The Road Les Travels—Eastern and Northern Zambia: Adventures You Miss by Flying

Sausage Tree Camp and Potato Bush Camp, located in the heart of the Lower Zambezi National Park, promise an unparalleled, time-honoured safari. Tailored private guiding optimises the wildlife experience, with a range of activities including game-drives, night-drives, walking safaris, scenic boat cruises, canoeing and fishing on the Zambezi River. Our uncompromisingly high standard of luxury and service combines with an approach to hospitality which is warm and friendly. The beautiful views from camp will entice even the most active safari-goer to pause, and savour the extraordinary riches of the surrounding natural world as they reflect on safari memories which will last a lifetime.

WRITER: LESLIE NEVISON PHOTOGRAPHY: MAMA TEMBO TOURS ZAMBIA

tinerary creation is what I enjoy best as a safari operator. I decide where to go and how to make the logistics work through first-hand experience. Right now, I am in South Luangwa National Park, the first stop on a 14-day road safari in Zambia. I am not alone. I have driver Mathews with me. The cover story is that he is learning the route. In truth, Mathews is my insurance that the Land Cruiser returns to Lusaka intact and not abandoned at the bottom of the Luangwa River, where I might drive it while loading it onto the pontoon we cross to enter North Luangwa National Park. This pontoon is constructed like a funeral pyre of layered branches and sticks which crack alarmingly like thin ice under the weight of the vehicle.

Another truth is that this particular Mama Tembo Tours Zambia (MTTZ) itinerary has been running successfully for a while. Nor can I claim to have discovered it. Adventurous locals and ‘Africa-is-my-oyster’ South Africans have driven the route for years. In brief, the purpose of my trip is to check current road conditions and accommodations, and to get out of the office and enjoy myself.

The itinerary is fantastic. It combines three national parks—South Luangwa, Luambe, and North Luangwa—with places like Shiwa Ng’andu, the country manor now historical estate built by Sir Stewart Gore-Browne, and Mutinondo Wilderness, locations which are difficult to fit into a fly-in-and-out Zambia itinerary. It also includes shorter stops like Kundalila Falls, time and incentive permitting. If you travel in late October, it can include Kasanka National Park for its amazing spectacle of the fruit bat migration. Picture this sight: 10 million bats in the sky over your head at sunset. The itinerary can

even include Lake Tanganyika in Zambia’s far north, a lake so clear and beautiful that all other African lakes pale in comparison.

We begin our road trip in Lusaka, travelling to South Luangwa National Park in one long day. We are up bright and early to walk with Gavin Opie of Nkonzi Camp and his armed scout. It’s an interesting start to the walk. A leopard has killed a porcupine. There are scattered loose quills and a pool of dark blood in the dust. There are easily followed tracks left by the porcupine’s needles as the cat dragged it away. I wonder if the leopard has a mouthful of quills. We give up on following this potentially injured leopard when its tracks enter a densely wooded area.

This is my first visit to Nkonzi, which is located 20 kilometres from the South Luangwa park gate. Nkonzi has some good things going for it. Because of its location, its activities avoid the park gate area and what has become one of the busier places for game viewing vehicles. Nkonzi also offers all-day game drives which are a blessing in October when the Luangwa Valley’s temperatures are over 38°C. It is cooler taking a long lunch break under a tree within sight of an elephant and buffalo river crossing than it is to remain in camp where tent interiors are easily 10 degrees hotter.

After Nkonzi, we make a two-night stop at Luambe National Park. Wedged between South and North Luangwa National Parks, little Luambe’s future grows increasingly brighter with the re-establishment of tourism facilities in the form of the four-tent Luambe Lodge and a satellite bush camp. The lodge’s operating company, Luambe Conservation Ltd., supports an anti-poaching team and the Zambian Carnivore Programme as well as improvement projects in the surrounding local communities. While these crucial conservation practicalities go on behind the scenes, Luambe’s visitors enjoy the very best hippo watching in the entire Luangwa Valley. The lodge is perched high above a section of the Luangwa River with the greatest number of hippos. The entire lodge is literally a hippo hide. Nights are noisy!

Luambe is also fortunate to have a nearby carmine bee-eater colony. During this beautiful bird’s brief nesting period of September/October, the lodge offers the unique activity of coffee at sunrise facing the nesting site. As the light changes, the carmines leave their nests—tunnels excavated deep into the river bank—and take to the sky in short dashes of swooping flight which nets them their first insect prey of the day. Both the hippos and ‘Carmine Coffee’ make Luambe a special destination in Zambia.

The fisherman appears out of the bush as though he expects us. He soon explains why. Many drivers before us have also obeyed their outdated GPS Garmin instructions and have left the winding track though woodland, which certainly looks like the correct route to the pontoon, to lurch agonisingly slowly over several kilometres of rock-hard fissures of black cotton soil. To be fair, Garmin did lead us to the very edge of the Luangwa River. The pontoon is ‘just over there’ says the fisherman with a wave of the hand in the general direction. However, a few hectares of forest stand between us and ‘just over there’. We must back track says our helpful and apologetic fisherman. Serendipitously, his father operates the pontoon and our saviour is happy to grab his bucket of fish, settle in the front seat, chat with Mathews, and show us the way. I disconnect Garmin and toss her rudely into the back seat. ‘Keep it simple’ remains good advice to follow. A Zimbabwean bushman once told me that while visiting the USA he became hopelessly lost on Florida’s freeways because an overcast sky obscured the sun by which he navigated!

