Lake Kariba

Lake Kariba is the largest artificial lake in the world by volume, created when the Zambezi was dammed in the late nineteen fifties and a valley the size of a small country filled with water. Whole herds of animals were lifted off the drowning islands in an operation that became famous. On the Zambian side Siavonga is the lakeside town, a place of steep shore, houseboats and fish eagles where people come from Lusaka for the weekend. Drowned mopane trees still stand as white skeletons out in the shallows. Siavonga is close enough to Lusaka for a weekend by road.