Take a walk on the wild side

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We're here at the swanky campground called Flatdogs in the South Luangwa National Park. The camp is remote but with all the comforts we need in a campsite: running water, sit down toilets, electricity and a bar. We even have internet (obviously because I'm here). To get here was grueling. We drove for two days solid, so we're now clear across Zambia on the Malawi border. The roads are poor in Zambia, the first day we drove about 400 km in 11 hours, the next day about 600 km in 10 hours. Everywhere we go kids wave at our truck as we pass, some like to wave at tourists, some yell for candy and some just have their hands out. It's often quite difficult to watch as we pass. This is Africa, stark contrasts.

Our camp ground is in the park, so wild animals pass through regularly. As we pitched our tents an elephant stood watching. Later in the evening, a hippo wandered through grazing. Apparantly, more elephants and hippos were here last night as we slept, it woke most of us. I slept. Two from our group stayed up sitting around the camp fire along with a campsite worker who patrols at night for our safety. I got up at 2am for a pee and he escorted me to the toilet block some 50m away in the darkness.

In the morning, 6am we set off for a game drive in open top safari jeeps. We saw lots of impala, zebra and birds but the highlight was definitely the lions. At the bitter end of our 4 hour tour we saw three adult females and three cubs in the brush nearby. They walked out in front of us and walked across the road to the watering hole. They were just meters away. The baboons were making a lot of noise distracting the lions and alerting the other baboons in the area. The cubs were small but not so clumsy, so not too young. Can you say cute? I fired of many shots from my camera, and at times they were so close they didn't fit inside my zoom camera lens.

We left Livingstone three days ago very early because we needed hours to pass through the worst potholed roads in our entire trip. At times the potholes are bigger than the road, and at times the road disappears all together. It took us 3 hours to go the first 70 km, the worst of the trip, the next part was more smooth. We arrived in Lusaka, the capital, late in the day. A few of us went into the city for supplies. Our cook needed to buy food and I needed water and stamps. This really is a land of contrasts, as the drove into town you can see people living day to day in grass shacks, people selling everything on the street and the worst traffic you could imagine. It took 1.5 hours to get across the city to the supermarket. But here, you wouldn't think you're in the same country. Everything in the shopping mall is modern and western. Going against the traffic on the way back it took us 15 minutes. This is Africa, everything is interesting and different from home - and that's why I'm here.

On my last day in Livingstone, I rode the elephants. These are tame orphaned elephants. I was the only single adult, the rest of the riders were children and their parents. It was all so posh and quite different from the rest of my trip. In the middle of nowhere was this posh villa. We were served a full English Breakfast, tea, fruit salad sitting at tables with cloth napkins - it's all so colonial. Some might say civilized, I'd say incongruent from the rest of Africa. But then again, this is Africa. About 12 of us rode the elephants for one hour. Each has a guide who rides and two more peopple sit behind. It's all quite thrilling, especially when the young baby elephants runs up to us very excited about the trip he's about to take. And equally thrilling when walking we stumbled across a wild bull elephant in the park who was very interested in the female elephants we were riding. He flapped his ears in anticipation, but our guides skillfully walked us from the wild side back to camp.

Next door to the elephant ride they are building a new Walk with the Lions enclosure. Currently, the Walk with the Lions is on the Zimbabwe side of the falls. I really wanted to play with and pick up the orphaned lions but this just wasn't an good option. It costs money to get into Zimbabwe and money to get back to Zambia, and then the guide said your insurance doesn't cover you in Zimbabwe. So I couldn't walk with lions. In fact much of the tourism is dying on the Zimbabwe side and moving to the Zambia side of Victoria Falls. They're calling Robert Mugabe The Tourism Minister of Zambia.

We went to the Victoria Falls on our fist day in Livingstone. Absolutely stunning. The spray extended up hundreds of meters, a rainbow forms orientated sideways. We saw the sun set, a typical African red sunset, the best sunsets anywhere in the world, in the most stunning waterfalls anywhere. Because of the spray, there is a microclimate formed full of thick green vegetation, quite different from the rest of the area, more savanna like. This was an incrediable sight to behold. Victoria Falls, this was definitely a highlight so far. Oh yeh, those lion cubs I saw this morning was pretty special also.

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Photos

Leopard
Luangwa National Park, Zambia

Warthog
South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

Lions are distracted
South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

Mother and Child Renunion
Baboon family in South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

Bananas
Along the road in Malawi

Comments

[cmr]

flatdogs is sweet
nice blog. we enjoyed FD...150m from the river. a bit unnerving at times tho...did a blog or two also http://christopherreichert.blogspot.com/search?q=luangwa