Hansel's First Safari: South Luangwa

Hello to all back home. Again it has been a while since my last post, but you all knew I was inconsistent with this.

So life in Lusaka continues. Not much has happened of extreme noteworthiness. I saw my first Bollywood movie- Anjaana Anjaani, which is awesome and everyone should see it. Its kind of the Romantic Comedy of the year in Bollywood about 2 strangers who meet trying to commit suicide (I know I know, but I swear its all done very comically, its kind of absurdly screwed up slapstick comedy) and instead make a list of stuff they want to do before they die which leads to a road trip from new york to vegas (the whole thing is based in the States) and funny stuff along the way. The songs in it are hysterical also.

The real event has been my trip two weekends ago to South Luangwa National Park up North. Eight other friends and I hopped into my car (Hansel) and my buddy Ronnel's car (Optimus- yes, named after the transformer, don't ask) and drove nine hours to Wildlife Camp just on the other side of the Luangwa River from the park.



Optimus and Hansel

The drive required us waking at 4 AM and leaving Lusaka at 5 to drive the 5 hours to Chipata where we turned off the main highway onto the road to South Luangwa. This was probably the worst road I've driven on in Zambia so far and we had to slow to a crawl at some points. The dirt road was meant to be turned into a tarred highway soon but instead had been left to the rains which destroyed it and made it a MISERABLE drive that I'm sure will translate into a nice hefty mechanics fee.

However, after 3 hours on the dirt road we made it to South Luangwa and to our campsite at Wildlife Camp. Wildlife is set up right on the bank of the Luangwa river (pretty low and empty in the dry season) and is split into a chalet site for visitors wishing to stay indoors and sleep in beds and a campsite for everyone else. The campsite was in a prime location for looking out over the river, which, since it was dry season, was perfect for seeing animals come to drink at one of the few water sources around. For future safari reference: ALWAYS try to go during the dry season- around september/ october because animals congregate at all the watering holes and are much easier to find.

The Campsite was very nice and had a pool and a bar where we could escape the heat, which was absurd and at easily 100 F everyday, and watch animals on the river bank. Our best animal sightings in all honesty were viewed from the bar. the game drives honestly didn't compare to what our view of the river gave us.

Sunset at Camp


Pool


Warthog Bar


From the bar we managed to see around 13-15 giraffes cross the river
Giraffes


and the day before that we saw 15 elephant do the same!
Elephants


On the first day most of us slept in to recover from our nine hour drive the previous day. Of course, "slept in" in Luangwa means we made it to 6:30 before everyone was woken up by the heat. 2 of our group went on an early morning game drive at 6 am while the rest of the group relaxed in and by the pool. Meanwhile I went fishing with Chris and Claire, 2 friends of mine from lusaka. Chis' family owns one of the premier hunting camps in Zambia and grew up basically on Safari. As such he served as our de facto guide for all the times when no official guide was around. We walked along the river bank for a while until we found a spot near, but not too near, a large pod of hippos in the river and fished for about 2-3 hours without much success. It was great though to take time sitting on the almost dried up river bank to appreciate the harsh beauty of Luangwa. It still baffles me that trees grew and animals lived in the climate there which was both unbearably hot and desperately dry.

Chris and Claire Fishing


Hippo on the River Bank


After lunch and some cool down time by the pool we went on our first game drive into the park. It was a night drive and the group got a chance to relax by the river for sundowners (not far from a group of resting lions!) before carrying on with our drive.

South Luangwa Entry Sign


Group Picture at the river



We did see a lot of animals and some very cool scenes in the park as well. We got right up next to a baby elephant and very close to a group of giraffes. we even saw some WARTHOG.

Giraffe


Hog again


Hog


Reaching Elephant


The next morning we went on walking safaris through the park. The plus side of this was that we got to get out of the car and walk around, the minus side was that it was a walking classroom where instead of walking you would walk for 5 minutes and stop and talk about the nearest dung pile for 15 minutes. it was cool to actually learn about the animals and the environment, i just would have liked to have done that while doing as much walking as i could.

We returned from our morning walk and went to town to pick up some meat for dinner. Hippo meat. We went to this organization which both hunts and prepares hippo meat and hippo skins for leather and apparently whips. It was fascinating to watch the South African owner (who looked like a hippo himself to be honest) describe his job hunting these MASSIVE animals. The meat as it turned out was delicious and similar in a lot of ways to cow meat. it was more tender, but other than that I couldnt really tell the difference.

The next day we jumped back in our cars and drove back to Lusaka. I would like to say that we made it back unscathed, but Hansel the car suffered two terrible injuries along the way. The first one was really only terrible for us. Around 4-5 hours out of Lusaka, the Air Conditioning died. it was pushing 100 F outside. once we felt the air die we call kind of looked around in the car with oh God please no looks on our faces. We were forced to just open our windows and accept how sweaty we would all be upon our arrival. Then about 100 K out of Lusaka, poor Hansel's back right tire blew. I mean really BLEW by the way. The tire exploded from the heat. After changing tires we finally made it back to Lusaka, exhausted and sweaty.

It was a great trip, and honestly I've never seen as much wildlife as I saw in Luangwa. It being the dry season meant that anytime we were around a water hole, animals were EVERYWHERE. and none of them were scared of the vehicles so we could drive right up to them without them running away.

The group was also a ton of fun and it was nice to get out of Lusaka for an adventure.

Anyway, hope everyone's doing well at home. I'll try to have something worth posting for everyone again soon!

O