Nsefu Camp South Luangwa National Park

... first obe yet!

21 of us fitted into a bigish safari truck like the ones you do se on the tv!\

fred was our ltour guide and he had a guy help him cary the spot light to try to seek the animals out, pretty hard going.
straight away a lion was siting on the road as w entered the park, and we got pretty scarily close to him. the ark itself compared to the Serengeti was much smaller but with way more bushes and trees and foliage for the animals to hide in so ...

... its backside. The day was spent on game drives and bush walks in the park where we saw lots of Thornicroft giraffe, elephants wallowing in mudholes, hippos and hundreds of impalas. The highlight was the night drive where Benson our gun-toting guide found a pair of lions dozing. We managed to get fairly close and they didn't seem the least bit bothered of our shining lights (but then again I am a lion tamer). That was ...

... us, we rushed to hide in the bathroom until he had passed. In addition to the setting, the camp had a great atmosphere at the bar and restaurant - the food was amazing! On Friday night all the local ex-pats turned up for dinner and drinks. It was really interesting to meet this small but tight community. South Luangwa Park is a must do for someone looking for a great safari experience. It offers an amazing combo of wildlife ...

My flight was due to take off at 08.00 and at 07.55 still nobody had arrived. Suddenly, I was being paged. I rushed to their office and someone took my bag and we strode to the aircraft, a 18-seater Jetstream. I was expecting a plane full of passengers awaiting my arrival but found I was the only one except for the flight attendant and the pilot! She gave me private safety briefing and the pilot welcomed me over ...

... our lunch table near some African honey bees who weren't too pleased with our presence (apparently, our truck had disturbed their territory and they also don't like the smell of diesel gas). Our truck and the surrounding area was swarmed with bees and half of our group was stung! As the remaining people in our group began to ...

... must-do. We set up our tents in the trees and then got an early night sleep to be up bright and early for our game drive the next day. We left at 6am and headed into the park. The joy of travelling in 4WD was that we could self-drive for the game drive. Armed with a A4 sized photocopy map, we set about on a lion hunt. No lions to ...

... and we had an amazing view. The hippos would often be right alongside us in the water (and indeed munching outside my room which kept me awake all night, along with a snoring baboon!). See photo. We did morning and evening game drives. Over the three days we saw hippos, crocs, elephants, giraffes, buffalo, zebra, puku, impala, kudu, mongoose, civets, warthogs, bushbuck, baboons, every type of bird including birds of prey ...

... and keeping poachers out of both the GMA and the park. Even then, there are no rhinos in South Luangwa because of poaching. Most of the farms in the outer areas are owned by the local king, who allocates you some land on which to grow crops. You then pay him in Maize, Sorghum or whatever crop you grow. Everything is done by hand!! No land is Zambia is owned, everything is leasehold for 99 years, but you can sell your lease. We landed at Mfuwe International Airport at about 4 p.m ...

... in the Land Rover, and the roads to Luangwa were horrible - incredibly bumpy and very hard to sleep, even though i managed to get some shuteye. After driving all day on this incredibly bumpy road, we got to the Park around 2 o'clock. The camp we stayed at was called Flatdogs, and it was great. It was right on the river, and right when we got there, we could hear the hippos making noise about 200 yards away. Right after we got there, we ...

... often babies
in their group. So elephants always have right of way! Sometimes people
had just gone off to the toilet and were unable to return to their own
camp because an elephant was inbetween. Africa dictates patience in all
kinds of ways.





At night we saw hyenas throwing over garbage cans and ...