South Luangwa National Park, Eastern Zambia

This place is magic. From the moment we first arrived we could tell our 5 day safari would be something special. Here is a recount of the days we spent in the company of wild animals.

Day 1: Arrive at "Wildlife Camp" in a beautiful setting just above the Luangwa River. We had a great group... Pete and I, Frank from Germany and a couple from Brittany, France. After lunch we left for our first of many game drives. Right off the bat we spotted a pride of 3 female lions relaxing in the tall grass. From there we drove, umm, maybe 5 minutes... and to our surprise the guide stopped the car, pulled out a table and began pouring wine as the sun set over the park. We talked and mingled... outside of the vehicle. As it got dark, the other guide pulled out a giant spotlight. For nearly 2 hours (6pm when it gets dark until 8pm when we have to leave the park) we were surrounded by cats! We watched a leopard nearly take down impala (that is until a car came roaring by us with its lights on and scared the action off.) I had goosbumps as we drove through the middle of a pride of 17 lions surrounding our car. Something about a lion at night, is scarier than a lion in the daylight.

We arrived back at camp for a delicious 9:00 dinner. The action didn't stop there though. At about 3am... I looked out our tent window to see an elephant sneaking around in camp. And then we all heard it. Hooves trampling by in a full on sprint. Yes, I looked out the tent window just in time to see two hippos plowing by. Being woken up at 3am is not a pleasant feeling with a shot of adrenaline and a full bladder. From there on out, the hippos played a never ending game of marco polo in their big bellowing voices.

Day 2: 6am wakeup call for a morning game drive. We saw all kinds of lovely creatures, but no cats. However, we returned to camp a few hours later and found out that the hippos we heard were actually running from lions the night before. With that news, we set off for our walking safari a few hours later. The walking safari mostly consisted of looking at dung... giraffe dung, elephant dung, impala dung, anteater dung (a very rare dung to find--apparently) to name a few. Right up Pete's alley. We also walked amongst a family of giraffe... they just stood stiff and silent, staring at us and at that point, I wasn't sure who were the tourists. Us or them. We walked about 3 km to a different campsite, also overlooking the river just in time for another beautiful sunset washed down with a cold beer.

Day 3: Another 6am wakeup call and oatmeal for breakfast as we set off to walk back to our original camp. When I say camp, I must tell you that we had huge tents with beds in them and great showers/toilets and a pool. This was a welcome change from the mattresses on the ground at the Serengeti. That afternoon we went to the Chipembele Wildlife Education Centre and animal rehabiliation for orphan animals. Here is the website. www.chipembele.org I could go on about the awesomeness of this place, but I won't... this post is already too long. That night we woke up to the pleasure of elephants munching on the trees overhanging our tent.

Day 4: We spent all day in the South Luangwa National Park. We mostly saw an incredible amount of giraffe, buffalo, elephant, hippo, kudu, impala, various birds and pukus. We also saw the first wildebeest of the season our guide has seen in the park this year. The grand finale finished off with more lions at night, lurking past our car, stalking impala while a lone hopeful hyena looked on.

Day 5: On our final morning, we set off for a watering hole inhabited by tons of birds. Luckily they stayed in the distance and we ate a huge breakfast in peace. From there we set off for the airport for Victoria Falls......