Wildlife Camp
So, this is the bit I’ve really been waiting for. I love to see all the birds like the other guys do, but frankly I’m here for the big game and the African safari experience. South Luangwa should offer all of that – it is renowned as one of the finest big game safari destinations in the world, rivalling the Masai Mara, Ngoro Ngoro, Chobe and the Kruger in quality and quantity of game on show.
Our internal flight is quick and comfortable. We are in the air for about an hour and the formalities at the grandly named Mfuwe International Airport are minimalistic to say the least. Our driver is waiting as expected and we are whisked away to Wildlife Camp – a fairly basic lodge on the banks of the Luangwa River. Initial signs are good that it will live up to its name, with Baboons in the grounds and birds, hippo and squirrels all to be seen from the bar.
We of course get the usual warnings about wildlife in the grounds and the need to have an escort or be driven back to our bungalows after dark. The schedule sounds like a busy one – with a four-hour game drive in the mornings (5am wake-up) and another from 4pm into the darkness. I’m not sure we’ll keep this sort of schedule up for the whole of our stay though.
(I usually hate being interrupted while I’m working on this stuff, but this morning I have had to put the laptop down and reach for the camera. A family of elephants have just come within 10m of our veranda in search of the fruit that is falling from the wild mango tree that grows in front of our bungalow. Wildlife Camp indeed!)
Day One
Arriving as we do just around lunch time, our first drive into the park is not scheduled to start until 4pm. We convene at 3:30 for a drink and a biscuit, before being driven back to the main road and up to the gate on the bridge that marks the boundary of the park. The South Luangwa National Park is bordered on its east side by the actual Luangwa River, one of the major tributaries of the Zambesi, albeit a very seasonal one.
We see elephants, warthog and impala even before we reach the park gate. The rains have been sporadic, but there is water in the river and as we cross the bridge into the park, we can clearly see hippos in the water and Yellow-billed Stork fishing in the shallows. The park is initially quite dense and all the trees and shrubs are green, with short grass starting to grow on the open spaces. It is clear that quite large sections of what we can see are going to end up under water as the rains are set to continue.
We see a couple of elephants that are nice and close, plenty of antelope are also visible, although they are almost all impala. My first impressions are good, buoyed along by an abundance of wildlife and the bright colours of the damp countryside. Soon we sight a number of safari vehicles off the road ahead of us. There are lions – a pride of nine, clearly with nearly-grown cubs in their number. They are doing what lions mostly do, sleeping with clearly full bellies. They are our first of the trip so we watch them for a few minutes, surrounded by vehicles, until they manage to move about a bit and we get a few decent photos.
On our way into the park, we had been advised that a leopard was seen earlier in the day, but we went to the same spot and saw nothing. Being the determined sort, River, our driver, takes us back to the same location as the light begins to fade. This time, he and Fred spot the leopard at about the same moment. He’s in the tree high above us and in gnawing on an impala leg – or at least the very little that remains of it.
We make the best of the light and watch him as he decides on the most comfortable position to enable him to eat the rest of his supper. He thinks about coming down to the ground, but changes his mind and we have to move to get a view of him on another branch. As the light is fading fast and photos are now more-or-less impossible, we head off and leave him to his bones.
The drive continues after a sundowner, this time with our spotter and his light. We spot a genet, a civet, a couple of mongooses and some larger game preparing for the night. For a first drive into the park, there couldn’t have been a much better start possible.
Day Two
Our morning game drives start before six. Our first morning in the park is a rewarding one, with giraffes and zebra almost at the gate. I’m now seeing what I like to think of as safari mammals – the bigger ungulates that populate the continent and the big predators that feed on them.
We soon find our pride of lions again – they are the locals after all – but they seem still pretty content to just lie around and keep out of the sun. I get a nice photo of a spotted hyaena and a pair of common waterbucks as we continue to be driven deeper into the park. At 9000 square kilometres, we’re not going to see much of it, but it is nice to move about each day and see what is to be found.
There are of course plenty of new birds to be seen and we duly stop to allow Fred to capture images of them for his big year competition. He’s not been to enough far-flung places this year to win, but he likes to keep trying.
The evening drive takes us slowly down to the river for a sundowner. There are plenty of impala and puku about, a few zebras and a couple of giraffes, but not much that could be classed as new or exciting. The sunset is moody and overshadowed by boiling thunderclouds and flashes of lightning.
