We've spent the last week in and around South Luangwa National Park - we left Chipata last Monday via a tyre dealers - we wanted them to simply swap our new spare (on the roofrack - anyone remember the Keetmanshoop story from last year?) with the tyre on the spare wheel carried under the truck.....sounds simple? Well it should have been - BUT they managed to destroy the bead on the old tyre, effectively wrecking it for normal use. These tyres aren't easily available here, and they're horrendously expensive. We talked with the owner of the tyre place, a Mr Patel (we're in East Africa now, so there are more and more people of Asian descent here) - he told us that whilst we were in the park he would see what could be done.....
Off to the park we went - following Vince and Ellen who had left earlier in the day and met them at Wildlife Camp - they were a bit despondent as they had had similar problems with getting their truck into national parks as us in Zimbabwe and had asked about the possibility of driving in South Luangwa. The response had been non-commital, so they were assuming the worst. We decided (after our Hwange experience!) to "give it a go" the next day....
Early in the morning we arrived (as quietly and discreetly as possible in a Mog) at the park gates, a few questions, a form filled out, a big chunk of money handed over (park fees) and we were in! We didn't hang around near the gate, but made sure that we disappeared as quickly as possible! We spent the entire day in the park, only coming out just before the gates closed for the evening - it was hot, so every now and again we stopped in the shade of large trees, got in the back, had a drink, ate and even had showers to cool down! The only other people we saw this day were on organised "safari" tours in open top vehicles, many of them looking hot and bothered (not surprising considering the amount of tsetse flies around). We explored a lot of side tracks, many of them slightly narrower than the Mog, so found ourselves gently pushing through the brush and through quite a few small washed out areas. Sue spotted a large number of birds (she's got a list somewhere of all those seen in the park alone), there were small groups of elephant (quite docile - hopefully a good sign that there isn't too much poaching around here), zebra, giraffe, a lot of antelope, large numbers of hippos and crocs (some very large) in and around the river, but no cats......
The next day we decided to give our eyes a rest (game spotting can be quite tiring as we discovered last year in Etosha), so we went shopping in Mfuwe village where we paid "Mzungu prices" for veggies, fresh bread and a Chitenge for Sue, then back to camp where we had sundowners with Vince and Ellen who were still wondering whether or not to give the park a go in their vehicle.
Next morning we decided to check out the other campsites, said our (hopefully temporary) farewells to Vince and Ellen and moved on.
The two other sites didn't meet our expectations and we decided to go to Chipembele to find out what was being done there (there's a separate post just for this). We stayed here for 2 days before returning to Wildlife Camp and going back into the park for another full day on Saturday - another early start, we presented the form that had been given to us previously at the gate, it was dutifully copied and we were in again. Our first sighting was of a herd of buffalo who were grazing/browsing either side of the road, we waited for them to slowly pass before moving on. Crossing a bridge over a dry riverbed, Sue spotted something in the sand - it turned out to be a spotted hyena taking a dust-bath! We stayed and watched until it decided to move further upstream. In the afternoon we returned to a nice spot that we'd found the previous time - on a sandy cliff above the river with great views down onto the hippos, crocs and birds doing what they do. As the sun got lower and the time that we would have to leave the park got closer, we kept on remarking how long certain safari vehicles were spending watching an elephant drinking...until we noticed some tails flicking - lions! We moved over to find a pride of maybe 17 lionesses and cubs sprawled in the shade of a tree, some just getting ready to wake up for the evening hunt. We spent as long as possible watching them - until we HAD to leave to get to the gates before "closing time" - but still no leopard ;-(
Whilst we were in the park, the temperatures have soared - we saw 43C "in the shade" on the axle temperature monitor, with 47C in the cab - time to move north!!!
We've moved back to Chipata, have re-visited Mr Patel who has told us he can get us an inner tube suitable for the tyre by tomorrow morning, so we're planning on leaving for Malawi tomorrow - Insh'allah.
Off to the park we went - following Vince and Ellen who had left earlier in the day and met them at Wildlife Camp - they were a bit despondent as they had had similar problems with getting their truck into national parks as us in Zimbabwe and had asked about the possibility of driving in South Luangwa. The response had been non-commital, so they were assuming the worst. We decided (after our Hwange experience!) to "give it a go" the next day....
Early in the morning we arrived (as quietly and discreetly as possible in a Mog) at the park gates, a few questions, a form filled out, a big chunk of money handed over (park fees) and we were in! We didn't hang around near the gate, but made sure that we disappeared as quickly as possible! We spent the entire day in the park, only coming out just before the gates closed for the evening - it was hot, so every now and again we stopped in the shade of large trees, got in the back, had a drink, ate and even had showers to cool down! The only other people we saw this day were on organised "safari" tours in open top vehicles, many of them looking hot and bothered (not surprising considering the amount of tsetse flies around). We explored a lot of side tracks, many of them slightly narrower than the Mog, so found ourselves gently pushing through the brush and through quite a few small washed out areas. Sue spotted a large number of birds (she's got a list somewhere of all those seen in the park alone), there were small groups of elephant (quite docile - hopefully a good sign that there isn't too much poaching around here), zebra, giraffe, a lot of antelope, large numbers of hippos and crocs (some very large) in and around the river, but no cats......
The next day we decided to give our eyes a rest (game spotting can be quite tiring as we discovered last year in Etosha), so we went shopping in Mfuwe village where we paid "Mzungu prices" for veggies, fresh bread and a Chitenge for Sue, then back to camp where we had sundowners with Vince and Ellen who were still wondering whether or not to give the park a go in their vehicle.
Next morning we decided to check out the other campsites, said our (hopefully temporary) farewells to Vince and Ellen and moved on.
The two other sites didn't meet our expectations and we decided to go to Chipembele to find out what was being done there (there's a separate post just for this). We stayed here for 2 days before returning to Wildlife Camp and going back into the park for another full day on Saturday - another early start, we presented the form that had been given to us previously at the gate, it was dutifully copied and we were in again. Our first sighting was of a herd of buffalo who were grazing/browsing either side of the road, we waited for them to slowly pass before moving on. Crossing a bridge over a dry riverbed, Sue spotted something in the sand - it turned out to be a spotted hyena taking a dust-bath! We stayed and watched until it decided to move further upstream. In the afternoon we returned to a nice spot that we'd found the previous time - on a sandy cliff above the river with great views down onto the hippos, crocs and birds doing what they do. As the sun got lower and the time that we would have to leave the park got closer, we kept on remarking how long certain safari vehicles were spending watching an elephant drinking...until we noticed some tails flicking - lions! We moved over to find a pride of maybe 17 lionesses and cubs sprawled in the shade of a tree, some just getting ready to wake up for the evening hunt. We spent as long as possible watching them - until we HAD to leave to get to the gates before "closing time" - but still no leopard ;-(
Whilst we were in the park, the temperatures have soared - we saw 43C "in the shade" on the axle temperature monitor, with 47C in the cab - time to move north!!!
We've moved back to Chipata, have re-visited Mr Patel who has told us he can get us an inner tube suitable for the tyre by tomorrow morning, so we're planning on leaving for Malawi tomorrow - Insh'allah.