Malawi / Zambia: South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

We spent the next four days mostly in Zambia. We went with a tour company called Kiboko, which specializes in tours of Zambia departing from Lilongwe. We decided to take the South Luangwa National Park package, which included the transport to and from the park (about 7.5 hours by road from Lilongwe), accommodation (tents or chalets on the Luangwa river's edge which forms the border of the park), meals and game drives. Anna and I were part of a group of 10, doing the same trip.

Crossing into Zambia was the first time I was happy to be South African at a border crossing. Everyone else (Europeans and Americans) had to pay $50 for a visa to enter Zambia, and my visa was processed before the rest of the group because I was South African.
On the way to the park we passed through Chipata and stopped for a light lunch before we hit the serious dirt roads, which seemed to go on for a very long time, but in reality we were only on dirt roads for a small portion of the journey. Chipata was also the place to get Zambian kwacha and Anna came back from the ATM with some 50 000 kwacha notes! Zambian kwacha are worth very little and most prices at tourist places in Zambia are in US dollars, eeekkk!!

We were greeted at the camp by Moses, who would be our guide for the duration of our stay. I don't think we could've had a better guide. He was knowledgable and he had such a passion for his job. When we spotted game he would get as excited as us, maybe even more excited! It made me smile, because you'd think someone who sees elephants all the time would get bored of seeing them, but he didn't seem to. And every little thing we saw was of interest to him. One evening we stopped at a termite mound and he explained to us why it's not an ant hill. He proceeded to tell us more about termites than I can remember. Moses' depth and breadth of knowledge could only come from having spent countless hours in the park, as well as hours reading about the finer details. In his Land Rover he always kept some worn books about the animal and plant life common in the park, and would sometimes refer to them to help explain certain things to us.

Moses leading us to examine some of the finer details of a baobab tree during a tea break

Our camp was on the river's edge, as previously mentioned, which meant that even when we weren't on game drives, there were plenty of hippo and crocodiles to keep us entertained, with occasional groups of elephants passing by on the opposite river bank. One day at lunch time we even spotted a leopard walking along the opposite bank! There was also a pool and a bar at the camp, all with a view of the river. The hammock was a nice warm spot to lie, after a dip in the cold pool. You just had to make sure to keep the sunscreen handy.

I discovered that the barman made very good mojitos and decided to ignore that they were overpriced, because they went down so well with the location.
The barman was a 29 year old Zambian who enjoyed talking. We found out that he thought himself lucky to have, what he considered, a good job. He told us he didn't just serve the drinks, but also had to manage the stock and procure whatever needed procuring, in order to keep things at the bar running smoothly.
He was married with one child and another one on the way. He got married at the age of about 18, straight out of school, because that's what his family wanted. They didn't understand that he wanted to further his education. But he managed some kind of compromise: he got married, but still went off to Lusaka to study.
His family was disappointed and worried about him, because he didn't have any children during the time that he was studying. But, he says, now they see that it paid off.
To me it seemed a bit sad that a person with a tertiary education should be working at a bar, but I came to see it the way he did. I suppose the average Zambian is much worse off than he is, and most importantly he seemed to enjoy what he did and looked very happy.

At the camp the most pleasant employee was definitely James, the night watchman. He came on duty around 16h00 and left around 8h00 the next morning. The night watchman had to be around to walk us between the bar and our tents and between our tents and the toilets after dark, because wild animals like hippo and elephants were known to come into the camp at night, looking for food.
The first time we met James he assured us that he would be up all night and we could ask him to walk us to the toilet even 20 times if we needed, no problem.
The other important duty James had was waking us up at 5h00, so that we would be ready for breakfast at 5h30 and be in the Land Rover by 6h00 for the morning game drive. He had the nicest way of waking us up. I would hear him from the next tent and by the time he got to our tent I'd be more or less awake. He would start off softly: Hello? And when I replied, he'd raise his voice a bit and say: Good morning, did you sleep well? It's 5 o'clock, time to wake up! He'd say it in a sing song voice and I couldn't help smiling, as if I needed another reason to smile while on holiday!

The early morning wake up for the game drives were completely worth it. It was cold when we started out, but would warm up quite quickly. As Moses said: the early bird catches the fattest worm. It was better to get out early, because we weren't the only car full of tourists trying to spot game. So the earlier we started, the better it was for us.

While it was beautiful to see the animals drinking at the water holes or just feeding during the day, it was on the night drives that things got exciting. During the morning drive on the first day, we spotted a pair of lions, male and female, not far from a large group of various buck and zebra. At the time they were just scoping out the feeding scene, and they kept themselves a bit hidden. On the evening game drive we went back to the vicinity where we'd spotted them earlier on, and they'd came out into the open. They were definitely getting ready for the hunt.

Lions are truly as majestic as the story books say. The pair of them just sat out in the open, completely unperturbed by the 3 Land Rovers in the vicinity, full of flashing light bulbs. They posed for us for a little while and then the female got up and started moving in the direction of a herd of buffalo we'd seen earlier on. The male was right behind her and they passed right by our vehicle as if we weren't there.

The next night we spotted two leopard out in the open. Leopards are solitary creatures, so first we saw the female sitting in the grass on her own, Moses said she looked full. To me she looked like an oversized house cat, with a very beautiful coat.

A little later we spotted a male, who was visibly larger and who was on the hunt. He was sidling up to a group of impala. Unfortunately, not all of the guides were as considerate of not interfering in the natural balance of things as Moses was. Moses decided we should stop a distance away from the action and switch all our lights off, so that we wouldn't get in the way of the hunt. The moonlight was bright and we could see the impala clearly. However, another group stayed on the trail of the leopard, keeping their spotlight trained on him and potentially alerting the impala to his presence. Moses eventually decided it was best for us to move on.

The encounter I remember most in the park, was when we saw a family of elephants coming to drink at a watering hole. After drinking they had to pass quite close by our vehicle. The came slowly, keeping their eyes on us the whole time. Moses told us to keep very quiet and very still. First came the biggest of the group, and once he passed by our vehicle he stopped and looked back and waited for the rest of the group. Then along came a young elephant. His eyes were wide and he looked a bit terrified of us, but when he was directly opposite the vehicle, he stopped and raised his trunk, flapped his ears and stomped his foot in an attempt to be threatening. The older elephant just stood by and watched. It was fantastic to watch the family dynamics of the herd. Even the smallest elephant attempted to scare us off. The older elephants were all warily watchful and cautious, without any threatening displays.

On our way out of Zambia, we stopped by a textile workshop. We had a tour of the workshop and then could shop to our heart's content in the adjoining shop. Everything was handmade and beautiful. The company was called Tribal Textiles and they export the finished products all over the world. Unfortunately the prices were in dollars once again, which did a lot to curb my enthusiasm, the rand not being so strong against the dollar.