We start back for the gate, but the weather catches up to us and it is soon teeming rain and flashes of lightning all around us. We get under our storm capes and beat a damp retreat back to the gate and home a bit early. Naturally, the rain eases off when we get back to camp.
Day Three
Weather or not, we are on safari. The day dawns overcast, with more threatening clouds in the sky and that muggy pre-storm feel to the air. We head into the park anyway, but we are soon under our capes once more. The general consensus is that we’ll tough it out for a little while and see what we can see, hoping the rain will not last long.
Luckily, the rain doesn’t last too long and we are soon exploring deeper into the park. We are sitting looking at birds on a wide open marshy plain when we hear alarm calls and see baboons running and generally looking quite agitated. Fred and River spot a leopard far in the distance running across the open field. We immediately head in its direction to see what all the fuss is about.
By the time we arrive in the area, there are a family of elephants there – with a very small baby underfoot – but they seem happy to tolerate us and keep on moving slowly around us and browsing.
The big male baboon nearby is still barking his alarm call, and we soon spot the leopard, very close but hidden from close view under a few bushes. Somehow, the elephants have not spotted him and the mother leads the little one to within a couple of feet of him yet passes by unperturbed. This doesn’t last!
I’m well aware of the research that suggests elephants can communicate using infra-sound – very low frequency rumbles that we (along with most animals) simply cannot hear – but I never thought it was something I would witness myself. Suddenly, another one of the elephants – more than 100m away – trumpets loudly as if at a signal and charges towards the bushes where our mother, infant and leopard are all to be found.
The two big elephants make enough sound and move close enough to the bushes to make their intent plain and the leopard beats a hasty retreat deeper into the undergrowth – if not farther away out the back of the thicket. Their point made, the elephants seem to pause to look pointedly at us before regrouping as a family and moving slowly away across the plain, allowing us to follow them.
This is a great day, but we have a few kilometres to drive back to the park gate and out for lunch, so we set off back at a steady pace, stopping only for a few interesting birds.
We are within a kilometre of the park gate when we see a gaggle of safari vehicles milling and jostling for position. There are dogs! I’ve said before that I hate to call them Wild Dogs, but that is how they are still commonly named worldwide. I like Painted Wolf or Painted Dog much better myself, but changing a convention takes much time.
I have always considered myself very lucky to have seen painted dogs at all. They are elusive, rare, endangered and fascinating. I’ve been lucky enough to see them fleetingly in Kenya and wonderfully during a magical moment in Chobe National Park in Botswana. This was to be a more fleeting sighting – they were clearly moving along – perhaps disturbed by the attention of so many vehicles. They trotted past us and slowly disappeared into the denser bush. I still took as many photos as I could, but they could have been better if I had a little more time.
So, a leopard and a pack of painted dogs all in one morning. The afternoon drive would have to be something really special to live up to this level of wild life.
In the event, things started off quietly, there were a few animals about, but we only really got some nice photos of some giraffes that were very patient for us. The sunset was wonderful though, lots of colour in a dramatic sky as clouds still threatened more rain.
We set off back through the now darkening park, our spotter on the bonnet with his lamp flicking left and right. Within a few minutes we had found three owls and had managed to get photos of all of them.
Once again near the park gate, we were whisked away into the undergrowth to meet our pride of lions moving purposefully through the total darkness – fleetingly illuminated by the spotlight of one or more of the several vehicles trying to see what was happening. The group moved too fast for photos, but the male, bringing up the rear more slowly was soon surrounded by several cars. He had lost the females and began to roar loudly to locate them. Apparently, they were now intent on hunting and didn’t reply and this just frustrated the male a bit more. He turned around and walked back towards us – still roaring – and I managed to get a handful of blurred images of him in the lights.
Day Four
You can’t expect every day to be better than the one before – sometime or other you will reach that plateau of perfection and can only hope to linger there for the rest of your stay. In many ways, our fourth day in South Luangwa was one of those flatter days. We explored deep into the park, went on a wild goose wild dog chase and found a heard of buffalo. They did include a couple of fighting bulls which offered a great photo opportunity, but overall things were quiet in the morning and it was very hot.
The afternoon went a little better, with a couple of great bird sightings and a group of elephants who seemed to want to play a little. The one who started to chase the car wasn’t spotted by River, but he was already driving away and no harm was done.
Once again, the sunset was magnificent, with golds and pinks among the clouds reflected in the Luangwa River with hippo and even skimmers over the still waters.
We had barely started our return trip with the spotlight at the ready when another driver tipped us off about a possible leopard nearby. We found him quickly, just as another vehicle did the same.
