For quite some time we knew what our highlight of Zambia would be: South Luangwa! It is one of the most well-known parks in Zambia, renowned for its leopards. Due to the Luangwa River flowing through the park, the park also boasts a wide variety of birdlife. When we were in Botswana, with all the expensive game drives in Moremi, Khwai, and Chobe, we decided to skip them all, saying: 'We'll do the game drives in South Luangwa'. After leaving Rusco farm, we traveled for four days to arrive at South Luangwa. This all increased our expectations to massive heights. But even those were exceeded.
Jeroen had gotten the contact details for Msandile Lodge by chance when he was in Livingstone in October. He had kept the contact information and as soon as we had an expected arrival date at South Luangwa, we arranged the accommodation. During the last days before our arrival date, the contact intensified and we made the final arrangements. As it was not possible to take Gigi to the lodge, we had to leave her near the main gate of the park, where there would be security night and day. Not ideal in our opinion, mainly with the rat still in our heads (despite not having seen any rat activity for about two weeks now), but it was the only option.
From Petauke to the main gate took us about 5 hours of driving. We left quite early in the morning and we kept driving, except for the moments when we switched between being driver and passenger. This was not ideal for the atmosphere in the car and when we arrived at the main gate, we were overdue for some lunch. With both of us being quite hangry, we did not respond in the kindest of ways when we found out that there was no secured parking area. The parking would be on the main road, just past the main gate. With no other option, we agreed and we started offloading all our stuff. We are not packed for staying in hotels, with one bag per person. We needed to take most of our bags: separate bags for clothes, a separate bag with all our toiletries and related stuff, a separate bag for our (spare) shoes, our backpacks, our camera gear, our 'leisure bag' with our games and sudokus and I am probably forgetting some. When we couldn't find our keys, our grumpiness peaked. In the meantime, the Msandile car had arrived at the gate with guide George and two other guests. They had not seen us at our best and all we could think was 'they must think we are really grumpy people'.
Anyway, we sat down and we were on our way to the lodge!
The lodge is situated on a beautiful escarpment overlooking the Luangwa River. The lodge is officially situated outside of the park, which keeps the costs lower than for lodges inside the park. This location is truly ideal and makes for a perfect place to start game drives. To get to the lodge. we had to drive through the park and take a boat to cross the river to the lodge. This combination makes the lodge truly unique. Once in the vehicle, we forgot our hunger and enjoyed the bush again. After a nice drive, already seeing some animals, we arrived at the boat. Navigating between the hippos, our captain brought us safely to the lodge and we were welcomed with open arms and a wet towel to wash our hands and faces.
We put our stuff in the tent (Frank had given us a double tent for the price of a twin, lucky us!) and we had lunch. The food was delicious and we could feel our hangriness fade away. As we had quite a late lunch, it wasn't until much later that we set off for our first real game drive!
Game drives in the afternoon are done differently in South Luangwa than we are used to. The game drives start between 3 PM and 4 PM, and they continue until the sun sets. As soon as it is too dark for photographs, it is time for a sundowner. Then, in the darkness, it is time for a night game drive in search of the nocturnal animals.
We had a lovely game drive, during which we saw many of the African animals, including lions. The guides tried really hard to find us some leopards, but those kept eluding us. At some point, long after the sun had already set and we were driving in the dark, we wondered whether the guides wanted to continue driving until we had seen a leopard. Despite not seeing any, we had a great game drive and a wonderful time back in the bush. The hangriness seemed like weeks ago and fortunately the guests with whom we shared the vehicle, who were the same as the guests we shared the car with when coming into the park earlier that day, had forgotten about that as well. We had a wonderful time with them.
The days at Msandile were nothing short of amazing. We had wonderful game drives, guided by the good guides George or Isaac and our favourite spotter, Ellis. The first two game drives we were in the car with a Belgian mother-daughter duo. We had a great time with them and with her enthusiasm, Emma even got them excited with birds. Frank and Sabine had already discussed with us that we love to see and photograph birds, so the next day we were seated in a vehicle with Sabine's family (Ruud and Marja), who had just spent time in Malawi and were now enjoying the birdlife in South Luangwa. We enjoyed our time with them a lot as well and we learnt much about the birds from both guide Isaac and Ruud. During the breaks, we would discuss wildlife, birdlife and driving through Malawi. Having just been there, Ruud and Marja had a wealth of knowledge about the country we still planned to visit. We exchanged contact details and received a ton of information.
Spoilt as we are, we do not get too excited about lions anymore. They are beautiful and majestic, especially the males with their manes. However, they are also super lazy, and as soon as they find their spot to rest, there is not a lot to see anymore. It happened more than once that we were at a lion sighting, and we were focusing on birds rather than the lions. Emma happily updated the sightings in her bird book, with a lion sleeping next to her. With four people we even looked at a pigeon. A very special one; the African green pigeon.
With a big thanks to the guides, we saw so much wildlife and we had amazing game drives. We came in the hopes of seeing as many animals as possible but with three in particular.
1. Leopards (for which South Luangwa is famous)
2. Carmine bee-eaters, known to reside in the banks of the Luangwa River in summer, starting in October. Sadly, now was not their season.
