My musings after a few G&Ts on my most recent trip to the wonderful wilds of Zambia....
After a 25 hour journey, four flights (the last of which was a small propeller, eight seater) through a storm and cloud whiteout, transferring to an open jeep and then on an open boat in the pouring rain, all getting drenched en route to our camp in the Lower Zambezi and lots of bugs joining us for dinner. As the rain started to lightly fall again, fireflies danced outside my full screen wall facing the Zambezi river at Chiawa Camp and the cacophony of frogs, crickets, cicadas, hippos and hyena sang me to sleep (with the odd bat and gecko screech, and a spider looking like a huntsman equivalent crawling across the top of my mosquito netting), I remembered why I love this place…
Africa certainly has a way of burrowing deep into your soul. And last November, as the rainy season started to approach, I visited the Lower Zambezi & South Luangwa regions of Zambia.
The Lower Zam, in the south east of the country, has 120 km of river frontage and with no tarred roads you need to access it by boat or light aircraft only, making it one of the very few pristine areas left in Africa. Boat excursions on the mighty Zambezi are a great way to while away a few hours - either dragging a line for catch and release Tiger fish, or taking one of the canoe trails for a different and very special angle on a safari.
November is calving season for impalas in this region and we were incredibly lucky to see a mother impala successfully fend off an adult baboon trying to steal her baby!
We ventured north to South Luangwa, which lies at the end of the Great Rift Valley and world famous as THE place for walking safaris in Africa. Don’t let the ‘green season’ put you off in South Luangwa, with less people about and amazing game viewing on offer you could almost spend an entire day without coming across another tourist, making you feel you have the place to yourself! And at this time of year the wild mango tree at Mfuwe Lodge fruits, attracting some rather large, and very lovely visitors.
And believe it or not today I leave to go back and visit the continent of Africa once more... this time I'm headed for South Africa!
See you on my return!
~ Lyndal ~