Leopards are made for the darkness; digital cameras are not. Car-powered spotlights are just not really powerful enough to give enough light for the camera (even at ISO 3200) and if they were, they’d instantly blind whatever they were pointed at. Still, I have photos and a couple of them are worthy of a place here – they may not be pin-sharp or correctly exposed – but they are a leopard at night.
Day Five
The relentless pace continued into our fifth morning. We had to negotiate a herd of more than 20 elephants just to get out of the camp and onto the main road, then met giraffes just a few hundred metres further on.
The park, at least near to the gate, seemed a little quiet. We drove around for quite some time without seeing very much at all, before finally meeting up with the local lions after almost a couple of hours. They were, naturally, dozing under some shady tress and we soon left them to their rest.
River, the ever-resourceful guide, had been chatting to drivers and at some point, took a phone call. As we finished with the lions, he suggested we go and see the painted dogs next. This is not a suggestion that any of the four of us is going to reject, so off we headed. He had already taken us along some little-used tracks that morning, but now we took an unexpected shortcut and found ourselves back on the plain where we had seen the elephants and leopard interact.
A few hundred metres from that spot, we found our eight dogs, walking slowly towards some shade. They seemed quite playful and greeted each-other – the pups quite boisterously – before walking past us at very close range. They settled under the big tree nearby and, while they remained watchful, they were soon dozing in the building heat. I got much better pictures of them this time, closer and slower moving, as well as a better lens choice made things a bit easier.
Our afternoon drive was late starting. We found ourselves in a thunderstorm as we walked up to the lodge. It turned into quite a downpour for a little while and we waited about an hour later than we normally would before setting out for the park.
The park was very quiet after the rain and we saw nothing more than a couple of birds until it was time to stop for our sundowner. The beers had only just been opened when we heard very loud roaring from a lion no more than a few hundred metres away in the bush. Fred said “It could be up to five kilometres away”, but I could tell it was pretty close. Not to worry, just relax and enjoy the colours of the sunset and drink our beer.
Something crosses the road about 150m away from us and River says, quite calmly, “Let’s all get back in the car, now”. Even at the distance it is obvious that this is a big male lion, and not the one from the local pride. We’re the only vehicle in the area and the only one to spot him, but heading into the darkness it is difficult to see how we will ever find him in the dense bush. We head to the spot where he crossed the road and Margo, our spotter, gets the spotlight out and scours the area – no sign.
We backtrack and take a track that might intersect with him and drive a few hundred metres along it. River is clearly unsure whether we are on the right track, but then Chris and I both hear a fresh roar over the noise of the engine. I have good directional hearing, and give a rough idea of where he is in relation to us.
Suddenly, there he is, walking across an open area just to the side of us. River positions the car as best he can and we try and track along for a photo opportunity. It is pretty difficult to get anything other than a few blurred images. He really is a big male, dark-maned and roaring defiantly as he walks towards the territory of the pride we know quite well by now. After just a couple of minutes, we can follow no further and have to let him disappear into the darkness.
That’s two different roaring male lions in the darkness now, one first encountered – albeit at a distance – on foot. It’s not frightening, rather there is something primeval about being so close and so exposed when watching an apex predator more than capable of killing you in an instant. Our vehicles are open and we are sometimes very close to these animals, even in the darkness. It takes great skill for the guides to judge what is safe and what is not. Even as a passenger, you have to have your wits about you and not make any sudden movements or do something that changes the outline of your vehicle to suggest possible prey. And, of course, you have to do all this while struggling to get the camera to focus and take the shot.
Don’t worry, I love it all!
For this evening it is time to continue our night drive and see what else we can find. We see very little, the often-seen genet makes an appearance and, as we near the gate area, a couple of other vehicles. One of the other drivers casually says “There was a leopard here”. River and Margo are both up to the challenge and we turn off-track to scour the bushes.
No leopard here, but just a couple of hundred metres along the track, we spot her walking parallel to the road. All the other vehicles have left and we have a brave attempt at getting her to stand still for long enough to have a photo taken. I’d have to say that we didn’t really succeed in this effort, but it was fun to try.
When we get back to camp, the rain starts again and we go to bed with no power and the sound of water dripping off the roof.
Day Six
Our sixth day is going to have a somewhat different programme, as it is Christmas Eve. We are going to the carol service in the afternoon/evening and will only have a morning drive for this day
At least the morning is dry and bright, but it is clear that it has rained a bit during the night. The park is very quiet, both in term of visible wildlife and also in the number of vehicles and visitors. River takes us along the road to Lion Camp – he knows we cannot get there because it is too wet, but he wants to see what he can find for us out a bit further.
