Mana Pools: Zimbabwe’s new tourism paradise

BY TANYARADZWA NYAMUTSWA

 

ASK any discerning Chinese tourist which one is the best tourist attraction to visit in Zimbabwe, if they don’t say Mana Pools, think twice about them. There is a place the Chinese have fallen in love with.

 As the mighty Zambezi River serpentines down to the ocean after Victoria Falls, its decent but powerful flow is disturbed not by natural phenomena, but by a huge man-made water trap, Kariva, bastardised to Kariba.

In the belly of the massive Kariba Dam wall is a hydro-electricity generation spectacle, which is a tourist attraction in its own right, besides supplying electricity to Zimbabwe and Zambia.

This spectacle, no doubt, disturbs the decency of the river as its starts its long frothy journey into tot the Lower Zambezi Valley on its final journey to another man-made trap, Cabora Bassa, where the water escapes once again on its final tour to the Indian Ocean.

But of interest today is the area between Kariba and Cabora Bassa, which has fast become the new tourism hub of Zimbabwe, after the Victoria Falls.

After angrily gushing out of the wrath of the cruel turbines in its escape from Lake Kariba, the water appears a bit fatigued as it disappears into a narrow gorge that looks like an abyss.

Surprisingly, the river thereafter, emerges from the deep gorge reinvigorated and spreading into a flattened, fertile and vast expanse of floodplain that geomorphology condemned into twists and turns that systematically formed four (mana in Shona lingua franca) pools, and ox-bow lakes.
The mighty Zambezi River flows through the Lower Zambezi Valley, a huge rift in the earth’s crust.
Over the millennia the Zambezi has rushed through this valley creating islands, channels and sandbanks.

Old river meanders, left in the mineral-rich volcanic soils, have formed into small ox-bow lakes surrounded by lush vegetation and tall old stands of mahogany and ebony. This abundance of water and luxuriant greenery accounts for the valley’s wealth of big game.
The pools are forever bursting with a profusion of birds and animals, especially during dry season from June to October.

Welcome to Mana Pools, Zimbabwe’s second World Heritage Site and latter-day tourist attraction of choice.

Here the visitor is treated to a perfect theatre of the jungle.
Within the stunted bush shrubbery and lush vegetation surrounding the four huge pools, buffalo graze hurriedly conscious of stalking lions and appear always restless while on the trees, chirping birds summersault from one branch to another.

Under the canopy of whipping riverine trees, a spitting distance away, elegant eland mix with shaggy water buck, radiant butterflies flutter gently between flowering shrubs while dragon flies hover above lily flowers.

For those who have fallen in love with nature, the effortless aerial displays of dragonflies on the lily-studded water ponds are a spectacle to watch.
There are also flycatchers, white-collared pratincole, banded snake eagle and yellow spotted nicator birds.

It is common spectacle to see a huge elephant bull, stand on its hind legs, its trunk attempting to reach for its lunch from a sausage tree.

This is Mana Pools, where Zambezi River changed its course a long time ago due to massive siltation, forming four distinct ox-bow lakes.