A Day on Lake Tanganyika
By Chuck Rambo
From Splash, newsletter of the Milwaukee Aquarium Society
Aquarticles
From October 12th to October 26th, 2002, my wife Carol and I were fortunate enough to
attend a Cichlid Safari on Lake Tanganyika with Ad Konings and ten other participants from
Belgium, Germany, Canada, Sweden and the U.S. We all met at London’s Gatwick Airport
and flew down to Lusaka, Zambia. From there we took a very long and tedious 16-hour bus
ride to Mpulungu located at the southern shoreline of the lake. Once we got there we were
whisked away to Kalambo Falls Lodge by outboard motor boats. An Englishman named Toby
Veall owns the lodge. Everyday we would be taken to a different dive site to see cichlids.
Most of the dive sites we went to were in the southern part of the lake in Zambia, but two
of the days were in the south eastern part of the lake in Tanzania
Sat. Oct. 19. 5:30 a.m.
No, I didn’t plan on getting up this early. Every morning the sun comes up over the
mountains at 5:30 and about 500+ cicada type insects outside our window begin their
calling for mates. It sounds like those 1950’s toy ray guns that emit a series of
high-pitched wow-wow-wow sounds. The windows have no glass so I can’t shut them out
but after a week I am starting to get used to them. I get out from under the mosquito
netting covering my bed and walk out to our balcony to watch the show. The cicada’s
calls have attracted birds that have come down from the mountains to feed on the insects.
The birds are flying all over chasing bugs and driving away other birds. About ½ hour
later the show is all over and all the bugs and birds are gone. I go over to the hatchery
and look at the cichlids and other fish in the vats while waiting for the others to awaken
for breakfast
9:00 a.m.
At the main house the servants now have coffee, tea and juices available. Many of the
others are up now and congregating around the breakfast table. The servants take our food
orders back to the chef. Breakfast is usually eggs, toast, potatoes and fruit. The sausage
seems very fatty and few are ordering sausage anymore. Toby and Ad are up and the gas
generator is fired up and we have electricity for a few hours. During this time we are
able to re-charge camera and laptop batteries. Toby uses the generator to pump water from
the lake up to the main water tank on top of the lodge as well as powering the compressors
to fill up the air tanks. Ad tells us we are going to Tanzania and see where the
"Daffodils " come from. Instead of getting our passports stamped in Tanzania and
paying exit and entry fees we each pay a $25 bribe to the local official. Late in the
morning the generator goes off and that is our signal that we need to get ready to go.
11:00 a.m.
The servants load all of our dive gear and supplies on the boat and we head north past the
Kalambo River to Tanzania. The trip is rather short, only about an hour or so. Along the
way we pass a village along the shore and many of the natives wave to us as we pass by. We
can tell when we are getting close to our destination when Ad starts to get his dive gear
on. Today we are diving at Kambwimba. As we approach the shore there is a troop of monkeys
in the trees. As we try and get closer they all take off up the hillside. We move south a
little bit and set our anchor.
As I dove I followed the rocky formations down to the bottom at about 60 feet. At that
deep the steep rocky slope meets a flat sandy bottom. There I saw a very large pit
approximately six feet across and three feet deep. I racked my brain trying to figure out
what could have made such a large depression. By this time I had already seen numerous
pits excavated my many feather fins and they were nowhere near this large. I looked around
and could not believe my eyes. Out in front of me was a very large pair of Boulengerchromis
microlepis with thousands of fry! I was very excited and followed them for a while
but they chased away all the other fish so I left them and slowly made my way up the slope
and along the shoreline. The Cyprichromis "tricolors" here are very
nice. They have yellow heads and yellow tails with black fins edged in light blue. The
body is a nice metallic light blue color too. They are very numerous over the rocky
slopes. The O. nasutus here are not very pretty and there are not very many Julilidichromis.
In the shallower waters we found lots of orange cap O. ventralis and N.
pulcher "daffodil". Very, very pretty fish!!! I wondered if I had ever saw
real daffodils in the aquarium trade. The red rainbow Tropheus here is very nice
with yellow body and red fins.
I came up in the area where we saw the monkeys. They did not run away and they were
very curious about me in the water. I watched for a while and then returned to the boat.
Our tanks are very large steel tanks and I can usually stay down for a little over and
hour and a half. This area is only about 300 yards long. Along the south, the rocks end at
the mouth of a small seasonal river. Along the north the rocks change into steep rock
cliffs with large Labeo species in abundance. The daffodils are confined to this
small area
3:00 p.m.
Back at the lodge our gear is stored in a shed by the dock. The servants bring our
supplies and personal things back to our rooms. We get cleaned up and head up to the main
house for lunch. There we have our choice of Coke or Sprite. If we want beer we can have
either Castle from South Africa or Mosi from Zambia. I liked Castle better but soon got
tired of both and was pretty much drinking the soft drinks by this time. Lunch was always
very strange. We had peanut butter and cucumber sandwiches. They tasted very weird and we
never got use to them.
After lunch we would go to the fish hatchery and watch fish or look at the digital
photos that others had taken on the dive. Today we took dip nets near the shoreline and
caught eels and small Petrochromis fry. We quit when it got dark and we were
catching strange little snakes in the water. There are water cobras there and we really
didn’t want to take any chances. Toby said they were probably only aquatic house
snakes.
7:00p.m.
When it gets dark Toby fires up the generators. I put my mosquito netting over my bed so I
don’t have to fumble with it in the dark. We play cards and tell Toby what we say
during the dive and talk fish until dinner. Nobody has a clue on what we are eating or
when. Toby hired a chef from the city and was sometimes as surprised as us as what we were
having for dinner. Tonight we had a Chinese type of stir-fry that was very good with a
vanilla soufflé for dessert. For the most part the dinners were excellent.
After dinner we would continue to play cards and talk fish with Toby and Ad. I went to
bed around 9:00. I can hear the others up playing cards yelling and cheering as the games
progressed. I figured there was a correlation between Toby winning at cards and how long
the generator would continue to run. The nights are warm and muggy and with the netting
over the bed you can’t feel any cooling breeze. As I fall asleep I think about
tomorrow's dive. We are returning to Tanzania.
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