As it turns out, there is very little to see and it takes another one of those special phone calls to brighten our day. The painted dogs are back closer to the gate this morning and we are soon sitting with the once again as they sit in some marshy shade and try and keep themselves cool. Naturally, I could sit there all day, but we have other tasks to perform on this day and we must leave them all too soon to return to the lodge.
By 5pm we have had our refreshments and are soon on our way to the Christmas carol service. Organised by local churches and lodges, the field is prepared a short distance away from our camp. I have to admit to being a little worried about the thunder in the distance as we leave, but who knows whether the storm will touch us or not.
Sadly, we have barely taken our seats when the full force of a tropical thunderstorm hits us. An initial dash for cover under a large tree is to little avail, as the water soon penetrates the canopy and the soaking continues. River rushes off to the car for rain capes, but it turns out he only has six of them and there are eight of us including himself in the vehicle. I’m already wet, so opt to stay as I am and let the others get covered up at least a little. What little I managed to hear of the singers over the roar of the wind and rain was really good!
The ten-minute drive back to camp is a miserable affair. The rain is heavier than ever and floods off the canopy of the vehicle with every turn left or right. I’ve put the Canon camera in my trouser pocket and can only hope that it survives relatively unscathed even though I am soaked to the skin. By the time we reach the lodge, the rain is starting to ease and we are driven right to our doors.
All I can manage is to strip off my soaked clothes – putting the camera on the table first – and try and find a set of dry things to put on. Chris and I get our clothes lines together and string them across our veranda and just leave everything to drip dry. While I am hanging my socks up, I notice that we have company. An elephant is stood just down the bank from our bungalow, picking up the wild mangoes that are falling from the tree that overhangs us.
It is Wildlife Camp after all. We may have missed out on our game drive, but we don’t have to miss out on our photo and game viewing opportunities. He stays with us for the next half an hour, slowly working his way around the tree, cleaning up mangoes as he moves. I have photos, but it’s difficult to show just how close he is to us. Chris took some video that I posted on my return that gives a better impression of the distance. Probably less than four metres at times – I swear if I’d been holding a mango, he would have taken it from my hand.
It would be unfair to say that he ignored us. More simply put, he just wasn’t bothered by our presence one way or another. We kept quiet and avoided sudden noise or movement and he did the same. In many ways, this is a far more enjoyable experience than anything on a game drive in the park. These are wild animals in their own environment – it just happens to also be our environment and we are sharing it with them with a little quiet understanding and some mutual respect.
Day Seven
Christmas Day starts as early as usual. We’re all dried out, but the ground isn’t quite as dry as we now are. Nor, apparently, is our vehicle. We’re switching to a Toyota this morning, as the seats on ours are still too wet from the previous evening.
A quick breakfast and then off into the park. Within just a few minutes, we spot a leopard in the fork of a large tree. He’s just standing there, surveying the surrounding countryside and pays us little attention. After a minute or two, he jumps down and disappears from view. We have to reposition the car, but then are treated to some really fantastic views of him lying on the ground.
We move on through an eerily quiet park. There are few animals and even fewer vehicles. We’ve just about given up on seeing anything more when River sights another leopard – a female this time – just walking out of the bush. She clearly isn’t stopping to have her photo taken, but we manage to snatch a few images before she disappears into the undergrowth.
If someone had told me we’d get two leopards in the open, in daylight, on Christmas Morning, I would have struggled to believe it, but here we are. Two great sightings by nine o’clock. After our usual short break, we hear reports – and hear the roaring – that two male lions have been seen nearby. We set of across country to investigate, along with a few other vehicles, but we can find no sign of them.
While trying to extricate ourselves from the bush, we have to cross a bit of a swampy patch and get stuck. The Toyota has road tires, pretty worn ones at that, and we simply can’t get enough traction to haul ourselves out. The Toyota is a bit heavier than the Land Rover as well, meaning we must wait a couple of minutes for a quick tow from one of the other vehicles.
Successfully extricated, it’s time to trundle back to the park gate and back to base. We make it a few hundred metres along the main road then get a puncture. With a small amount of assistance from me, River gets the wheel changed and we make a dejected and slightly late return to camp. That’s two flat tires on this trip – fortunately bot in places where they were easy to change.
