Last Thursday we drove down to Lusaka. On Friday morning Ruth and I took a tiny little plane to Mafuwe on the eastern side of Zambia to one of the smallest airports in the world. Ironically as walked towards the small terminal building, a large sign read ‘Mafuwe International Airport’. They only have 3 or 4 flights per day and all internal to Zambia. We were then picked up and taken to a safari lodge called Flatdogs camp. The camp is right on the edge of the South Luangwa national park which is one of the best national parks in Africa. It’s a huge place but all the animals that live there are protected and unlike most national parks and safari places it’s completely unspoilt.
We camped near to the river, and had elephants and giraffe’s wandering around the camp, and you could hear the hippos bathing in the river. At night the hippos also wandered around the camp. It was all a bit surreal really, and at night you had to be accompanied to the tent by one of the guards there, because of the danger of the animals. During the day there were a couple of times when we got stuck in cos there was an elephant at the door and you just have to wait til they move on. The tent had an ensuite but open air bathroom which meant that the elephants could come right up close to you – slightly unnerving when you’re on the toilet!
Photo: Elephant deciding which table to sit at
Photo: Elephant hiding just behind outside bathroom
We had to get up every morning for 5.30 breakfast and 6am game drive and there was another game drive at 4pm-8pm. It gets dark here at about 6.30pm so part of the drives were in the dark which meant that you could see animals that you can’t see in the day (a scout with the driver has a very powerful torch to find the animals!). On 2 of the 3 nights we saw a leopard stalking Impala. It was so strange to sit there in the middle of nowhere watching this huge cat hunt. We weren’t able to see a kill made however, possibly due to the distraction of us being there, but also because the leopards like to take a long time over hunting, which usually pays off with a surprise attack and a meal at the end of it! We also saw lions like this one on the photo below.
We had a great guide called Jotan, who had an extensive knowledge of flora and fauna in the park, and no question was too difficult for him to answer, including knowledge of all the latin names for everything which one guy on the drive with us seemed almost obsessed with! Jotan took us to where the action was happening, and this meant going away from the main tracks sometimes, which on one occasion meant we got stuck in the sand. Yes for the 2nd time in a couple of weeks Ruth and I were in a vehicle getting stuck, only this time with lions and other animals present, we really needed to get the car out a little quicker! After failing to dig the vehicle out, Jotan called another driver over and he used the bumper to bumper push the car out of the sand method, which worked very well. Other highlights were seeing herds of elephants crossing the Luangwa river, and being up close to a pride of lions. All in all it was a great experience and one I’ll never forget. For those of you on facebook, you can see more of my safari photos there.
Photo: Ruth, Jotan and I
Photo: Trying to dig vehicle out of sand....again, with Luangwa River in background, and lions prowling somewhere nearby!!
Next time on the blog…. We collect Jo from the airport and head down to meet up again with the Witt family in Livingstone.
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