We make Buffalo Camp in North Luangwa National Park by mid-afternoon. North Luangwa is primarily a walking destination. I have had some of my best walks ever there, led by Buffalo Camp owner/operator Mark Harvey. Mark is one of the grandsons of Stewart Gore-Browne of Shiwa Ng’andu fame. I recommend any visitor to Zambia to read Christina Lamb’s fascinating if slightly fanciful biography of Stewart Gore-Browne and his family called The Africa House.

Ten years ago, and 15 kilos lighter, I walked for 12 days across Kenya’s East and West Tsavo National Parks to the Indian Ocean. Whether our group of opinionated Western tourists (many of us female) personally cared for our fearless leader became irrelevant. After multiple, daily, up-close encounters with elephants, we trusted him to get us through. At the end, while we soaked our blistered feet at the Malindi resort, our guide returned to our point of origin to walk the entire 120 kilometres again with another group.

Mark reminds me of that mercurial Kenyan walking guide. He is exactly who I want leading my walking safari in North Luangwa.

In North Luangwa, as the dry season draws to a close, buffalo congregate in

Based in Lusaka, MTT specialises in seeing Zambia by road in a comfortable safari vehicle with a knowledgeable driver/guide. MTT also arranges fly in and out safaris, as well as multiple destination safaris which combine Zambia with any of its neighbours. In all, MTT works in nine African countries. MTT director Leslie Nevison knows that a safari should be personal, affordable, enlightening and hugely rewarding. Her mission is simple: create the African experience which is perfect for you. This makes MTT an excellent choice for all your travel needs in East, West, Central and Southern Africa.

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Cheza, on a 5 acre wooded plot just 30 minutes from the airport.

larger and larger herds for protection. Lions follow these herds. Predator action tends to be excellent. On our way to Kapishya Hot Springs from Buffalo, Mathews and I stop to watch two lion brothers on a buffalo kill. One of these males goes by the name of Satan, which indicates the caution you need to take with him. Satan and his brother are a far cry from South Luangwa National Park’s famous lion siblings, Ginger and Garlic, which have their own Facebook page and line of knitted children’s toys. Ginger seems aware of his pretty boy reputation, at least while the cameras are out. In contrast, Satan and his brother make chilling eye contact. Satan’s nose is crisscrossed with scars. His brother is missing an ear. Satan snarls at the vehicle and even makes a few abortive charges at it.

Kapishya Hot Springs Lodge on the Shiwa Ng’andu estate is also owned by Mark. After I spend an entire day floating in the hot springs—a highlight of the lodge along with Mark’s Jack Russell terriers and Dalmatians and spa treatments— Mathews and I continue to our last destination, the Mutinondo Wilderness. Here the stone cottages are scattered among the whalebacks, enormous humped monoliths of granite, Africa’s ancient skeleton, and very much a geological feature of this wilderness. Closed chalets are available at Mutinondo, but the original rooms are three-sided, entirely open on one side to the views and night skies. I prefer the open chalets and have requested one for my stay. Most of our traditional Zambia bush camps are exposed like this as well. It’s a fabulous way to connect with the wilderness. I have never heard of an animal entering a room, which is what some clients fear when they first experience Zambia’s unique bush architecture.

The view from Mutinondo’s whalebacks is of the miombo woodland ‘flush’. In the Southern Hemisphere springtime, indigenous miombo tree species turn yellow and red, MTT Safaris_Print.pdf 1 04/12/2019 11:05leaf colours which we associate with the autumn in temperate climes. This ‘flush’ reaches its peak in September. I spend the entire next day on Mutinondo’s walking trails, which you can hike safely on your own with a provided map. I watch sunset with a gin and tonic from the top of a whaleback.

I am catching the tail end of the miombo flush in mid-October. Unfortunately, I am also catching fire season. There are several fires burning around me, one close enough on arrival night that the lodge manager and his crew are working to contain it. These fires are not unique to Mutinondo; entire Zambia can appear ablaze from July through October. My international guests often ask me the reason for these fires. The answer is a combination of factors. During the dry season, farmers are M preparing their fields for replanting, which traditionally has meant clearing by fire. Indigenous hunters set fires to catch small prey more easily. Their hunting dogs will see tracks in the charred earth. National parks undertake control burning to lessen the effects if a large fire moves through dry bushland. In the windy months of August and September, a fire set for any reason can easily spread out of control. A poster campaign, sponsored by First Quantum Minerals and the Wildlife and Environmental Conservation Society of Zambia (WECSZ), educates against annual burning. The message is simple: fires degrade the soil and air quality and animals lose their lives.

The bats have not yet arrived in Kasanka National Park from their riverine forest homes in the neighbouring Congo. We do not insert a stop at Kasanka between Mutinondo Wilderness and Lusaka. We head for Zambia’s capital. Traffic along the Great North Road continues to slow us as we near the city. Sure, we are sticky, dusty and hot when we arrive and it feels good to be safely home. But it had been a wonderful safari. The benefit of travelling by road is that we are able to stop when and where we want to absorb the African landscape, physical and cultural. Time permits the experience of the ‘real’, the here and now, Africa with all its wonders and warts, and not the ‘Africa how it used to be’ branding of an industry selling accommodations primarily and not the kilometres and kilometres of Africa between them. Besides, with the exception of solar panels and satellite dishes, the tidy, fastidiously swept villages that we see out of the car windows are rural scenes of Zambia unchanged for generations. ■