I’d sort of been looking forward to Christmas lunch. We’ve had a bit of a mixed bag of them over the years, some good, some bad and some non-existent. Our schedule for the day had been altered from an early lunch to a late one so the whole camp could have the meal together.
We had plenty of time to get the bird-list up-to-date and head to the main lodge in time for a gin & tonic. There was hustle and bustle and the slow but steady trickle of arrivals, mostly sensed around and behind me as I sat with my back to the preparations. And I do clearly have a sense of these things. It’s easy to say “I don’t like crowds” or “I don’t do parties” but very difficult to rationalize the what and the why of such things. Let’s just say it isn’t the first time I’ve had to just get up and walk away. I could feel the anxiety building right from the start. Something in the back of my mind was telling me I didn’t really want to be there, surrounded by strangers in close proximity. Something else was also telling me that I didn’t have to! It’s a bit like being in a bubble that’s being squeezed from all directions. You feel more and more constricted until something has to burst. With me that burst is always through the nearest exit.
It’s like the difference between the last three of my birthdays away from home. Namibia was in the wilderness, just the four of us and Caesar and his group – numbers I could deal with and no fuss, just an extra beer. Uganda was awful, at Mweya Lodge with happy birthday and a cake – I just wanted to run for the exit and was really angry. This year at McBride’s was fine. I knew it was coming and that there simply weren’t enough people to get bothered by the attention.
So, I grabbed my hat and the key to our chalet and escaped. I’ve spent the rest of the day agonizing over the decision. I do wish I was stronger and could fight the flight instinct, but if anything, it has become harder rather than easier as I get older.
Therapy? No, I think that should have been forty years ago and there’s just no point now.
And, of course, it’s Christmas. I just don’t really know what to make of it. When I’m at home with my family, I love the preparations, the cooking and the presents being opened. I’m also delighted when it is all over and we can get back to normal. When we are away, I think I feel the exact opposite. I would be happiest if there was no hint of the festive season at all. No tree, no decorations, no special meal, just another day on vacation like all the others.
I’m also very much the sentimental type at this time of year. As I get older, I think more and more about my Father and the fact that he was taken away from us at Christmastime, before I got to know him and understand him. Next year it will be 50 years since losing him and I’m the only member of my family left who remembers anything about him. Who can know how different life may have been if things had been otherwise?
There is no such thing as fate. At least I don’t believe that my life has been planned in advance – if it has, someone has a bloody awful sense of humour! Things just happen, but they can be both good and bad. You just have to play the cards you are dealt and try and make a winning hand. I guess I’m about even for the game so far but sometimes it feels like I’m in a long losing streak.
If there is any irony to all this soul-searching and self-inflicted pain, it’s that the wildlife just keeps on giving here, regardless of how I feel inside. I manage to pull myself together for the afternoon game drive and we are rewarded by two more sightings of leopards. The male in particular is an absolute comedian, playing around in a sausage tree, picking and dropping the massive fruits whilst clinging to the flimsiest of branches for probably twenty minutes.
So, that was Christmas Day. Four leopards, a minor breakdown and no lunch. Honestly for me that sounds like a winning hand! I’m never going to die from missing a meal and it was only a minor breakdown.
Day Eight
Boxing Day brings a new morning and our last two game drives in the magnificent South Luangwa. River picks us up as usual and after our light – for me very light – breakfast, it is off to the park. The drive starts quietly, but we enjoy it none-the-less. As the temperatures are starting to rise, we notice another vehicle speeding along the main track, in the same direction as we were slowly heading anyway.
It’s our friends the painted dogs, but they seem hungry and restless and soon move away into deeper bush after only a few photos. Not the greatest of sightings, but it was good to see them on our final day here.
Just a kilometre or so deeper into the park and we meet the pride of lions, some of them lying across the middle of the road, hampering the traffic. Fortunately, there are only a few vehicles in the park this morning and we can sit with the lions for several minutes until they all decide to also move off into the bush.
Out on the plains there are zebras and several families of elephants. Many of them are headed to the local salt-lick for essential minerals and we are treated to watching them dig into the clay and also to some playful pushing and shoving from a couple of the males.
We head slowly back towards the gate, with word of a leopard having been seen on the ground. Sadly, this time he or she is long gone and the tally remains unaltered. We drive quietly out of the park and head back to the lodge for lunch.
I’m just coming out of a cooling shower, wrapped in towel, when our Boxing Day visitors arrive. A family of elephants move slowly towards our cabin, browsing the bush and looking for wild mangoes. They spend more than half an hour with us, pretty much right on our doorstep, coming within just a couple of metres of our seats on the veranda.
