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Published: October 21st 2010
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Having recovered from the hellish road journey out of Mana Pools we were lucky to catch a ride with a bus going straight to Lusaka, Zambia. Arriving in Lusaka in the evening we made our way to Chachacha Backpackers, showered and devoured a whole barbequed peri peri chicken : ) well deserved after our days of starvation post hippo attack......
We spent some time hanging out with a couple of cool dudes (one from Chile: Roberto and the other from Israel: Nadav). We ate really well in Lusaka, finding a great Indian restaurant and a Slovenian place as well. A highlight for Flo was finally getting to watch "The A-Team" on the big screen. While walking through the SOWETO markets in Lusaka we experienced our first attempted group pick pocket attack where someone stepped on Roberto's foot, therefore halting him in his tracks and Flo and I who were walking behind him were forced to also stop and then there were all these hands just patting us down all over. It was very weird and since we both immediately reached for where our money was, we suspected that it was a rouse to see exactly were we kept our money. We
figured they would try to bump into us again however we did not see them after that.
We made our way on an 8 hour bus ride north to Chipata, where we luckily met Nigel, an English expat now living in Sydney, who offered to give us a ride to South Luangwa national park, another three hours away along an awful dirtroad. He was driving around in "The Beast", a 4 seater landcruiser with plenty of space for Flo and I : ) The alternative would have been a no-doubt hellish six hour journey with public transport.
The place that we wanted to camp at no longer provided the option to do so as the elephants in the area had become too curious and hence a bit of a liability...... This information however did not deter us from camping in another lodge not too far down the road. We were very careful to lock up all our fruits, vegetables and bread in the camp kitchen and not to have any of it in our tent.
During our stay we were woken by monkeys jumping through the trees and dislodging branches onto our tent each morning and on our last morning
a monkey felt the need to urinate onto our tent with us still inside..... fortunately the tent is waterproof. During the night we would wake to the sounds of elephants and hippos roaming around the campsite. On our last night a family of elephants came into the campsite and made for the rubbish bins. A group of us was cornered against the river with no way to back off from one of the elephants, so we slowly walked sideways with the knowledge that we shouldn't run and that the elephant was really only after the food in the bin..... however this was still very scary. After several unsuccesful attempts at opening the bins the elephants moved on and left us breathing out sighs of relief. We found out the next morning that a night watchmen in one of the other camps nearby had in fact been surprised and killed by an elephant in the middle of the previous night. Eish!
We managed to save a bit of money by accompanying our new friend Nigel into the national park and avoided having to organise any safari drives with the local lodges. We did however go for one night safari drive which
was something we had been looking forward to for a while. However now I know that I won't go on another one... The safari car drives around with a big massive torch which is shone into the forest as we drive through the park searching for a reflection of a pair of red eyes, which would indicate a cat. When we did find a male lion, which was just trying to chill out, the animal was clearly annoyed and wandered off disgruntled. The whole process felt very invasive and I know you are all thinking the game drives during the day are also invasive however the night ones are much more worse.
During our time in South Luangwa we added to the types of antelopes we've seen and found some lionesses cooling off in the shade. It was very nice however after three days of searching high and low for a leopard, one of the drawcards of the park, with no luck, Flo and I were ready to move on. Nigel stayed on in with the hope of spotting the elusive animal. We heard from fellow travellers later on in Malawi that Nigel was lucky to have spotted a mating
pair of leopards the very next day after our departure.
The only way out of South Luangwa is by public transport with a minibus which leaves at around two in the morning..... NOT cool. We were once again fortunate to catch a free ride with a local tour company who had space in the vehicle for us. So we were on our way to Lilongwe, Malawi.
One last thing I forgot to mention, during our time in South Luangwa we had the chance to buy some hippo sausages at the camp we were staying at, so I felt that we finally got a little revenge. Needless to say, the meat was delicious!
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