chagonda said people should go and enjoy best services provided by tourism operators in the tourist resort.

“There are so many activities offered in Kariba. Most people enjoy activities on the Lake and others also like wildlife on the land. We have some of the best service operators in Kariba and people can get more information from our offices here in Harare or in Kariba. We have a rich database of tourism operators in Kariba,” said Chagonda.

“We encourage local tourists to visit this destination. Domestic tourism is on the rise and we encourage people to enjoy fascinating natural wonders of their country. Anyone who has visited Kariba will tell you that Zimbabwe is one of the most beautiful countries in the world.”