I’ve been close to the orphans at Ithumba in Kenya and even quite close to wilder but known individuals there too. I’ve never been this close to a wild elephant – let alone several wild elephants – without the benefit of being in a vehicle. Oddly, I never felt unsafe, just conscious that we could startle them and that they may react suddenly if surprised by our presence. Of course, they were well aware that we were close-by, sniffing our scent as they approached and making a judgement call about their own safety.
The afternoon game drive, being our last one of the trip, was always going to be a bit of a disappointment. River, with Margo once again in the spotting seat, took us through the park quite briskly, clearly with a plan in his mind. Sure enough, the plan was to find the lions – pretty close to where we had left them that morning. Unfortunately, they weren’t inclined to do very much. They eventually seemed to start to take a bit of notice, but by then the light was too poor to take photos.
We were called away to see a leopard, but because it was deemed to be hunting, we could only use red lights to illuminate it and again a photo was just not possible. Still, you could see the leopard and that was a nice way to bring our time in South Luangwa and Zambia to a close.
South Luangwa Thoughts
It wouldn’t be going too far to suggest that Fred had played up the reputation of South Luangwa for many years and many trips before we decided that a return was due. As with all these tales of leopards, lions and elephants, you take it with a degree of scepticism. Stories grow with the telling, and with the passage of time, and everything is bigger and bolder ten years later.
I am as guilty of this as the next man – that’s why this text is written as things happen. No exaggeration is necessary when things are really good – or really bad. Let us not forget also that Fred and Elizabeth had ten years of trips to South Luangwa and all the tales are an amalgam of those multiple trips for a month at a time.
I guess what I’m saying is “I didn’t expect miracles” from South Luangwa, but I did have high hopes.
Well, I like to think I can admit when I’m wrong, and oh boy, was I wrong this time.
This is the first National Park I’ve visited in Africa that has exceeded my expectations. Sure, I’ve had surprises and un-called for sightings in other parks, but South Luangwa just keeps delivering, drive after drive, day after day. Just look at the list: -
Impala, Puku, Zebra, Wildebeest, Kudu, Bushbuck, Waterbuck, Giraffe, Hippo, Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Leopard, Lion, Painted Dogs, Banded Mongoose, Slender Mongoose, White-tailed Mongoose, Greater Spotted Genet, Civet, Baboon, Scrub Hare, Vervet Monkey and Ground Squirrel. Add in Crocodile, Nile Monitor, Water Monitor, Land Monitor, Tree Python, various Skinks and Geckos as well and the list is massive.
In just a week, I’ve trebled my sightings of leopards and painted dogs. That’s twice as many sightings in 8 days as in 38 previous weeks in Africa. You can, of course, argue that it is the same leopards and the same pack of dogs, but I’ve never seen the same one of these anywhere else twice in a visit.
As always, we could just have been lucky, but luck alone cannot account for the number and variety of encounters with some of my favourite mammals. Let’s not discount four leopard sightings on Christmas Day – three different animals for certain. Also, leopards, lions and painted dogs on the same day; lions at night twice; leopards at night three times – the list goes on and on.
If I was to score the national parks that I’ve visited out of ten, I’d now have to give South Luangwa the full ten out of ten. It really is that good.
Final Thoughts
Well, like all these things, it’s a very long way to travel and you have to make the trip worth the effort of getting there. Because of our choice of airline, we had long flights and both directions involved stop-offs at other airports, lengthening the time spent in the airplane seat. You get a good price this way, but it’s basically 24 hours travel in each direction.
So, two days of travel getting there and back, then really three days travelling around the country from place to place. The plan was well thought out though, giving us 6, 7 and then 8 days in our three chosen locations. With the benefits of hindsight, we could perhaps have done things differently, but I certainly can’t complain.
I have to conclude that this has been at least joint best trip ever. I still think I enjoyed Namibia and Botswana more than this trip, but it is hard to argue with so many wonderful sightings and more leopards than I’d ever seen before. Zambia certain lived up to expectations, probably exceeding them if I’m being honest.
I still find it hard to comprehend just how much of my life I’ve now spent in Africa. We’re getting close to a year in total now and I don’t think this trip will be my last.
As for Zambia? Well it gets a solid nine out of ten. I’m knocking a point off for the distances between the parks and also for South Luangwa being just a bit too busy. For the scenery, wildlife and people though, it has to be hard to beat.