I can’t really write authoritatively about a temporary restaurant established at Charara, during the recently held Kariba Invitation Tiger Fish Tournament (KITFT), as I didn’t eat there!
Most of the other 12 folk on our, licensed for 19 pax, houseboat Out of Africa did — on the Saturday night — because no food, toiletries or cleansing materials were on board until four of us “Tail-end Charlies” arrived from Harare, bringing it with us, mid-afternoon Sunday!
Not exactly Prussian Staff College planning!
I don’t normally comment on meals at which I didn’t participate, but everyone who ate at Charara that night said, afterwards, the only good thing about the meal was that the unnamed restaurateur didn’t have the heart (or cheek) to charge my ship-mates for the rubbish eventually served!
The restaurant set-up was still there in the bar on Monday night: all oil-cloth gingham printed napery, sauce bottles and cruets, but by Tuesday it was re-located to the back of the premises, out of sight of many and out of mind of most!
A rather comfortless, drab, grey, concrete, bar area: brightened up somewhat by colourful bunting, flags and advertising hoardings of some of the competition’s major sponsors, is all about drinking. For the week of KITFT (and each New Year) it’s certainly the longest bar in Central Africa; probably the busiest, from dusk until the wee hours.
I called in at exactly 16:10 on the Monday by my Tissot diving chronometer, after meeting the tournament committee, gasping for a delightfully chilled article of something moderately intoxicating, to hear I needed tickets to complete the transaction and the booth wasn’t open. No they couldn’t accept the right amount of cash for a couple of cans of Pilsener and...in any case…. the bar doesn’t open until 15:00!
“Hmm….excuse me, it’s now 16:12…and 39 seconds!”
Things were rapidly put right. I was pleased bar-prices were no steeper than they are in most clubs in Harare or Bulawayo…in fact much cheaper than several establishments I occasionally frequent.
Based on previous ultra-dear experiences, I thought I’d be ripped off sterek, having made the mistake of leaving alcohol purchases until we hit the once bustling, now rather down-at-heel, unloved town of Karoi.
The dorp’s few so-called supermarkets, stores and bottle stores not actually shut at ghost town high noon on a Sunday were totally bereft of beer, brandywyn or any sort of booze: just empty shelves and fridges. (Didn’t they “dollarise” with the rest of us?)
Again, not exactly precision planning on a debilitating hot day when hundreds of vehicles, usually with at least two passengers, towed hundreds of boats hundreds of baking kilometres to the fishing fantasia!
At Charara, I thirstily poured a brace of beers down a parched throat, chatting to giggly blonde nurses who are there each year and replaced a six-pack “borrowed” Sunday night.
Little point in waxing lyrical about splendid food served on Out of Africa. Our team leader’s sister bought the right ingredients from the best butchers, bakers and purveyors of fruit and veg and David, the cook, knew how to flavour most of them.
He managed to interestingly ring the changes each dawn on breakfasts of what were, essentially, simply oatmeal or mealie porridge, eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes and toast.
Foil-wrapped rolls and sandwiches filled the bill out on the lunchtime lake. There were superb sundowner snacks, served with ice-cold drinks (or hot tea) when the boats returned to mother ship TacHQ, at dusk.
Allowing enough time for a few dops and a lot of eye-opening fishing stories from every corner of the globe, the suppers I especially recall as memorably good were mincey things: shepherd’s pie and spag Bol; a rare roast beef with more, better cooked and presented trimmings than you would be served in most homes or four-star restaurants; a similar selection of goodies centred on roast-stuffed chicken and a steak-chop-boerewors, sadza and salad braai.
There was a lot of boozing, and a certain amount of schmoozing, aboard, when one of our members brought along a 29 year-old-son, working temporarily as a barman in UK.
He in turn was accompanied by a frankly disturbingly attractive 22-year-old girlfriend, all tight jeans, low-cut T-shirts, soft blonde locks, honey-gold tan, ivory teeth and the most enormous ….blue eyes! She was from rural Cheshire, had been in Africa four days and had never before ever angled.
Well, she fished like Ernest Hemingway (and possibly drank, smoked and swore as well as him) whipping out fighting tigers, vundu and maramba as if they were sticklebacks and handled a powerful speedboat on a tricky, sometimes choppy, lake the size of many countries, as if it were an everyday occurrence.
The fact that, apart from the beau, everyone else on board was old enough to be her father, Oupa or even great-grandfather (had they begun early enough!) possibly prevented the sort of strife which might perhaps be anticipated.
It was great to re-see Africa through her un-jaded and always bubblingly enthusiastic Wedgewood blue eyes.
Oh how I wish we’d had digital cameras 40 years ago!
Everything was snapped: from a three metre crocodile which attacked the pontoon, to an African fish eagle swooping on a fully grown osprey to try to relieve him of a plump bream he’d just caught for lunch.
The still, silent, somnolent heavy air of the Zambezi Valley was suddenly and violently disturbed as two magnificent raptors collided, bills and claws at the ready, feathers fluttering to the water. The osprey gave a startled menacing squawk above the thump and the African fish eagle’s iconic and haunting “WHOW-kayow-kwow!” floated over the man-made lake.
The osprey retained his meal. I raised a glass (of lunchtime Sprite) to him!
(Continued next week: when you can also read about Zambezi Trader, the new three-deck, 150 passenger, 200-tonne, vessel plying Kariba for the past few weeks.)
No comments:
Post a Comment