Chaminuka Lodge

Travel/Holiday Sites in Zambia Chaminuka Lodge

INDEED Chaminuka is not just a synopsis of Karen Blixen’s Africa, it’s a very naturally kept place which we enjoyed as we at Juwels spent a night there and had a chance to see the surroundings, people ,Animals and the vast landscape .

Andrew and Danae Sardanis, who made Chaminuka their home since 1978, have kept the Miombo woodland, the Savannah and the Wetlands untouched; they planted (and keep planting) thousands of trees in order to rehabilitate the forest that had made way to farmland; they built dams to conserve the waters of the Kasenga stream that traverses the 10,000 acres of the estate; and they declared the entire property a Zambian Nature Reserve. The Chaminuka game reserve is now the habitat of 72 species of Zambian mammals, reptiles and amphibians and some 300 species of birds many native to the area and others visiting the Chaminuka lakes and wetlands for rest and recuperation during their long annual sojourns from the Antarctic and Southern Africa to the Russian steppes and back. Andrew and Danae built Chaminuka in the style of a Zambian village where they lived with their staff until 1998 when they opened it to the general public as a luxury Lodge. It now has 30 luxury suites and also houses their huge private collection of African contemporary paintings and sculpture as well as traditional artifacts – some one thousand pieces – acquired from all over Africa over a period of 50 years. The collection spreads throughout the main house, the guest suites and the gardens and highlights the African culture and way of life over the centuries. Above all Chaminuka is a microcosm of today’s Zambia, a mixture from all the tribes with many kids of all ages, and churches and schools and its own soccer team that competes with those of the farms in the area. Its people breathe life into Chaminuka and make it a successful all-Zambian self sustaining enterprise that is the livelihood of the 130 families who live on the estate and the financial focus of the many villages that surround it,

Today this luxurious intimate Lodge welcomes discerning travelers from around the world, who seek excellence and style and an extraordinary chance to commune with the Real Africa: the old Africa in all its magnificence and the New Africa, self-confident, self-reliant and taking charge of its own destiny.