South Luangwa National Park

We had a very long drive from Lusaka to South Luangwa. We left at 5am and arrived at 18:30 to our camp. We noticed the poorer houses along the way as the houses were made from wood with a straw roof. We came across a few flea markets where locals were gathering to buy their supplies. There was a lot of children waving at the truck and this helped to pass some of the time on the truck.

There was an optional safari drive leaving at 5am however as we had a long drive the day before nobody fancied getting up early for another drive. Instead we used the morning to relax and recovery. The camp was located beside the Luangwa River and we saw sixteen hippos lying on the sand bank in the middle of the river. We sat for an hour or two watching them lying on the sand bank and occasionally spotting an elephant coming down to the river on the opposite bank to drink some water. It was funny how the hippos barely moved for the time we watched them.

WiFi was available for two hours at reception between 12-2. While I was connecting to the WiFi, I noticed local people setting up chairs and drums in front of me. At 1pm a music show started, the locals started singing and dance before introducing a play. The play was about a daughter who wanted to leave her tribe and go into the city however the chief of the tribe showed her the lessons nature has to teach natives. The best part was seeing how creative the actors were at demonstrating the animals of the safaris. It was like our own Lion King play, we were very impressed and recommended it as a optional activity for all trucks that visit the camp.

Included in our trip we had a night time game drive in South Luangwa National Park. Our tour guide picked us up at 4pm and we saw crocodile, hippos, puku, kudu, impala, zebra and a few elephants before sunset. It's crazy how every safari looks different and although we spot the same animals, the animals are in different surrounding or different situations and that makes the safaris so exciting. We stopped in the middle of the savannah to watch the sunset while eating popcorn. The sunsets in Africa are beautiful as the colours in the sky is very vibrant. We also saw the full moon rising nearly at the same time which was very cool.

Once the sun had set we continued on to search for more animals. We first saw a family of lions lying in the grass resting. There was one male and two females with eight cubs who looked so small that they must have been only a few months old. We were able to drive within a few meters to see the lions and their cubs without them moving. They didn't even seem bothered by us. It was amazing. On our way out of the park we came across four impala who seemed on high alert. There was a few other 4x4 around us with their headlights off. After a few minutes one of the 4x4 switched on their headlights and we noticed a leopard creeping closer to the impala. The impala also spotted the leopard and they scattered in all directions avoiding their predator. The leopard then sat and looked around for a minute before walking slowly along the road ahead of us. He was not bothered by the headlight tracking him and it was very cool to be so close to the leopard and to see it move. The leopard then ducked back into the bushes out of our line of sight. When we got back to camp we were very excited to tell Crispen about all the animals we spotted over dinner and it took us a while to come down from the high of the safari.Read more