Evening game drive in South Luangwa NP

For our next game drive, we had three vehicles, as we needed a spotter in each 4x4 to use the huge spotlight when it got dark. This meant we had to split into two groups of seven and one of six. The complainers from this morning immediately formed a group and went with the new driver (the one who wasn’t with us this morning). We went with Musa! We were joined by Gilly, Joey, Greg, and Liz. We all set off together, but soon split up. When we met up at the halfway point for fruit juice and doughnuts, we had all seen the same animals, and it remained this way until the end of the drive. We saw:

• Waterbuck
• Warthogs
• Elephants
• African jacana
• Baboons
• Bee-eaters
• Bushbucks
• Impala
• A breeding herd of puku
• Guinea fowl
• Hippos
• Sacred ibis, the national bird of Egypt
• Hammerkopfs
• A lilac breasted roller
• A pair of saddle-billed storks
• An African fish eagle
• Zebras
• Crawshay zebra, a sub-species with spots as well as stripes!
• A spotted hyena
• An amazing sunset!
• A leopard
• Four lion cubs

When Musa got a tip off that some of the other vehicles had seen a leopard, he drove like a loony to get us to the right place to see him too! It was great fun bouncing around in the 4x4, going off-road and up and down steep inclines! Most of us really enjoyed it, but one or two of our number thought he drove needlessly recklessly, and they were uncomfortable about us all crowding around the leopard. It was the same when we saw the lion cubs. All the drivers communicated with each other and took it in turns to get their clients as close to them as possible, driving through the bush to do so. Musa explained to us that the mother had left her cubs while she went off to hunt for food. They instinctively knew that we were not a threat and seemed unperturbed by our presence. They did not appear to be in any way stressed or afraid. One of our group, though, wasn’t happy at all that we were so close, both because she thought the cubs must be worried by us, and because she was afraid that the lioness would return and attack us! Neither of these things bothered us. Musa explained that we were safe, and that the cubs were not affected. Most importantly, without tourists like us coming on safari in the national parks, there would be no money to finance anti-poaching projects, and the animals would be in far worse danger.

When we returned to camp, it was gone 8.30pm. Henry had cooked us T-bone steaks and fried potatoes for dinner. It was his only fail of the trip! Sadly, the steak was as tough as old boots, and the potatoes were hard! You can’t win them all!! 😊Read more