Glorious South Luangwa

A long time planning, a long time since I had last seen the family and then they were here (Mum, Dad and my brother Tom) at Lusaka airport; looking a bit tired but with smiley, happy faces. And so their speedy, non-stop tour of Zambia began. They had barely got off one plane before I pushed them onto another as we flew east to Mfuwe and specifically to South Luangwa national park. For all three it was their first time in Africa and also their first time on a safari, and the smiles (in my mind anyway) seemed to get bigger the more we did and the more they saw during their two weeks in Zambia.

So a few highlights from our time at South Luangwa. Flatdogs camp definitely did live up to, and exceeded, its reputation as a great place to stay. The luxury safari tents were very much upper class, the food wonderful, exotic and sorry pretty non-Zambian, the guides friendly and enthusiastic, as was everyone else at the camp. The location was pretty good too as Dad saw elephants trampling through the camp during the day and at night hippos came on land and noisily ate away at the plants around our tents. We went into the park four times, two mornings and two evenings, and each time was a different experience. On the walking safari we saw very little but heard lots of sounds that you miss when high up in a safari vehicle, and inspected lots of animal dung too. On different evenings our car followed a beautiful male lion walking through the bush looking powerful and menacing, and also heard hyenas crunching bones before watching one hyena run off holding a buffalo’s head in its mouth. Wildlife viewing can be wonderful.