3. Wild dogs, the special animals we always hope to see, anywhere we go.
Leopard luck came to us very soon. On the second game drive, we saw the famous leopardess Lucy in the bush. She had a kill and was not likely to move too much. We hoped to see her climb a tree, but she probably waited until all the cars had left. Despite there being quite a number of cars in the park, we never were with more than 5 cars at a sighting. South Luangwa has the rule to not have too many cars at a sighting at the same time. This helps protect the animals and it makes sure people and cars do not get in the animal's way, or block each other, which we have seen happening many times in other parks.
After the first two game drives, we had something to discuss with Frank and Sabine. We had booked for 2 nights, knowing that we would likely want to spend an extra night if possible. During the second game drive, however, guide George told us that we would be likely to see Carmine bee-eaters in another sector of the park, as not all of them leave the area after the breeding season. Some of them stay in the Nsefu sector, a part of the park where people usually do not go from Msandile. To get there, we would have to go on a full-day game drive. Carmine bee-eaters have been on our wish list for a long time, so we knew we had to go for it, meaning we would want to stay 4 nights, instead of 2. Frank and Sabine, however, had been the most generous of hosts and they had given us another upgrade, meaning we stayed in a large chalet instead of in the twin tent that we paid for. We couldn't expect to just extend the stay with two nights at the same rate, so Jeroen went to discuss the matter with Frank, wanting to propose that we go in a twin tent for the 2 extra nights. Before he could say anything, Frank already insisted that we would stay in the chalet for the other 2 nights as well. This was much more than we could have hoped for and their hospitality and generosity were very much appreciated. The chalet was beautiful, in a magnificent location overlooking the Luangwa River and it was spacious enough for Emma to do yoga in. We could not have been happier about the lodge.
On more than one occasion, we were able to see elephants across the river, or even cross the river from the lodge. We always carried our binoculars to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as we were able to see many animals from our tables. The highlight was an elephant family crossing the river, with 2 young elephants barely keeping their trunks above the water.
Besides the many birds, elephants, and antelopes we saw in South Luangwa, we were lucky enough to see leopards on several occasions. There are two leopardesses in the area who both have cubs. We had seen Lucy, and her cubs up in a tree during the night game drives. On our second day of game drives, we were lucky enough to see even more leopards. The second leopardess had 2 young cubs playing around when we just arrived. The cubs immediately fled into the bush as they were startled, but they carefully came out again to inspect us and quickly ran back to their mother. We only saw the cubs briefly, but they were amazing and beautiful.
In the meantime, we saw many other animals. Zebras, puku, elephants, buffalo, and many, many birds. We didn't take photos of all the animals we saw, but we enjoyed them all. Especially the smaller birds were seen only briefly before they fled into the thickets again. We had 2 amazing days of game drives in the regular sector until it was time for day three, the full-day drive to the Nsefu sector.
The full day started just like the other days at Msandile. At 5:30 AM everyone would gather at the river to watch the sunrise with a cup of coffee and some yogurt with granola. Then instead of crossing the river, we took the road away from the regular park, behind the lodge. The road to the Nsefu sector, where were were going, was about 2 hours through the villages. It was a wonderful way to see the village life of Zambia, the side tourists usually don't see. Our Belgian friends had heard that we were going on a full-day game drive to see the carmine bee-eater and we had invited them to join us. Fortunately, they had not grown tired of us yet, and they happily joined us. We had brought some African (including Zambian) music for the road, as we knew it would take about 2 hours before we would reach the gate. The faces of our guides, George and Ellis, when they recognized the music from Zambian artist Yo Maps, were hilarious to watch, as they didn't expect us to put on Zambian music. We enjoyed the ride, the music, and the company on our way to the gate. The check-in was done quite quickly.
Time to spot the red bee-eaters!
Before we saw any animals, we had seen many people. The road through the Nsefu sector is also a road traveled by a lot of people who need to get from one side of the park to the other. It was weird to see so many people walking and riding motorbikes in the national parks, where we were looking for animals like leopards, wild dogs, and lions (apart from the bee-eaters).
Soon enough, Ellis and George said: 'There is one'. And surely, a beautiful red bird sat on a branch in the distance. It was quite far away, but we had seen a carmine bee-eater. Unsure if we would see another, we took some photographs, although they were far away and not very good.
Then we saw more, and more. There were not just a few bee-eaters who stayed behind, but a lot. They were quite shy though, as in this part of the park they sometimes get hunted by the people traveling through the park from town to town. People do have to eat. Fortunately, some of the younger ones, identifiable by pale patches of feathers between their scarlet feathers, were braver. They sat closer and stayed for longer. The full-day game drive was wonderful, thanks to the guides and our Belgian friends. We had a great time with the six of us and a flat tyre couldn't distract us from the great day we had. George and Ellis replaced the tyre in the African bush way and after that, we drove back to the gate. As soon as we had left the park, George said 'We have now left the park', indirectly asking us if we could put our African playlist back on. We blasted the playlist through the villages, which brought a lot of joy to George and Ellis. We were the main attraction driving back to the lodge.
We had a lovely dinner with Frank, Sabine, and our Belgian friends, who brought us so many nice moments during the past few days. Sabine even agreed to join us on our final game drive, just before we had to leave South Luangwa. A final goodbye from Lucy, who decided to parade just past our game vehicle and we were off, definitely coming back here!
We were happy to see Gigi again when we arrived at the main gate. She had been well taken care of and the security had kept her safe. We were worried about nothing (again, of course). With a lot of tips and information, we were off to our final new country, Malawi!
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